Myth and Reality of University Trusteeship in the Post-Enron Era

14 November 2007 Fordham Law Review 76: 955-79 "Myth and Reality of University Trusteeship in the Post-Enron Era" by José A. Cabranes.  Note:  Judge Cabranes, a trustee of Columbia University, notes how "trustees play no significant role even on major questions relating to the external relations of universities to the government that subsidizes them in so many ways, for example, whether a university should offer its students the opportunity to participate in reserved [sic] officers’ training corps (ROTC) programs.  The usual playbook is this: Trustees are informed by presidents that, for a variety of political or academic reasons, the faculty would find the return of ROTC intolerable and that any action to the contrary by trustees would make the president’s own position within the university untenable. Given the power of the faculties, the president is probably right. In any case, trustees will be reluctant to make the president vulnerable in the polity he knows far better than they."