Introduction

Poets, politicians, and philosophers have over time reminded us of the dangers of excessive power. ¹ Shelley in one of his better-known poems, Queen Mab, an attack on monarchy, writes: “Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whate’er it touches.” ² William Pitt observed that “unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” ³ Fearful of the danger that it had to curb or destroy liberty, Lord Acton’s observation that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” ⁴ has become almost proverbial. Leibniz concluded that “those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.” ⁵ This book examines the validity of these related propositions in an academic setting. It shows the harmful effects of the imbalance of power between, on the one hand, a mostly vulnerable faculty and, on the other hand, an institution’s governing board and administration with the force of law and custom and all of the school’s resources on their side.