Who actually runs Columbia University? | Arjun Appadurai and Sheldon Pollock

Trustees aren't academics - and they're often political wolves in sheep's clothing. We need reform to save the American university as we know it

Late on Friday evening, the trustees of Columbia University announced that its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, was leaving her post.

Six days earlier, she had convened an emergency meeting with 75 faculty after the university had cravenly surrendered to the demands of the Trump administration in the hopes of recovering $400m in federal grants and contracts. The president and her staff called their predicament heartbreaking" and sought to reassure faculty that academic freedom and departmental autonomy remained intact.