Reading · Academic Freedom on the Line

I must confess that in my couple of decades working inside higher education institutions, I gave very little thought to my institution’s governing boards. These people were vaguely present, occasionally in the news, but for people who essentially have significant power over the direction of the institution, they were largely mysterious.

My sense was that whoever they were, they generally shared the same values I did about the meaning and importance of the institution. To put it even more simply, we all cared, and if caring is the chief criterion, we should be okay.

But as we’ve increasingly seen via public controversies involving boards, our current political era has made these entities major battlefronts as part of the larger conflicts over academic freedom and even democracy in general.

One of the great things about being part of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom is having access to fellows who have specific expertise in these seemingly niche areas that have huge impacts on anyone working in or near higher education.

One of these experts is CDAF fellows Demetri Morgan.

Demetri L. Morgan is an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education in the Center for the Study of Postsecondary and Higher Education. His work focuses on higher education governance and leadership, including how decisions get made at the board and system levels and what it takes for institutions to navigate political, financial, and social pressure without losing their mission. He also studies student political engagement and activism, and how institutions build more sustainable and equitable approaches to STEM education. Morgan is Co-Director of the Center for Strategic & Inclusive Governance (CSIG) and a fellow with the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. He will be a featured speaker in CSIG’s Building Better Boards webinar, “The 2026 Governance Agenda,” on Tuesday, March 3, 2026 (virtual via Zoom). Register here at this link.

John Warner: What’s your take on what’s happening in Virginia with the changing of the governing boards? Speaking personally, on the one hand, it seems like not a great thing if public higher education institutions have massive partisan swings from administration to administration. On the other hand, I think there was lots of evidence that the now former rector did at least a little conspiring with the Trump Justice Department to force the previous president out.

Demetri Morgan: I have a million takes, but for the sake of your readers’ time, I’ll offer two that I think are the most useful.

First, I’m actually less rattled by partisan turnover than some people expect me to be. Every system for selecting trustees has tradeoffs, and those tradeoffs get magnified when things go sideways. So the question of whether board members are appointed, elected, confirmed, nominated by alumni groups, or any other variation is not irrelevant, but it’s also not the whole story.

What I find more concerning is how quickly public conversation collapses into the same narrow checklist: How did they get on the board? What do they do for work? How much did they donate? Who do they know? That information isn’t meaningless, but it’s rarely enough to tell you what kind of governing board you actually have. It also encourages a kind of “gotcha” approach to governance that makes for good headlines and not necessarily better institutions.

Second, I want us to put at least as much attention into what happens after someone becomes a trustee. Board onboarding, continuing education, and professional development matter more than people assume. Most trustees are smart and accomplished. That’s not the issue. The issue is that higher education is a weird sector, and governance is a specific craft. If we want better boards, we should be as interested in what trustees are learning, how they’re being supported, and what norms are being set as we are in the politics of appointment.

John Warner: Maybe I should back up for a minute. What kind of precedents are there for what’s currently happening in Virginia? Is this something entirely new or more of a shift in degree? I’m thinking of Florida, where DeSantis has steadily put loyalists and ideologues into governing board positions. Partisanship is not new, but what’s the bigger picture?

Demetri Morgan: This is the right question because it helps us level set. Partisanship in appointments isn’t new. In most states, governors come in with a plan for staffing commissions, boards, advisory groups, and a whole range of roles that blend public service, influence, and symbolism. That’s politics. Sometimes it’s strategic, sometimes it’s patronage, and often it’s both. The idea that elected leaders want governance partners who aren’t hostile to their priorities is not some recent development.

What does feel different is the intensity of attention and the degree to which higher education boards have become a more visible battleground in broader cultural and political fights. Historically, many board appointments were important, but they weren’t always treated as high-profile moves in a national storyline. Today, they’re more likely to be read that way. And when board politics are connected to larger political networks and media ecosystems, the temperature rises fast.

So part of what’s new is the moment: people are paying closer attention, the stakes feel higher, and the swings feel sharper. It’s not that the logic of political appointment suddenly appeared. It’s that boards are now more clearly in the public line of fire, and that changes how every board move gets interpreted. Some of this heightened attention tracks with the broader visibility of K–12 school board fights over the last few years.

John Warner: Thinking even more generally, what can you help us understand about the costs of this kind of discontinuity in governing boards? It’s obviously disruptive to some degree, but at the same time, I have to believe that some turnover is good and necessary, and in the case of Virginia, what’s been happening at UVA and elsewhere was an issue during the election itself. The public spoke and affirmed that they wanted a different choice at their universities. Is this just the cost of democratic governance?

Demetri Morgan: I want to answer this carefully because there’s a common assumption built into the question: that big turnover automatically creates chaos, the way it might if a university suddenly lost its president, provost, and half the cabinet.

Boards often don’t work like that. Almost all boards have a board professional. Sometimes it’s a dedicated position, sometimes it lives with counsel or another office, but their job is to keep the board functioning: to maintain organizational memory, support the chair, manage process, and ensure the work moves forward. That means even when trustees change, there’s usually a stabilizing backbone that helps the board keep its footing.

Now, that doesn’t mean turnover is cost-free. There’s always a learning curve. Relationships matter. Trust matters. Norms matter. If those are weak, turnover can absolutely make a board more reactive or more performative, especially in a highly politicized environment.

But the second part of your question is important: I’d actually be concerned if an incoming administration had no ability to shape or align governance with its broad vision. Elected officials have a mandate and a limited window. They need governance partners who, at minimum, aren’t committed to blocking everything they’re trying to do.

At the same time, there have to be guardrails. Alignment cannot mean turning boards into partisan instruments. It can’t mean treating universities as political spoils. And it shouldn’t come at the expense of academic freedom, shared governance, or basic institutional stability. So yes, elections have consequences. But higher education also requires norms that hold even when politics shift. The real question isn’t whether there will be turnover. It’s whether the norms and training are strong enough that turnover doesn’t become institutional whiplash and move institutions away from their espoused mission.

John Warner: Your work is focused on helping governing boards be and do better. I want to work through some of that. What do we know about how boards are selected and composed in terms of the quality of governance or institutional success? Is there an ideal?

Demetri Morgan: I don’t think there’s an ideal model in the way people hope there is. There are better and worse design choices, but no selection system magically guarantees a functional board.

Where I do think we make a major mistake is in assuming that the “right” people, once appointed, will automatically govern well. Most trustees are what we would conventionally call “successful”: high-achieving professionals, leaders in medicine, business, or law, major donors, civic leaders. And we tend to assume that their résumé is proof that they’ll be effective board members.

That assumption can be damaging. Higher education is not a standard business - it’s business-like in a lot of ways, but it’s also distinct - it’s its own entity and sector. The mission is different, the stakeholders are different, the accountability structures are different, and the time horizons are different. Being excellent in another domain does not automatically translate into being excellent at stewarding a university through complexity.

So when I talk to boards, I usually try to unsettle them a bit: trustees are often undertrained for the job they’ve been asked to do. And when I talk to faculty, staff, and students, I’m honest there too: it’s easy to critique governance from the outside, but it’s harder to actually grapple with the complexity of steering a modern institution. We need more people willing to get into the governance work seriously, not just treat it as something that happens “over there.”

The untried-at-scale move is straightforward, but it requires commitment: build ongoing opportunities for trustees to learn how to govern well, and build shared understanding across the institution about how governance partners can work together without slipping into mistrust, micromanagement, or disengagement. That’s less flashy than arguing over who got appointed. But it’s where the long-term gains are.

John Warner: If a state’s governor came to you and said that they want to make sure that the boards of their state institutions function well without the kind of disruption we’re seeing in Virginia or the heavy-handed actions we’re seeing in states like Florida, Texas, and South Carolina. What do you tell them?

Demetri Morgan: I would tell them, plainly: take trustee learning seriously, and make it ongoing.

Call it training, professional development, education, or whatever language works in that context. But structure it so it’s rigorous, research-informed, and manageable given trustees’ time constraints. That last part matters more than people think. Unlike many corporate boards, trustees of public institutions typically aren’t paid honoraria. There may be reimbursements or access to events, but it’s not a lucrative job - it’s essentially a high-profile volunteer role. Which means there are fewer levers to pull when you’re asking people to do more, learn more, and show up differently.

So you have to design an experience that makes sense. Not a one-off retreat that feels like a box-check. A sustained pathway that helps trustees understand the sector, their role, and the norms that protect the institution from both overreach and drift.

Boards need support to learn the real work: what students need today to thrive; why academic freedom and shared governance are not just things spoiled faculty lament about but part of how universities produce knowledge credibly; what norms help boards avoid the trap of micromanaging on one end or being detached on the other; and how to partner productively with presidents and senior leaders without collapsing into suspicion or deference.

Those and other critical topics are huge. They’re far too big for a day-and-a-half retreat, which is all some boards get. If a governor wants boards to function well, the best move isn’t just focusing on who gets appointed. It’s staying invested in what trustees are learning, what the board is becoming, and whether the governance culture is strong enough to handle inevitable political change without turning the institution into a ping-pong ball.

Governing Boards Need to Learn to Govern

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