{"id":558,"date":"2026-07-09T13:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=558"},"modified":"2026-07-09T13:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:09:12","slug":"the-higher-education-revolution-we-need-to-have-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=558","title":{"rendered":"The Higher Education Revolution We Need to Have"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In May, two law professors, Daniel Hemel at NYU and David Pozen at Columbia, posted a pre-print of a paper soon to be published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review<\/em>, titled \u201cIn Search of University Democracy. \u201dAfter reading the article, I realized how cheeky the title actually was. In fact, the modern American university is anything but democratic, and searching for \u201cuniversity democracy\u201d is like a game of Where\u2019s Waldo, except that Waldo really isn\u2019t anywhere to be found.<\/p>\n

Read more Pedro S\u00e1nchez Is Living on Borrowed Time<\/a><\/p>\n

For Hemel and Pozen, universities are \u201cliberal autocracies\u201d run by trustees and the senior administrators they install. In private institutions, current trustees appoint new trustees; in public institutions, politicians often select them. The people who actually keep the university humming\u2014the faculty, the staff, and the students\u2014generally have little real say in the direction of their school, even if there are advisory bodies such as university senates to offer a veneer of consultation to the masses.<\/p>\n

This model of university governance is peculiarly American. Hemel and Pozen contrast how things work in the US with a stakeholderism in university governance that is far older than any American institution of higher learning. At Oxford and Cambridge, for instance, \u201c[t]housands of academic staff (professors, lecturers, readers, librarians, and so forth) sit on the \u2018sovereign body\u2019 that has ultimate legal authority over the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hemel and Pozen also postulate that the unaccountability of trustees in American institutions of higher learning makes them more vulnerable to intimidation and acquiescence:<\/p>\n

\n

As the game theorist Thomas Schelling observes, \u201cthe power of a negotiator often rests on a manifest inability to make concessions.\u201d Applying this insight to international diplomacy, political scientist Robert Putnam has argued that when the leader of a nation-state faces only loose domestic political constraints, \u201cthe more he can be \u2018pushed around\u2019 by other leaders in interstate bargaining. A leader gains a \u2018bargaining advantage\u2019 vis-\u00e0-vis foreign counterparts when she can credibly say: \u2018I\u2019d like to accept your proposal, but I could never get it accepted at home.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This paragraph leapt out at me given that my own university, Yale, has reportedly been working to strike a deal with the US Department of Justice to resolve trumped-up charges of impropriety in admissions at the medical school and other academic units. Over the past two weeks, alumni, faculty and students have spoken out against Yale\u2019s imminent capitulation to the Trump administration and Justice Department, but the trustees don\u2019t have to listen. They have spurned advice even from distinguished members of their own law faculty.<\/p>\n

This is a pattern. All last year, alumni, faculty, and students tried twice to meet with the board of trustees. They were rebuffed. It\u2019s not surprising that liberal autocrats would disdain meeting with their subjects, but Hemel and Pozen, like Schelling and Putnam, highlight how Yale and other universities\u2019 governance structures make them weaker in this era of attacks on higher education. The trustees are unconstrained in making expedient but foolish choices because those who offer critiques and counter-proposals simply don\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

While faculty, students, staff, and concerned alumni from schools across the country have their hands full right now trying to push back on the authoritarian threat against higher education, our trustees are playing the game of appeasement. As Zachary Clifton noted last week in The Nation<\/em>, Yale\u2019s attempts to avoid the wrath of Trump and his minions have failed. Instead, trustees have to negotiate over bogus charges, opening up Yale to broad and sweeping demands they will have a hard time resisting, as the way universities work makes them easy targets, easy to be \u201cpushed around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The Higher Education Revolution We Need to Have<\/a><\/p>\n

The truly radical nature of Hemel and Pozen\u2019s piece emerges in its final pages\u2014in the words of Tracy Chapman, they\u2019re \u201ctalking about a revolution,\u201d though, in the couched language of a law review article, it \u201csounds like a whisper.\u201d Re-creating the governance of modern American universities on a stakeholder model means overthrowing the liberal autocrats who govern us now.<\/p>\n

I mean, who really thinks that hedge-fund managers, corporate titans, and the doyens and doyennes of high finance that dominate our boards of trustees ever had our best interests at heart? If it wasn\u2019t clear before 2025, it sure is now. Trustees are willing to sacrifice key values for institutional survival, however diminished. Not to be too crude about it, but as long as Yale\u2019s endowment can be protected, academic freedom is an afterthought. When the Yale chapter of the American Association of University Professors recently reported on the decline in academic freedom at the university, the Yale administration ignored it. This is all par for the course.<\/p>\n

So it is indeed time for a revolution. Yale\u2019s and other institutions of higher learning\u2019s governance models have to change. As Hemel and Pozen say, \u201cStakeholderism at U.S. universities could similarly arise through internal unrest or through legislatively initiated changes, such as state constitutional amendments or local laws conditioning property tax exemptions or other fiscal privileges on maintaining a broad-based voting membership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, faculty, students, alums, and staff need to organize, unionize where possible, come together in solidarity to push for democratic reforms on campus, real representation in decision-making over the future of the university. And we have to build a legal case and political strategy for reform at the same time, changing the university charter if we must and bringing all requisite pressure to bear on these unaccountable systems. We should not treat liberal autocracy as a given.<\/p>\n

If we are to save higher education in America, it will not come through submission to the autocrats in DC, the self-flagellation of our institutions confessing our sins in public, vigorously nodding our heads, saying we are fully at fault for our own predicament. It will come through pushing back against the politicians.<\/p>\n

Yes, reforms on campus are needed in many areas. If you work at a university like mine you see this place, warts and all, every day. Change is necessary\u2014but not handed down by fiat or based on fear. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve ignored university governance for far too long. Now that we\u2019re being sold out by our trustees and presidents, opening up a campaign on stakeholder governance is more urgent than ever across higher education. The faculty, students, staff, and alumni of places like Yale have a deep commitment to the university, and creating a new model in which these groups assume leadership in a more democratic, accountable structure than we have now should be our goal. The liberal autocrats won\u2019t like it. They\u2019ll fight it. But we will win. After all, once people believed in the divine right of kings.<\/p>\n

Read more Teach-in On The Environment<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Higher Education Revolution We Need to Have - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=558\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Higher Education Revolution We Need to Have - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=558\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-09T13:09:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=558#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=558\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"The Higher Education Revolution We Need to Have\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-09T13:09:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=558\"},\"wordCount\":1150,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=558#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/d46c242d09fa23aca2cebdc1427ad36c.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=558#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=558\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=558\",\"name\":\"The Higher Education Revolution We Need to Have - 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