HE PLAYED A WEAK TRUMP. Southern Mississippi president Shelby Thames has opened up a can of whoop-ass on himself, which is what happens when you attempt to take a trick with the ten of diamonds. Opiniatrety has weighed in, as has Charles at Liberty and Power, who correctly observes,

It is sad, but true, that we professors rarely act in concert, even when it is a matter of our own defense, or the defense of the disciplines we represent. That has got to to change. The administrative elite that now runs most of our colleges want to operate them like businesses, which means creating a flexible and pliable workforce that can hired and fired at will.

It also means that the core functions of scholarship and teaching are likely to be neglected, which must gladden the hearts of educated people in India, China, Taiwan, and other industrializing countries.

Mr Justice Volokh concurs:

Academic freedom also embodies a tradition of internal governance, by which many of the decisions about the way the university operates are made by faculty, or at least with the advice of faculty. This self-governance is preservative of other aspects of academic freedom, but it's also supposed to be helpful in maintaining the quality of research and teaching as well. To my knowledge the norm in serious American universities is that the faculty get to make many decisions, such as hiring, curriculum, academic standards, and so on, and while the administration may sometimes veto some such decisions, and may take the lead in other decisions, the faculty generally plays a serious and important role (sometimes as the primary decisionmakers and sometimes as influential advisors).

If this is so, then the faculty -- as joint governors of the school -- must have the right to criticize the administration, which must of course include the right to investigate alleged resume fraud by the University's vice president of research. If the University is right that the faculty members whom it's trying to fire engaged in defamation (i.e., were themselves lying) or real misuse of university facilities, then its actions might well be proper. But if the University is just trying to silence faculty members whose criticisms it sees as disruptive, that's very dangerous indeed. Shared governance, whether in Washington, D.C. or in a university, necessarily involves some disruption and tension. Trying to eliminate that disruption and tension is impossible unless one abandons the shared governance project.

Amen. See also Ralph at Cliopatria with commentary and additional linkage. Still no word from Southern Miss's most famous alumnus, Brett Favre. (Perhaps that's as it should be. Shelby Thames is clearly no Warren Sapp.)