A TPM Reader passed on to us this post from David Pozen writing at Balkinization on the recent events at Columbia University. But Pozen sets aside the specific controversy — Gaza, antisemitism, the use of the NYPD — to look at what is shows about university governance more generally. As he writes, “For all the talk of how the modern university has been corporatized, neoliberalized, and so on, there hasn’t been as much attention paid to the ways in which it has been presidentialized.” I don’t know enough about the history of the internal governance of universities over the last century to have a good feel for how much has changed on this front. My general sense is that boards of trustees, acting through university presidents, have always called the shots, at least in the final analysis. But there’s where ultimate power lies and there’s how government actually functions — how much university administration seeks to create consensus among major stakeholders versus acting in a more unilateral way. I’m still digesting what I think of the post but I wanted to flag it to your attention.
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Let me update you on my search for details on the hooligans who attacked the UCLA Gaza encampment last Tuesday evening. First, there was this very good piece in The New York Times about the incident. It’s one of those full-force endeavors where they mobilize a host of journalists and digital forensics experts to pick apart just how an event took place. What was notable to me though was that despite all the moment-by-moment detail and the review of a huge amount of video about just how the attack unfolded and what was involved, it included no information about who the assailants were.
I note this not as a criticism of the journalism but as a measure of just how hard it seems to be to track this information down.
One thing that bedevils current polling on the 2024 presidential race are basic questions about just who will show up and what the electorate will look like. That’s always central to polling and it becomes much more central when the race is tight. (If it’s a 45-55 race the precise composition of the electorate becomes less important.) But take the new Ipsos/ABC News poll out today. The headlines that are running focus on the number for Adults — which are Trump +2. Go to registered voters and it’s Biden +2. Go to likely voters and it’s Biden +4.
Read MoreIt’s possible there have been other polls. But this one released by YouGov is the first I’ve seen since recent events at Columbia, UCLA and other colleges and universities around the country. It shows a very interesting picture — both that the protests are not very popular with the American public but also that — which of course we know — they’re highly complicated for Democratic candidates.
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