On the Politics of Non-Politics at the University of Wisconsin

Avoiding “university politics” is under normal circumstances a wise move by non-tenured professors because of how vicious such politics can be. Perhaps if more scholars who take on administrative positions with considerable power were more passionate about learning more in their respective fields of knowledge, the power itself would not be used so much to settle scores (i.e., retaliate). As Jesus says in the Gospels concerning God and money, a person cannot serve two masters. When the president of a university system is a lawyer rather than a scholar holding a doctorate, a passion for acquiring academic knowledge cannot be relied upon to keep the occupant of the high office focused on the essentials rather than on “extracurricular activities.” When the Board of Regents fired Jay Rothman, a lawyer who had been the presiding officer of the University of Wisconsin system (i.e., the main and branch campuses) on March 7, 2026, the fact that he was not oriented as a scholar—he had earned two undergraduate degrees—was arguably part of the reason for the firing, given the salience of politics both in his conduct while in office and his firing.  

The full essay is at "On the Politics of Non-Politics at the University of Wisconsin."

Amid Scandal and Political Protests: A University President Goes Down

Beyond legitimately taking credit and assuming blame for a myriad of things, a university president ought first of all to be an academic scholar, which comes with the credential of a doctorate in a field or school of knowledge. Rather than a specific body, or school, of knowledge subject to research (and thus growth) being directly applicable to the position, I contend that the process, which includes being enculturated in academia as a scholar, of getting a doctorate is valuable and thus should be requisite to a candidate being selected to lead a college or university. In short, a university president is not just a manager. It would be expedient, in line with committing the “sin of omission,” to have a corporate executive, or, even more expedient, a lawyer, run a university. The governing board of Northwestern University in Illinois committed this “sin” in hiring Michael Schill, a law instructor, as president of that university. Just three years after assuming the position in September, 2022, he abruptly resigned. A memo to that board upon his resignation announcement could read: “Memo to the Board: Yale Law School trains lawyers, not university presidents.”

The full essay is at "Amid Scandal and Political Protests."

Harvard vs. Trump: Yale Doesn’t Matter

Less than a week before Harvard’s graduation ceremony in May, 2025, and about a month after Trump had frozen $2.2 billion in federal funding that would have gone to Harvard and then threatened to remove the university’s tax-exempt status, an Obama-appointed U.S. district judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s order that foreign students at Harvard must either transfer to other universities or leave the United States, effective immediately. In its complaint filed with the district court, Harvard argues that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law. It requires that a rational basis be given by the federal government, which must take administrative-law steps before such an order can be definitively executed against a university. Even then, a university can appeal the last administrative-law decision to federal district court. At the very least, a university must be provided with the alleged violation of visa law and given the chance to make corrections or defend itself rather than be caught off-guard by a fait accompli by fiat. Less noticeable in the midst of the brawl, it is no small matter that a director of the federal security agency so brazenly and obviously violated administrative-procedure law. At the very least, it is duplicitous and hypocritical for a government official tasked with enforcing law against criminals to knowingly violate law to which she herself is subject in her official capacity. At the very least, Noem’s conduct should raise concerns regarding the need for greater oversight over DHS by Congress and whether it should be easier for Congress to remove a Cabinet-level political appointee. Perhaps it should be within the purview of a federal judge to suspend and even dismiss a Cabinet secretary judged to have violated federal law in an official capacity. In the context of an increasingly imperial presidency, more checks are arguably necessary. This is not, however, the topic at hand; instead, my thesis here is that even though Harvard should indeed pursue its case in federal court against the Trump Administration, and the university’s values are superior to the way in which Yale has capitulated to that government, Harvard’s administration could improve the university by exercising the sort of maturity that recognizes the kernels of truth in the otherwise spurious claims. Such maturity would be two degrees of separation from the mentality of Yale’s administration with respect to spying on student with the help of the FBI.

The full essay is at "Harvard vs. Trump."