WHAT THE ALL-ADMINISTRATIVE UNIVERSITY LOOKS LIKE.

It's not pretty, notes Tulsa philosopher Jacob Howland.  "For all their talk of inclusiveness and transparency, [incoming president Gerard] Clancy, [provost Janet] Levit, and the Board of Trustees would rather burn down the university than listen to anyone else."

We've documented the degradation of Tulsa previously.  The good news is, there are some on the faculty who understand their role as stewards of the university.

After the restructuring bombshell exploded in a slick, highly orchestrated rollout on the morning of April 11, students and faculty moved to protest quickly and decisively. That evening, I wrote to about 50 faculty and 500 students and alumni inviting them to attend a meeting in the Department of Languages the following day, and I pasted into the email an unedited version of my City Journal article. When I arrived for the meeting, over 400 people were present. We moved into the old theater next door, and I found myself leading a meeting at which we formulated key strategies for resistance to the restructuring.

The alumni, recognizing that a self-immolation by a current administration might retrospectively devalue degrees already conferred, also are saying no. (Let's hope that a lot of alumni respond to fundraising letters and 'phone calls with "no money until this Charlie Foxtrot is reversed and terminated with extreme prejudice.)

Some of the administrative tactics are ham-handedly stupid.  How many times, dear reader, must I tell you that our universities are being run by terminally stupid people.  Others backfire.

Last week my university email account and that of the director of the musical theater program—also a leader of the opposition to “True Commitment”—were completely and mysteriously shut down for several hours. The director of TU’s renowned cyber-security program found the excuses of our IT department highly suspicious and advised me to contact the ACLU. The administration also prevented me from speaking on KWGS, the campus NPR affiliate. They originally agreed to allow me to be interviewed, on the condition that they, too, would be interviewed. But they withdrew their interview at the last minute, and KWGS employees, fearing for their jobs, decided not to air mine.

(This proved to be a tactical mistake on the administration’s part. Instead of having 12 minutes on KWGS, I was interviewed and took calls for a whole hour on Pat Campbell’s morning talk show on KFAQ, a Tulsa AM radio station. That led to an interview on Chicago’s “Morning Answer,” a program of WIND AM 560.)

I'm sure there will be more developments, and I'll stay on them.