On Tuesday, Paramount announced an agreement to pay $16 million to settle President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.
The following can be attributed to FIRE attorney Bob Corn-Revere, who filed a comment to the FCC calling its investigation into the Harris interview a “political stunt”:
A cold wind just blew through every newsroom this morning. Paramount may have closed this case, but it opened the door to the idea that the government should be the media’s editor-in-chief.
Trump has a long history of filing frivolous lawsuits to intimidate critics, and his targets have a long history of capitulating to avoid legal headaches. And here, he had the added tactic of using the FCC and its review of the multi-billion dollar Paramount-Skydance merger to bring added pressure to bear.
Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. This settlement will only embolden the president to continue his flurry of baseless lawsuits against the press — and against the American people’s ability to hear the news free from government intrusion.
As of 2023, more than 464 million people listen to podcasts regularly, and this number is growing each year. And with over 70% of parents listening with their children, podcasts are a communication channel your school can’t afford to overlook.
Why does this matter for education marketing?
Because parents, students, and alumni increasingly expect content that’s on demand, easy to consume, and aligned with how they already engage with other brands. A podcast offers exactly that. It provides a way to humanize your institution, give voice to your values, and build stronger relationships with your audience, all without requiring a massive budget or full production studio.
Is a school podcast worth the effort?
Here’s the reality: Schools that use podcasting strategically are finding new ways to connect with prospective families, boost engagement, and increase brand awareness. Whether you’re trying to showcase your faculty, highlight student achievements, or simply keep your community informed, a podcast gives you a direct line to your audience’s attention.
First things first, what is a podcast in school? A school podcast is an audio series created by educators, students, or staff to share news, stories, or educational content. It can highlight campus life, feature interviews, or support learning, helping schools connect with their communities in an accessible, on-demand format.
This blog post breaks down seven clear steps for launching a school podcast, from planning and production to promotion and measurement.
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Step 1: Define Your Podcast’s Purpose
Before you record a single second of audio, it’s important to answer one key question: Why are we starting this podcast?
A well-defined purpose ensures your content stays focused and impactful. Are you hoping to:
Attract and engage prospective families?
Showcase student life and culture?
Build thought leadership through staff and faculty interviews?
Strengthen alumni connections?
The most successful school podcasts have a clear audience and goal. For example, a private school may want to build trust with prospective families by featuring authentic stories from teachers and students. A language institute might use a podcast to demonstrate teaching methods or highlight student success stories. A university could aim to strengthen alumni ties through interviews and updates.
Whatever the goal, be specific. Broad intentions like “we want to communicate better” are too vague. Instead, anchor your podcast in a focused objective, be it enhancing recruitment, increasing transparency, or offering value-added resources to your community.
Once the purpose is clear, ensure leadership is aligned. Gaining buy-in from school administrators and relevant departments will give your project momentum, credibility, and cross-functional support.
Example: Yale University’s admissions office launched an official podcast called Inside the Yale Admissions Office to pull back the curtain on their application process. Their goal was to demystify college admissions for prospective students by sharing firsthand insights from actual admissions officers. Because the project aligned perfectly with Yale’s outreach goals, it had strong internal buy-in. Admissions staff themselves host the show, with support from the Dean.
Pro tip: Avoid trying to appeal to everyone. Tailor your podcast to a specific listener group and let that clarity shape your voice, content, and messaging.
Step 2: Choose the Right Format
The best podcast format is the one that plays to your strengths and fits your resources. You don’t need to copy what others are doing. What matters most is that your format fits your team and speaks to your audience.
Popular school-friendly formats include:
Interviews with staff, students, or alumni to spotlight personalities and accomplishments
Thematic episodes exploring topics like student life, curriculum innovations, or study tips.
Student-produced episodes that give learners ownership and boost engagement, or other types of user-generated content
Roundtable discussions where multiple voices weigh in on a key theme.
Example: A great illustration of a defined concept is Stanford University’s The Future of Everything podcast, produced by its School of Engineering. The show’s premise is crystal clear – each episode explores how technology, science, and medicine are shaping our lives and future. Hosted by a Stanford bioengineering professor, it follows an interview format where experts discuss innovations in fields from AI to health care. This distinctive theme and structure leverage Stanford’s academic strengths and consistently deliver on what the title promises.
Whatever you choose, aim for consistency in tone and structure. A 20-minute interview series sounds very different from a 10-minute solo voice memo, but either can be powerful if well-executed.
Remember: A podcast is more than a recording; it’s a conversation. Make space for authenticity and spontaneity to shine through.
Step 3: Build a Content Plan and Plan Episodes in Advance
Now that you’ve defined your purpose and format, it’s time to think long-term. One of the biggest mistakes new podcasters make is launching without a content roadmap. Jumping into production without a plan can lead to burnout or disjointed messaging.
Ask yourself:
What themes or topics will we cover across the season?
Which internal experts or guests should we feature?
Are there recurring segments that can anchor each episode?
A solid content calendar will help you avoid scrambling for ideas and ensure your messaging supports broader marketing campaigns (like admissions deadlines, open houses, or graduation season).
Here’s an example of a 6-episode launch plan for a K–12 school podcast:
Welcome from the Head of School
A Day in the Life of a Student
Meet Our Parent Community
Inside the Classroom: A Faculty Roundtable
From Our Alumni: Life After Graduation
How We Support Student Wellbeing
Example: At Kent State University, the Division of Student Affairs took a strategic approach when launching its podcast. They deliberately planned the first season of the podcast to coincide with the university’s virtual orientation program for new students. Because orientation had moved online (due to the pandemic), the podcast team organized a series of episodes addressing topics incoming freshmen needed, essentially turning the podcast into a fun, on-demand extension of orientation. They collaborated with the orientation staff (Destination Kent State) to ensure content was relevant and even gathered feedback from that partnership to improve the show.
Bonus tip: Batch-record your first few episodes in advance so you can launch with momentum and buffer time.
Step 4: Set Up Your Equipment and Software
Worried about needing a full recording studio? Don’t be. Getting started doesn’t require expensive equipment. Here’s a basic setup to launch your podcast with professional quality:
Essentials:
Microphone: A USB mic like the Blue Yeti or Samson Q2U delivers clear, studio-like audio.
Headphones: Avoid audio bleed and ensure consistent sound levels during editing.
Recording Software: Tools like Audacity (free) or Descript (freemium) let you easily record and edit.
Hosting Platform: Services like Buzzsprout, Podbean, or Anchor distribute your podcast to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
Tip for schools on a budget: Consider using your media or IT lab for recordings. You may already have access to podcast-friendly tools through student programs.
Example: At UC Berkeley, staff in the communications department use a variety of clever do-it-yourself strategies to produce high-quality podcasts on a tight budget, proving that high production value is possible even without a fancy studio or expensive equipment.
Step 5: Record and Edit With Your Audience in Mind
Now it’s time to hit “record.” As you begin, remember that quality matters, not just in audio clarity, but in tone, pacing, and structure.
Keep your episodes:
Concise. Aim for 15 to 30 minutes per episode. That’s long enough to deliver substance, but short enough to fit into a morning commute or lunchtime walk.
Focused. Each episode should revolve around a single topic or theme. If you have more to say, turn it into a two-part series.
Natural. Avoid reading from a script word-for-word. Outline your key points, then speak conversationally.
Editing is where your podcast becomes polished. Using editing software, you can tighten up the conversation, remove umms/uhs, add intro music or segues, and generally polish the recording. Aim to balance the sound levels between speakers and cut any extraneous digressions to keep the episode flowing. The goal is an episode that sounds natural but also stays on topic and within your desired length.
Don’t be discouraged if the first few recordings feel rough. Podcasting has a learning curve for everyone, and you’ll get more comfortable and skilled with each episode. Incorporate feedback from early listeners and continuously improve your technique.
Example: The team behind Bucknell University, which produces the College Admissions Insider podcast, began with two co-hosts from the admissions office and communications staff who had no prior podcasting experience. They weren’t trained radio personalities, but their deep knowledge of the admissions process and ability to communicate enabled them to create engaging episodes from the get-go. In their case, the hosts’ confidence and skill grew quickly as they recorded more sessions. After the first few episodes, they found their rhythm in interviewing guests and editing the content into a polished final product.
Pro tip: If editing feels overwhelming, explore student help or freelance editors. Podcast production is a great opportunity for cross-department collaboration.
Step 6: Publish and Distribute Your Podcast
With a finished episode in hand, it’s time to share it with the world. This step involves uploading your episode to your chosen podcast hosting platform and ensuring it gets distributed to all the major listening apps. The good news: once set up, this process is straightforward.
Start by choosing a podcast hosting service (if you haven’t already). There are many options – from free platforms like Anchor (Spotify for Podcasters) to paid hosts like Libsyn, Podbean, or Buzzsprout. The host is essentially where your audio files live and where your podcast’s RSS feed is generated. When you upload a new episode, your host will update the RSS feed, which in turn notifies podcast directories (like Apple Podcasts) to pull the new content.
Upload your MP3 file to the host and fill in the episode details: title, description, episode number, season (if applicable), etc. Use this metadata to attract listeners – write a clear, engaging description and include relevant keywords (e.g., “STEM education chat with our Science Department” or “Tips for college admissions interviews”). Also, upload your cover art if you haven’t already, as it will display on players.
Next, distribute your podcast. Submit the RSS feed to major platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Many hosts provide one-click distribution or guides to do this. Usually, you only need to do the submission once for each platform; after that, new episodes will appear automatically. Don’t forget any niche or regional platforms popular with your audience. Essentially, you want your school’s podcast to be available wherever listeners might look.
Example: The University of Chicago hosts its award-winning Big Brains podcast on a platform that syndicates it widely – on the official UChicago site, the podcast page prominently offers subscribe buttons for Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and even YouTube. Once UChicago uploaded episodes and submitted their feed, their content became available across all those apps. In practice, this means a parent commuting to work can pull up Apple Podcasts and find the school’s show, while a student on Android might use Spotify to listen – the experience is seamless.
“If you build it, they will come” doesn’t quite apply in podcasting. After creating a podcast for students and other members of your school’s community, you have to actively promote your school podcast so that your community (and beyond) know it exists. Promotion is an ongoing step, not a one-time task.
Here’s how to promote your school podcast effectively:
Website: Create a dedicated podcast page with episode archives and show notes.
Social Media: Share episode clips, quotes, or audiograms on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Email Marketing: Feature new episodes in newsletters or nurture campaigns.
Admissions Materials: Mention your podcast in brochures or application confirmation emails.
Student Portals and Alumni Networks: Make your episodes discoverable for internal and extended communities.
Example: Bucknell didn’t just publish episodes and hope people would find them. The university made the podcast an integral part of its outreach. They promoted it vigorously by including podcast links in emails to prospective students and parents, sharing episode clips on social media, and even running targeted online ads to reach more listeners.
Think beyond downloads: Use the podcast to reinforce messaging in other marketing assets like blog posts, webinars, or virtual tours.
Bonus Tip: Track Performance and Evolve
Like any marketing initiative, measurement is key. Use analytics tools (often provided by your podcast host) to track:
Number of downloads
Listener demographics
Episode drop-off points
Subscription growth
But don’t stop at the numbers. Solicit feedback from listeners. What do they want to hear more of? Which episodes resonated most?
Note: Your podcast will evolve. You might tweak your format, test new topics, or expand your production team. That’s a good thing. Podcasting, like all great content marketing, thrives on iteration.
Partner With HEM to Create an Authentic Podcast That Stands Out
Starting a school podcast isn’t about jumping on a trend. It’s about creating a platform to tell your school’s story in a compelling, authentic way.
Why are podcasts good for school?Podcasts are engaging, cost-effective, and easy to access. They help schools build trust, highlight culture, and communicate more personally with students, parents, and alumni, especially in today’s mobile-first world where audio content fits busy lifestyles.
In today’s crowded education market, families crave meaningful connections. They want to hear directly from your community, not just what you offer, but who you are. A podcast helps you do exactly that.
It’s a platform that humanizes your brand, showcases your values, and builds real relationships with your audience. In short, it allows your community to hear your voice, quite literally.
In a nutshell, the answer to the question “How do I make an academic podcast?” can be summed up in a few crucial steps. Start by defining your goal and audience. Choose a format, plan episodes, and use basic recording equipment or software. Feature faculty or students, keep episodes concise, edit for clarity, and publish on platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Promote it across your school’s channels.
Ready to bring your school’s story to life through podcasting? Start by defining your audience and recording a pilot episode. With each step, you’ll gain clarity and momentum.
If you’d like support planning your podcast strategy, identifying compelling topics, or aligning the content with your admissions goals, HEM is here to help.
Would you like to learn how to create a podcast for students?
Contact HEM for more information.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is a podcast in school? Answer: A school podcast is an audio series created by educators, students, or staff to share news, stories, or educational content. It can highlight campus life, feature interviews, or support learning, helping schools connect with their communities in an accessible, on-demand format.
Question: Why are podcasts good for school? Answer: Podcasts are engaging, cost-effective, and easy to access. They help schools build trust, highlight culture, and communicate more personally with students, parents, and alumni, especially in today’s mobile-first world where audio content fits busy lifestyles.
Question: How do I make an academic podcast? Answer: Start by defining your goal and audience. Choose a format, plan episodes, and use basic recording equipment or software. Feature faculty or students, keep episodes concise, edit for clarity, and publish on platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Promote it across your school’s channels.
Columbia University has reached a $9 million settlement agreement with undergraduate students who alleged the institution deliberately submitted false information to U.S. News & World Report to artificially boost its college rankings position.
The preliminary settlement, filed last Monday in Manhattan federal court and pending judicial approval, resolves claims that Columbia misrepresented key data points to enhance its standing in the influential annual rankings. The university reached as high as No. 2 in the undergraduate rankings in 2022 before the alleged misconduct came to light.
Students alleged that Columbia consistently provided inaccurate data to U.S. News, including the false claim that 83% of its classes contained fewer than 20 students. The lawsuit argued these misrepresentations were designed to improve the university’s ranking position and, consequently, attract more students willing to pay premium tuition rates.
The settlement covers approximately 22,000 undergraduate students who attended Columbia College, the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of General Studies between fall 2016 and spring 2022.
The controversy began in July 2022 when Columbia mathematics professor Dr. Michael Thaddeus published a detailed analysis questioning the accuracy of data underlying the university’s No. 2 ranking. His report alleged that much of the information Columbia provided to U.S. News was either inaccurate or misleading.
Following the publication of Thaddeus’s findings, Columbia’s ranking plummeted to No. 18 in September 2022. The dramatic drop highlighted the significant impact that data accuracy has on institutional rankings and reputation.
In response to the allegations, Columbia announced in June 2023 that its undergraduate programs would withdraw from participating in U.S. News rankings altogether. The university cited concerns about the “outsized influence” these rankings have on prospective students’ decision-making processes.
“Much is lost when we attempt to distill the quality and nuance of an education from a series of data points,” Columbia stated in explaining its decision to withdraw from the rankings process.
While denying wrongdoing in the settlement agreement, Columbia acknowledged past deficiencies in its reporting practices. The university stated it “deeply regrets deficiencies in prior reporting” and has implemented new measures to ensure data accuracy.
Columbia now provides prospective students with information that has been reviewed by an independent advisory firm, demonstrating the institution’s commitment to transparency and accurate representation of its educational offerings.
Columbia’s decision to withdraw from U.S. News rankings reflects a growing skepticism among elite institutions about the value and impact of college ranking systems. Harvard and Yale have also stopped submitting data to U.S. News for various programs, signaling a potential shift in how prestigious universities approach rankings participation.
Under the terms of the agreement, student attorneys plan to seek up to one-third of the settlement amount for legal fees, which would leave approximately $6 million available for distribution among affected students. The settlement requires approval from a federal judge before taking effect.
Student lawyers characterized the accord as “fair, reasonable and adequate” given the circumstances of the case and the challenges inherent in proving damages from ranking manipulation.
Vasquez’s last byline for The Chronicle appeared in August 2024, with no public announcement of his departure from the publication. His silence since then has raised questions among media observers and watchdogs who followed his work. Given the importance of his investigations—often exposing powerful institutions that exploit vulnerable students—his absence is conspicuous and troubling.
Before joining The Chronicle, Vasquez led education coverage at Politico and served as a longtime reporter at The Miami Herald. His career has been marked by award-winning investigations into fraudulent colleges, political influence in higher education, and the failings of accreditation and oversight systems. In a time when public interest journalism is shrinking, his work stood out for its rigor, clarity, and impact.
That Vasquez was laid off in a year of wider cutbacks and financial uncertainty in journalism is hardly surprising. But his continued listing on The Chronicle’s website could reflect an industry practice of obscuring layoffs to protect institutional reputation, or a lack of transparency about the ongoing hollowing out of serious investigative reporting.
His departure comes as the for-profit college industry appears to be regaining political momentum under a second Trump presidency, and as student borrowers, whistleblowers, and contingent faculty face mounting challenges. Without voices like Vasquez’s, the public may lose one of its fiercest advocates for truth and accountability in U.S. higher education.
If Michael Vasquez has moved on to other work—or has been pushed out by institutional pressures—he hasn’t said so publicly. But the silence speaks volumes.
Even though there have been longstanding ideological differences across states, higher education leadership was largely insulated against these differences over the last half-century. Yes, they popped up in meaningful ways on topics such as South African divestment, affirmative action, and antiwar protests, but it was possible for university leaders to move from red states to blue states and vice versa. It helped to share the state’s political leanings, but it was generally not a requirement.
The last month has clearly shown that potential presidents now must pass an ideological litmus test in order to gain the favor of governing boards and state policymakers. Here are three examples:
Santa Ono’s hiring at Florida was rejected by the system board (after being approved by the campus board) due to his previous positions in favor of diversity initiatives and vaccine mandates. He tried to pivot his views, but it was not enough for Republican appointments on the board.
Six red states, led by Florida and North Carolina, are seeking to launch a new accreditor to break free from their longtime accreditor (which was the only major institutional accreditor to never have a DEI requirement, although their diversity page is now blank). Florida Governor Ron DeSantis used his press conference to go on a tirade against higher education, but the North Carolina system’s statement was more cautious, focused on academic quality.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department effectively forced out University of Virginia president James Ryan over his alleged noncompliance in removing diversity initiatives from campus. This effort was successful because Virginia’s Republican governor also supported removal and has the ability to push the institution’s governing board to take action.
While there has been a long history of politicians across the ideological spectrum leading universities (such as Mitch Daniels at Purdue, John King at the State University of New York, and Dannel Molloy at Maine), these politicians have generally set aside most of their ideological priors that are not directly related to running an institution of higher education. But now a growing number of states are expecting their campus presidents to be politicians that are perfectly aligned with their values.
There are two clear takeaways from recent events. The first is that college presidents are now political appointments in the same way that a commissioner of education or a state treasurer would be in many states. Many boards will be instructed (or decide by themselves) to only hire people who are ideologically aligned to lead colleges—and to clean house whenever a new governor comes into power. The median tenure of a college president is rapidly declining, and expect that to continue as more leaders get forced out. Notably, by threatening to withhold funding, governors do not even have to wait for the composition of the board to change before forcing a change in leadership. New presidents will respond by requesting higher salaries to account for that risk.
Second, do not expect many prominent college presidents to switch from red states to blue states or vice versa. (It may still happen among community colleges, but even that will be more difficult). The expectations of the positions are rapidly diverging, and potential leaders are going to have to choose where they want to be. Given the politics of higher education employees, blue-state jobs may be seen as more desirable. But these positions often face more financial constraints due to declining enrollments and tight state budgets, in addition to whatever else comes from Washington. Red-state jobs may come with more resources, but they also are likely to come with more strings attached.
It is also worth noting that even vice president and dean positions are likely to face these same two challenges due to presidential transitions and the desire of some states to clean house within higher education. That makes the future of the administrative pipeline even more challenging.
More than 3,000 years ago, the largest chariot battle ever pitted the forces of one of the most powerful pharaohs of ancient Egypt — Ramesses the Great — against the Hittite Empire in Kadesh, near the modern-day border between Lebanon and Syria.
The battle ended in stalemate.
But once back in Egypt, Ramesses spread lies portraying the battle as a major victory for the Egyptians. He had scenes of himself killing his enemies put up on the walls of nearly all his temples.
It was propaganda. “It is all too clear that he was a stupid and culpably inefficient general and that he failed to gain his objectives at Kadesh,” Egyptologist John A. Wilson wrote.
Disinformation in ancient Rome
The Roman general Mark Antony killed himself with his sword after his defeat in the Battle of Actium upon hearing false rumors — fake news — propagated by his lover Cleopatra claiming that she had committed suicide.
American patriots, including the esteemed U.S. statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin, and their British enemies swapped spurious allegations during the American Revolution that murderous Native Americans were working in league with their adversaries, scalping allies.
How about the 1938 radio drama, “The War of the Worlds”? Adopted from a novel by H.G. Wells, the radio broadcast fooled some listeners into believing that Martians had landed in America. Newspapers of the day said the broadcast sparked panic.
But historians today say the panic was exaggerated. So it was fake news about fake news!
There is no shortage of modern-day instances of fake news. In Myanmar in 2018, the military spearheaded a campaign of fake news, mainly on Facebook, claiming the Rohingya minority had murdered and raped members of the Buddhist majority. The Rohingya were described as dogs, maggots and rapists. The fake news helped trigger violence against the Rohingya that forced 700,000 people to flee their homes.
The irony is that many in Myanmar had turned to Facebook for information because the military had alienated many citizens with its control of the media. But the same military took advantage of the false reports to crack down on the Muslim minority.
Election falsehoods
Similarly, fake news has been used in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka to influence the outcome of elections, hide corruption and stir up religious animosity.
One of the ironies of fake news is it can embolden authoritarian governments to turn the tables and use made-up news as an excuse to crack down on the media. That can enable the regime to control the media message. In other words, fake news to the rescue of autocrats.
But we should not fool ourselves into thinking that fake news can be cured merely through technological solutions, that it’s a product of our times, that it’s mainly political and that it’s peddled only by our opponents. It’s not the property of any one political party or interest.
Fake news takes root in the gray area between truth and fiction, an area we can be quite comfortable in. There is something very enticing about fake news, especially if it aligns with our pre-conceived notions. Yet we are apt to think that fake news is the exception, a new aberration.
We can easily fall victim to fake news in part because we are not always disgusted by lies. We are taught at a very early age that deceit – deception, dishonesty, disinformation – is all around us. And that not all lies are as harmful as others. Our parents read us fairy tales from the earliest of ages, and many tales involve lies.
The telling of fairy tales
Take the ancient fable of “The Cock and the Fox,” included in the medieval collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, “One Thousand and One Nights.”
A hungry fox tries to coax a rooster out of a tree by telling him a tall tale — that there is universal friendship now among hunters and the hunted. The cock has nothing to fear, the wily fox says. It’s a lie, of course.
So, the equally wily cock resorts to his own lie: he tells the fox that he sees greyhounds running towards them, surely with a message from the King of Beasts. The fox, outwitted, runs away in fear. So here we have two lies in a single story. The moral? “The best liars are often caught in their own lies.”
Children and their parents are quite comfortable surrounded by lies. Is Santa Claus a malicious or harmless lie?
Do you know the story of the Wizard of Oz? That classic U.S. movie about a young girl lost in a fantasy world, pursued by witches, struggling to go home? The entire plot relies on a deceit – a supposedly powerful wizard who is nothing more than a bumbling, ordinary conman, who uses magic tricks to make himself seem great and powerful.
Deceit at the service of entertainment.
Advertisements are often innocent exaggerations, fiction if you will in the service of business and profit-making. But sometimes ads can veer into falsehoods.
So fake news is not new. And we’re no strangers to lies. What does that mean for those of us interested in making the world a better place? Should we simply give up because the task is too great?
Hardly. The lesson is that truth is not black and white, but grey, and it’s a moving target.
Take, for example, colonialism. From the 15th century on, white Europeans conquered huge swathes of the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. They subjugated millions of people, using brutal violence in many places to subdue indigenous populations. They brought diseases that wiped out millions.
They exploited natural resources, using native labor and pocketing most of the profit from sales into a global trading network that they established. By 1914, Europeans had gained control of 84% of the globe.
We know all of that now because colonized peoples have revolted against their colonial rulers and won independence. The wars of independence have been won, yet so many countries around the world are still grappling with the shameful effects of colonialism and racism.
The ambiguity of truth
But would everyone have agreed on that depiction of Europeans as rapacious colonialists before the wars of independence?
Certainly not most of the Europeans, who believed they were exporting a superior civilization to backward natives. Missionaries who led many colonial ventures believed they were doing God’s will by converting native populations to Christianity. And not a few natives turned a blind eye to atrocities and benefited financially.
For a glaring example of the ambiguity of truth, take the United States. Its Declaration of Independence, borrowing from the French enlightenment, states that “all men are created equal,” with “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It put notions of freedom and equality at the heart of the American experiment. Yet it was written by a slave owner, Thomas Jefferson, and represented 13 colonies that all, to one degree or another, allowed slavery.
Convinced of their superiority and driven by an almost unquenchable appetite for wealth, white settlers drove Native Indians from their homes. The U.S. government authorized more than 1,500 attacks and raids on Indians. By the end of the 19th century, fewer than 238,000 indigenous people remained, down from some 5-15 million living in North America when Columbus arrived in 1492.
What is more, settlers in the South imported slaves from Africa, forcing them to work on vast plantations and denying them the very rights to life and liberty spelled out in the Declaration of Independence.
Rights and repercussions
Both Native Indians and African Americans are struggling to this day to come to terms with the treatment they suffered at the hands of the white colonials.
Would a white settler have seen himself or herself as a murderer? Hardly. In their minds, they were doing God’s work.
Mind you, the desire to colonize is not peculiar to Europeans. Imperial Japan and imperialist China both established overseas empires. The Empire of Japan seized most of China and Manchuria. To this day, Chinese nationals and South Koreans harbor ill feelings towards the Japanese. Chinese dynasties won control over parts of Vietnam and Korea.
There’s an expression in newsrooms around the world: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Put another way, the same individual might seem a terrorist to some, a hero to others.
Take Yagan, a 19th century indigenous Australian warrior from the Noongar people. He played a key role in early resistance to British colonial rule in an area that is now Perth. His execution by a young settler figures in Australian history as a symbol of the unjust treatment of indigenous peoples by colonial settlers.
A hero to his people, he was a murderer in the eyes of the British.
Different perspectives on history
Or take the Incan emperor, Atahualpa, who resisted the explorer and conquistador Francisco Pizarro, to this day a Spanish hero. Pizarro forced Atahualpa to convert to Christianity before eventually killing him, hastening the end of one of the greatest imperial states in human history.
How you view Pizarro may depend on where you are sitting and when you lived.
There are countless modern examples of radically different perspectives on events. Such discrepancies may be inevitable. Dogged journalists can shed light on events and protagonists, and help shape history – for better or for worse.
Joseph McCarthy was a U.S. senator who in the early years of the Cold War spearheaded a smear campaign against alleged Communist and Soviet spies. Only courageous reporting by a small group of journalists who dared question McCarthy’s tactics and risked being tarred as Communist sympathizers themselves led to McCarthy’s downfall.
Joseph McCarthy (L) with his attorney Roy Cohn, who later mentored Donald Trump (Wikimedia Commons)
The New York Times and Washington Post went out on a legal limb when in 1971 they published the Pentagon Papers, a U.S. government history of the Vietnam War that laid bare official lies that drove American policy for more than a decade in Southeast Asia.
The government called the man who leaked the government documents a criminal and sought to prevent the newspapers from publishing the damning revelations.
The newspapers won their case before the Supreme Court, and their reporting increased public pressure on the government to withdraw from Vietnam.
Watergate upended a presidency.
You’ve perhaps heard of Watergate? Literally speaking, it’s a hotel in Washington, DC. But it has come to stand for the dogged and courageous news reporting by two journalists with the Washington Post who exposed crimes by President Richard Nixon and helped lead to his resignation in 1974.
Courageous investigative journalism is hardly confined to the United States. A non-profit news outfit called AmaBhungane — in Zulu, “dung beetle,” an animal that digs through shit – has reported on corrupt business deals at the highest levels of South Africa’s government.
In the Arab world, investigative journalists in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Palestine, Mauritania, Algeria, Kuwait and Sudan have uncovered tax evasion, money laundering, drug smuggling, torture and slavery. They have unmasked doctors who have removed the wombs of mentally disabled girls with the consent of parents.
What does this mean for you, a young activist who wants to help change the world?
Truth is murky.
The lesson is that the truth may not lie squarely on one side or the other, but rather in a murky, grey area. It can take courage to shine a light in the shadows, teeming with lies. And you may have to hear viewpoints that differ radically from your own. It pays to listen.
Progress against racism, inequality and injustice depends on an informed public.
The best journalists recognize their responsibility to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which state that: all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights; and everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
As the third U.S. President Thomas Jefferson said: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
So stick up for your rights, including the right to free expression. Be fair. And remember that one man’s terrorist may be another man’s freedom fighter. You don’t have a lock on the truth.
Questions to consider:
1. Why is it important to understand that fake news is nothing new?
2. Do you think there is any way to stamp out fake news?
3. What does it mean to say, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”?
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Dive Brief:
Six of Indiana’s higher education institutions are moving to collectively cut or consolidate over 400 programs in the face of a state law taking effect Tuesday that aims to end academic offerings that award low numbers of degrees.
The programs on the chopping block account for 19% of all degree offerings at the state’s public higher education institutions.The colleges opted to consolidate 232 programs, suspend 101 and eliminate 75.
Under the new state law, public colleges must seek approval from the Indiana Higher Education Commission to continue degree programs that don’t graduate enough students to meet certain thresholds. If the commission doesn’t grant approval, colleges must eliminate those programs.
Dive Insight:
The new quotas are a part of a slate of last-minute provisions that Indiana lawmakers added to the state’s budget plan, which was signed into law in early May, to reshape college governance. Along with the quotas, lawmakers also implemented post-tenure reviews for faculty and gave Republican Gov. Mike Braun full control over selecting Indiana University’s governing board.
Braun praised the degree cuts and consolidations in a statement Monday, casting them as a way to ensure public colleges prepare students for in-demand fields and streamline their offerings.
“This will help students make more informed decisions about the degree they want to pursue and ensure there is a direct connection between the skills students are gaining through higher education and the skills they need most,” Braun said.
Under the new law, associate degree programs are on the chopping block if the average number of students they graduate falls under 10 students over the past three years, while bachelor’s programs are at risk if they graduate fewer than an average of 15 students. Master’s and doctoral programs have slightly lower thresholds — an average of seven and three students, respectively.
Indiana University is moving to cut or consolidate 249 programs across its campuses, the most out of the six institutions. Of those, the university is immediately eliminating 43, suspending another 83 and consolidating 123.
Indiana University Bloomington, the flagship campus, will see 116 degree cuts or consolidations.
The cuts and consolidations at Bloomington heavily impact programs in education, humanities and foreign languages, including bachelor’s programs in Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. However, they also include STEM programs, such as bachelor’s in statistics and atmospheric science.
Ahead of the news, some faculty members expressed concern they could lose their jobs due to the state law, Heather Akou, president-elect of the Bloomington Faculty Council, recently told WFYI.
“Even tenured faculty are wondering, am I going to have a job in two months?” Akou told the station. “We’re scheduled to teach classes. Will I be allowed to teach the classes I’m scheduled to teach this fall? I don’t know. That’s really the level of chaos and confusion that’s going on right now.”
An Indiana University spokesperson on Tuesday said that 27 programs would be created through consolidating other programs.The spokesperson did not answer questions about how the cuts and consolidations would impact faculty, but referred Higher Ed Dive to a university announcement detailing the changes.
Purdue University is moving to cut or consolidate 83 programs, followed by Ball State University (51 programs), Indiana State University (11 programs), Ivy Tech Community College (10 programs) and University of Southern Indiana (4 programs).
Higher Education is under intensifying scrutiny as federal regulations tighten, and public trust continues to waver. A growing threat to this is student aid fraud. Organized schemes are exploiting institutional systems to siphon millions in financial aid, particularly targeting Pell Grant disbursements and student aid refunds. The result is a direct hit to both institutional revenue and reputation. Institutions can no longer afford to operate passively. They must lead with transparency, accountability and systems built to withstand obstacles. In an era already marked by increasing skepticism surrounding higher education, this is a risk that institutions cannot afford to ignore
In June 2025, The US Department of Education announced identity verification measures for over 125,000 FAFSA applicants—a clear signal that proactive fraud prevention is no longer optional. Failure to act risks financial loss, audit exposure and reputational damage. Explore how your institution can recognize the warning signs, implement smart prevention strategies and build a strong foundation of trust that supports both reputational and revenue goals.
Understanding the Modern Fraudster’s Playbook
Today’s fraudsters are highly strategic. They understand how to game institutional processes—enrolling just long enough to trigger student aid refunds, then disappearing soon after. By carefully selecting enough credits to qualify for more aid, these fraudsters have fueled the rise of “ghost enrollments” — fraudulent student records created to claim federal aid without actual attendance.
This surge is fueled by gaps in infrastructure, less stringent verification procedures and siloed systems, all challenges that hit resource-limited institutions hardest. The rapid expansion of online learning has outpaced the sophistication of verification systems, reducing touchpoints to confirm student legitimacy. Adding to this challenge, outdated or isolated internal systems often lack real-time data sharing between critical departments such as admissions, financial aid and academic offices.
These deceptive tactics lead to more than just financial losses; they corrupt enrollment data, misguide long-term strategic planning and damage an institution’s reputation. Enrollment fraud is not just a compliance problem but a strategic issue that compromises the very accuracy of the data institutions depend on to create budgets, predict enrollment trends and allocate resources effectively.
Without real-time data sharing and alignment between systems, institutions remain vulnerable to fraud and flawed decision-making. EducationDynamics supports colleges and universities in closing these gaps through integrated data strategies that prioritize accuracy and system-wide consistency.
Identifying the Warning Signs
Early detection is an institution’s strongest defense against coordinated financial aid fraud. As schemes grow more sophisticated, so must the systems and vigilance required to stop them. Fraudsters are increasingly leveraging tools like AI to complete assignments, VPNs to hide their locations and fake identities to access financial aid. Even with these evolving tools, fraud leaves detectable patterns—and catching these patterns can become a valuable asset for institutions.
Red Flag Reports are among the most valuable tools institutions can use to identify fraudulent activity before financial aid is disbursed. These reports highlight anomalies in student data that may otherwise go unnoticed, offering a proactive mechanism to pause and review questionable activity. Implementing this type of reporting is a critical step toward closing system gaps and elevating your fraud prevention infrastructure.
To effectively intercept fraud, institutions should actively monitor for specific indicators across the enrollment and financial aid process, such as:
Multiple students tied to the same bank account or IP address
Invalid or recycled phone numbers tied to applicants
Unusual enrollment or participation patterns, such as registering for the maximum credit load with no subsequent academic engagement
Last-minute documentation or sudden changes to refund delivery preferences
VPN usage that obscures geographic location, particularly when login or application behavior conflicts with submitted residence information
By actively seeking out these red flags and embracing modern verification practices, institutions can significantly bolster their defense.
Actionable Strategies for Institutional Defense
This is the era of proactive defense, demanding that institutions build workflows that not only accommodate scrutiny but leverage it to strengthen their practices.
To achieve this, institutions must:
Empower Staff for Early Detection
Use Red Flag Reports to monitor for suspicious indicators such as shared IP addresses, duplicate bank accounts and invalid phone numbers. These reports empower your staff to pause questionable disbursements and trigger manual reviews, catching issues that might otherwise slip through.
Build Verification Workflows to Withstand Volume
Build scalable, repeatable workflows to efficiently handle identity checks, document intake and federal verification requirements. Implement triage systems that ensure timely reviews, minimizing student disruption while maintaining operational efficiency and compliance.
Create Strategic Friction
Introduce intentional friction points that deter fraudsters without impeding legitimate students. Examples include phone verification for refund information or holding disbursements until after the add/drop period. These small process shifts significantly raise the barrier for fraudulent activity, preventing large-scale losses.
Require the Financial Responsibility Agreement
Make it standard practice to collect signed Financial Responsibility Agreements (FRAs) before disbursement. Doing so strengthens your paper trail and creates another point of identity verification, helping deter those attempting to abuse the system.
Modernize Refund Security
Require muti-factor authentication (MFA) when students update refund profiles, and default to e-refunds over checks. Limit paper disbursements and ensure funds are only returned to verified payment methods, significantly reducing fraud risk and maintaining transaction integrity.
Showcase Strong Digital Infrastructure
When institutions adopt secure, transparent payment systems, they project competence. Adopting strong digital infrastructure is more than an operational improvement; it’s a powerful brand message. A secure system builds public trust and reinforces your institution’s responsible stewardship of student funds.
Break Down Silos and Align Teams
Financial Aid cannot combat fraud in isolation. Establish a collaborative task force with key stakeholders from IT, Registrar and Academic Affairs. Faculty, for instance, are often early observers of suspicious academic behavior. When departments share insights, vulnerabilities are closed far more swiftly.
Create Real-Time Communication Loops
Facilitate consistent touchpoints between Financial Aid, Accounts Receivable and IT to rapidly flag and act on anomalies. Integrated communication accelerates response times and minimizes oversight risks.
Strengthen Awareness Across Campus
Incorporate scam awareness into existing financial literacy programs. Students who understand phishing and fraud risks are less likely to fall victim and more likely to report suspicious behavior.
Develop a Crisis Communication Playbook
A public incident of financial aid fraud extends beyond headlines; it directly threatens an institution’s credibility. Build a comprehensive crisis communication playbook that ensures a fast, transparent, and coordinated response. Proactive planning is crucial, and institutions can significantly strengthen their efforts by partnering with trusted reputation management experts.
When institutions elevate fraud prevention to a core business function, they safeguard far more than their balance sheets, protecting their reputation, enrollment pipeline and overall standing.
Why This Matters for Institutional Leaders
Fraud prevention is a strategic responsibility that demands the attention of every institutional leader. The consequences of fraud aren’t limited to financial aid offices. Fraud compromises presidential planning, marketing performance and enrollment numbers—all while chipping away at public trust. If institutional leaders want to chart a course for sustainable growth, defense against fraud must be built into the foundation of that strategy.
Presidents
For presidents, fraud erodes the central pillars that define institutional stability—financial resilience and decision-making confidence. Ghost enrollments and fake students distort budget forecasts, inflate success metrics and mask areas of real vulnerability.
Fraud prevention supports long-term vision by ensuring that enrollment, funding and performance data reflect institutional realities, not manipulations. In an environment where every resource must be justified, clarity is a leadership requirement.
Marketing Leaders
Marketing teams are measured by outcomes. Fraud makes those outcomes unreliable. Invalid inquiries and ghost enrollments inflate to the top of the funnel, while wasting precious budget. For leaders who rely on brand perception to drive engagement and attract prospects, fraud directly undermines their efforts, risking a loss of trust and diminished return on investment.
Enrollment Leaders
Enrollment leaders face rising stakes driven by declining traditional student populations and heightened expectations for conversions. In this environment, fraud distorts the metrics that enrollment leaders depend on. It artificially inflates applicant numbers, conceals melt and obscures true student movement through the funnel.
More importantly, fraudulent applications divert the time and energy of enrollment coaches. Every moment spent chasing a ghost applicant is a moment stolen from a real applicant who may never get the support they need. Over time, this leads to higher melt, poorer service and declining performance. Strategic financial aid conversations can refocus coaching efforts on real prospects and improve yield through trust-building and transparency.
Fraud prevention empowers enrollment leaders to understand their true audience and make decisions rooted in authentic student behavior, not artificial patterns. Aligning enrollment management strategies with proactive fraud prevention creates a foundation that drives sustained success.
Building a Resilient Institution
Fraud prevention is an ongoing commitment to institutional resilience. As fraudsters evolve their tactics, institutions must continually refine their defenses with smarter workflows, updated red flag criteria and technology. The most resilient schools treat fraud prevention as core infrastructure, integrating it into strategic planning rather than siloing it within financial departments. More importantly, many fraud safeguards also enhance the experience of students and staff by eliminating confusion and freeing teams to focus on supporting real students. When institutions take a proactive approach to fraud, they’re not only protecting their operations—they’re actively preserving the credibility and brand reputation that define long-term success.
EducationDynamics is here to help you turn defense into momentum. By aligning revenue strategy with reputation stewardship, we empower institutions to lead with clarity, act with confidence and build a foundation for success in an increasingly high-stakes environment.
Civil rights groups have been piling on to intervene in the recent Texas court case that ended in-state tuition for noncitizens living in the state. Now Austin Community College and a Texas undocumented student are joining the effort to defend the now-defunct law.
College officials worry they’ll lose students and revenue if undocumented students’ tuition prices suddenly skyrocket. Austin Community College is the first Texas college to try to join the lawsuit.
The Texas Dream Act, which allowed noncitizens who grew up in the state to benefit from in-state tuition, was overturned last month after the Department of Justice sued Texas over the law. The state didn’t fight back and instead sided with the DOJ mere hours after the legal challenge. A week later, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a Latino civil rights organization, filed a motion on behalf of a group of Texas undocumented students to intervene in the lawsuit. The group argued the swift resolution of the DOJ’s legal challenge denied those affected any chance to weigh in, so the students should become intervenors, or a party to the case, and have their day in court.
Other groups quickly followed MALDEF’s lead. Since last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Democracy Forward and the National Immigration Law Center have joined the fight, representing the activist group La Unión del Pueblo Entero, the Austin Community College District’s Board of Trustees and Oscar Silva, a student at University of North Texas. The groups filed emergency motions on their behalf to intervene in the lawsuit and get relief from the judgment that killed the law. If these legal efforts are successful, a case so quickly open and shut by Texas and the DOJ could be reopened.
Austin Community College board chair Sean Hassan said in a news release from the Texas ACLU chapter that college officials deserved to have their say on the policy shift.
“Employers and taxpayers are looking to community colleges to produce a sufficient number of highly skilled graduates to meet workforce needs,” Hassan said. “If legislation or court decisions will impact our ability to meet these expectations, we should have a seat at the table to help shape responsible solutions. The action by our board asks the court to ensure our voice is heard.”
Calculating the Costs
In court filings, Austin Community College leaders argue that the institution will lose revenue because of the abrupt end of the Texas Dream Act. They estimated that about 440 students will see their tuition rates quadruple, and as a result, hundreds of students will stop out and prospective students will avoid enrolling in the first place. College leaders also argued in the motion to intervene that the need for scholarships will rise, putting extra financial pressure on the community college.
They cited other potential costs as well, including setting up new processes to identify and notify noncitizen students of tuition rate changes and ramping up public relations efforts so the college can continue to “market itself as an accessible, inclusive, and affordable institution for all Texas high school graduates,” despite the policy change.
“The loss of these students will have a cascading effect on campus life, academic programs, and student support services,” Austin Community College chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart said, according to court filings.
The motion also detailed how Silva, the student, would likely have to withdraw from his joint bachelor’s and master’s program at the University of North Texas if he lost his in-state tuition benefits. He was expected to graduate next spring. Silva has lived in Texas since the age of 1 and attended Texas K–12 schools.
“The Texas Dream Act means everything to me,” Silva said in the ACLU of Texas news release. “This law has made my education possible. Without it, college would’ve been out of reach for me as a first-generation college student.”
The motion comes after Wynn Rosser, commissioner of higher education for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, sent out a June 18 memo directing colleges and universities to determine which of their students are undocumented and need to be charged higher tuition starting this fall.
Trouble Over Timelines
Texas, the DOJ and civil rights groups have since been haggling over how fast the U.S. District Court should move in response to the new motions.
The civil rights groups want a decision soon. But, in a joint submission to the court on June 30, the Trump administration and Texas argued emergency motions were uncalled-for and the legal proceedings shouldn’t be expedited, though they acknowledged the intervenors raised issues “which merit response.”
“Expediting responses to intervenors’ motions would only serve [to] put the United States and Texas at a disadvantage, having to brief and respond to intervenors’ myriad of arguments in a drastically shorter timeframe than would otherwise be necessary, and would do nothing to help intervenors expedite any potential relief,” the response read.
But the civil rights groups representing Austin Community College and other intervenors weren’t having it. On July 1, they asked that the court deny the request.
The attorneys argued that the state and the federal government moved quickly to resolve the DOJ’s lawsuit and end the Texas Dream Act, but “when asked to respond on an expedited basis to the consequences of their actions and the imminent harm raised” by the motions, “the parties balk, insisting that the court should postpone its consideration of these motions until well past the point when the looming harms become irreversible.”
That same day, Judge Reed O’Connor gave the Trump administration and Texas until July 14 to respond to the motion to intervene, which aligns with their requested timeline. He also delayed briefings on the motions to stay the judgement and for relief until he rules on the motion to intervene.
As this fight plays out in Texas, the DOJ is targeting other states that offer in-state tuition benefits to undocumented students. Last month the Trump administration filed similar lawsuits in Kentucky and Minnesota, which have yet to be resolved.
In an April 21 article entitled “We Haven’t Seen a Fight Like Harvard vs. Trump in Centuries,” Steven Brint wrote that the ongoing dispute between Harvard University and the federal government is “the most important showdown between state power and college autonomy since 1816, when the New Hampshire Legislature attempted to convert Dartmouth College into a public entity.”
While the Dartmouth College case, which the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1819 in Dartmouth’s favor, looms large in American history, universities have, prior to and since that decision, regularly fought for their rights—their corporate rights.
Today, we call this institutional academic freedom. But, as Richard Hofstadter wrote in his portion of The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (1955), co-authored with Walter Metzger, “academic freedom is a modern term for an ancient idea.” That ancient idea holds that university freedom is based on corporate rights, which is why Hofstadter begins with a section subtitled “Corporate Power in the Middle Ages.” Recovering that old idea could not be more important today.
It is no exaggeration to say that, in spring 2025, we may have enteredthenadir of American academic freedom. Austin Sarat rightfully urged us, even before then, to find new ways to guard academic freedom “against external threats.” Now, in the face of ongoing hostility from both state and federal governments, it is imperative that universities deploy the full range of arguments at their disposal, including those based on their forgotten corporate rights. In other words, it’s time for universities to invoke their corporate rights. Allow me to explain.
Corporateness is the university’s hidden superpower. While every university is constituted differently, they are all corporations, regardless of whether they present themselves as public or private. That is because “corporation” is a general legal term denoting a unity at law.
“Incorporation,” David Ciepley has written, “is a powerful tool.” Corporations can sue and be sued in their own names, hold property, enter contracts, use their own seals and legislate. Importantly, the university’s corporateness bears no necessary relationship to its current autocratic constitution, whereby, according to Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn, universities are “ruled by external lay governing boards vested with the panoply of powers customarily granted to corporations, including the power to adopt, amend, and revoke its basic rules of institutional governance.” Thus, we can use the university’s corporateness to rebuff external attacks, while also working, as Arjun Appadurai wrote recently, “to break the unilateral power of boards of trustees.”
The university’s cherished autonomy springs from its corporate rights. In the U.S., these rights were first articulated in a now-forgotten line of cases starting with the 1805 North Carolina Supreme Court case Trustees of University of North Carolina v. Foy, a decision issued more than a century before the American Association of University Professors’ famous 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure—and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1957 discovery of a theretofore unknown academic freedom right in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Like Dartmouth College, these cases were about corporate rights. But, unlike Dartmouth College, they concerned universities we now consider public; they were decided by state supreme courts, rather than by the U.S. Supreme Court; and, when they implicated constitutional rights, they implicated rights protected by state constitutions, rather than by the federal one.
What I call the corporate theory of academic freedom explains why the rights that originally protected the American scholarly enterprise, including in the Dartmouth College case, were corporate rights by emphasizing that universities are, by law, corporations. (It’s actually in the name itself: “university,” derived from the Latin universitas, simply means “corporation.”)
Rather than an individual right, academic freedom is, properly understood, what Stanley Fish called “a guild concept.” More specifically, it is a concept belonging to the incorporated guild of professors and students (and others). This theory bases academic freedom not on freedom of speech—a troublesome basis for academic freedom—but on the university’s corporate rights. These corporate rights, not infrequently finding expression in constitutions, are also sometimes constitutional rights. By substituting corporate rights for freedom of speech, we turn a foundation of sand into stone.
It might prove difficult for some in the university to embrace a term they associate only with business corporations, but corporate rights have been, and still can be, used to protect universities. In this connection, it might help to recall the many corporations that are not business corporations, including municipal corporations, nonprofit corporations (often euphemized as “organizations”), church corporations and university corporations.
At a moment when the U.S. Supreme Court seems keen on granting corporate rights to business corporations, one might wonder why business corporations should get all the rights. With state and federal governments increasingly targeting universities, we simply cannot afford to leave these arguments on the table. Understanding and utilizing these neglected corporate rights cases requires shifting our focus, on the one hand, from private to public universities, and, on the other hand, from federal to state courts (where Dartmouth College began).
While the federal government’s recent attacks on Columbia and Harvard have captured headlines across the country, state legislatures continue to menace public universities. Although these universities have, through centuries of experience, become highly familiar with governmental intrusion, they have become less adept at repulsing it than they once were. As a result, one recent article in TheChronicle of Higher Education could observe that “it’s well understood that public colleges are in the thrall of their state lawmakers.” The corporate theory of academic freedom challenges this understanding.
Consider two post–Dartmouth College cases about universities we call public today. The first is an 1887 Indiana Supreme Court case about Indiana University. The second is an 1896 Michigan Supreme Court case about the University of Michigan. Each case furnishes ideas about how to address academic freedom’s most vexing and persistent challenge: protecting public universities from state legislatures.
In an 1887 case called Robinson v. Carr, the Indiana Supreme Court considered what interest rate applied to a fund established by the Indiana Legislature for Indiana University. The statute that established the university fund indicated that any loan made from the university fund would carry a 7 percent interest rate. The trustees of Indiana University, who were established as a “body politic” by the Indiana Legislature, could then use the interest to cover annual university expenses. But a later statute repealed laws concerning certain funds, including “public funds,” and applied an 8 percent interest rate instead. The question as to which interest rate applied therefore turned on whether the university fund was a “public fund.” If it was a public fund, an 8 percent rate would apply; if it was not, the 7 percent rate would remain.
The Indiana Supreme Court concluded that the university fund was not a public fund because “the university, although established by public law, and endowed and supported by the state, is not a public corporation, in a technical sense.” The court meant by this that the Board of Trustees “has none of the essential characteristics of a public corporation.” The university was “not a municipal corporation,” and “its members are not officers of the government, or subject to the control of the legislature in the management of its affairs.”
The court reasoned, “That the university was established under the direct authority of the state, through a special act of the legislature, or that the charter contains provisions of a purely public character, nor yet that the institution was wisely established, and is and should be perpetually maintained at the public expense, for the public good, does not make it a public corporation, or constitute its endowment fund a public fund.” In the final analysis, “the legal status of the state university being that of a technically private, or at most a quasi public, corporation, the university fund, of which it is the sole beneficiary, is therefore not a public fund, within the meaning of the law.” In short, the court’s careful analysis under the corporate framework led it to conclude that the university’s legislative establishment and public funding did not make it public.
Less than a decade after Robinson, the Michigan Supreme Court decided a case called Regents of the University of Michigan v. Sterling. There, the court had to decide whether the Michigan Legislature could require the University of Michigan Board of Regents to relocate its homeopathic medical college from Ann Arbor to Detroit. The Michigan regents had refused to comply with the Legislature’s relocation law, and Charles Sterling, a private citizen, then asked the Michigan Supreme Court to order the Regents to comply.
The court denied Sterling’s request, noting that, “under the [Michigan] constitution of 1835, the legislature had the entire control and management of the university and the university fund. They could appoint regents and professors, and establish departments.” But, after the university languished under this governance model, the people of Michigan withdrew the power of the Legislature to control the university. To that end, the 1850 Michigan Constitution ordained that “the board of regents shall have the general supervision of the university, and the direction and control of all expenditures from the university interest fund.”
The court offered three “reasons to show that the legislature has no control over the university or the board of regents.” First, both entities “derive their power from the same supreme authority, namely, the constitution,” and, “in so far as the powers of each are defined by that instrument, limitations are imposed, and a direct power conferred upon one necessarily excludes its existence in the other, in the absence of language showing the contrary intent.”
Second, the Board of Regents “is the only corporation provided for in the constitution whose powers are defined therein”—whereas “in every other corporation provided for in the constitution it is expressly provided that its powers shall be such as the legislature shall give.” Third, “in every case except that of the regents the constitution carefully and expressly reposes in the legislature the power to legislate and to control and define the duties of those corporations and officers.”
Because the constitution entrusted “the general supervision” of the university to the regents, “no other conclusion … is possible than that the intention was to place this institution in the direct and exclusive control of the people themselves, through a constitutional body elected by them.” The people of Michigan had entrusted the university’s governance to the regents directly, thereby removing the university from the Legislature’s purview. As a result, the Legislature could no longer govern the university.
These 19th-century cases, together with many other state cases like them, contain resources that universities can use to meet today’s extraordinary challenges. (Edwin D. Duryea lists many, but not all, of these cases in the first appendix to his 2000 monograph, The Academic Corporation: A History of College and University Governing Boards.) Indeed, the cases remain relevant today. The Montana Supreme Court’s 2022 decision affirming the Montana regents’ “exclusive authority to regulate firearms on college campuses” borrowed, with slight alterations and no attribution, one of the aforementioned passages from Sterling.
Harvard’s battle with the federal government is truly momentous, but it is one of many that American universities—public and private—have consistently waged for centuries. When these universities rose up to defend their corporate rights, state supreme courts across the country often affirmed those rights. The time has come to assert those rights once again. As state governments, along with the federal government, apply new and in some ways unprecedented pressure, universities can no longer ignore their powerful claims to corporate rights. Continuing to do so may incur costs none of us are willing to pay.
Michael Banerjee, a 2019 graduate of Harvard Law School, is a doctoral candidate in jurisprudence and social policy at the University of California, Berkeley, where his dissertation focuses on universities’ corporate rights.
