Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
ORCID (Links to author’s additional scholarship at ORCID.org)
Abstract
American universities are frequently portrayed as stewards of democracy—sites where dissent is protected, truth is pursued, and diversity is championed. Yet these institutions often betray these ideals, especially under the pressures of donor influence, reputational risk, and political retrenchment. This Essay interrogates the internal contradictions of the university by centering one of its most guarded rituals: faculty hiring. Building on my 2021 article The Soft Shoe and Shuffle of Law School Hiring Committee Practices, I argue that hiring serves as both a performance of inclusion and a mechanism for preserving institutional whiteness, elite networks, and gatekeeping norms. I extend this critique into what I term the governance triangle: the dynamic between internal stakeholders (faculty, students, staff), external actors (trustees, donors, state regulators), and reputational markets (rankings, media, and political optics). Today, this triangle is dangerously out of balance, with reputational risk dominating all other considerations. Institutional decisions are driven by legal risk, donor appeasement, and brand protection. In the post-Trump landscape—amid anti-DEI legislation, donor intimidation, and attacks on academic freedom—universities have become complicit in authoritarian drift. This Essay calls for a radical restructuring of governance that recenters academic mission and saved power. The road back to democratic practice begins with who we hire, how we govern, and the values those decisions encode.
Publication Title
Boston University Law Review
Document Type
Article
Keywords
academic freedom, faculty hiring, higher education governance, legal education, institutional whiteness, donor influence, reputational risk, shared governance
Recommended Citation
Carliss N. Chatman, Performing Democracy, 106 B.U. L. Rev. 101 (2026).
Included in
Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Higher Education Commons, Law and Race Commons, Law and Society Commons, Legal Education Commons
