University: A Reckoning
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Publication Date
1-2026
Description
The American university — one of the most successful institutions in human history — is facing an unprecedented assault from the president of the United States. Experts on authoritarianism have drawn comparisons to Turkey and Hungary, where strongmen subdued universities as part of their power grabs. Yet as former Columbia president Lee C. Bollinger points out in his powerful account of the university’s significance, in such dire times one has no choice but to state clearly and forcefully what one stands for.
Defenses of the university usually emphasize the practical benefits it offers to society: highly skilled graduates who can thrive in an information-saturated world; scientific research that leads to important advances in health; technological breakthroughs that contribute to the American economy being the envy of the world. Bollinger offers a more original, and more sweeping, account. He reveals how the structure of the university contributes to the success of the American system — because it provides those who study and work within it a degree of creative freedom hard to find elsewhere — and why that structure is both impossible to re-create and vulnerable to outside attack. The fundamental mission of the university is to enhance knowledge, but this is not merely a high-minded idea. It is, as Bollinger demonstrates, a notion rooted deeply in the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment, the basis of our political and social life. The university helps realize the First Amendment; the First Amendment helps make the university.
Bollinger argues that, in a challenging era for the business of journalism, the university remains an essential source of truth-seeking for those who still believe in democracy. The stakes are self-evident: The university must be defended if the American experiment is to continue.
Disciplines
Educational Leadership | First Amendment | Higher Education | Law
ISBN
9781324124313
Publisher
W.W. Norton & Company
City
New York, NY
Reviews
“Bollinger delivers a powerful, if idealistic, case for higher education’s ability to challenge the priority of whoever is in power …] slender and forceful volume.”
—Michael S. Roth, The Washington Post
“[A] brief, forceful book …. An idealistic vision of the American university as a place of free thought and socially responsible teaching.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Higher education in the United States, which leads the world, is now under cruel and unrelenting pressure from its own government. The shock has been so sudden and so extreme that few have sought to make the case for American colleges and universities. But now, in this eloquent and convincing book, Lee Bollinger, who has led some of America’s finest universities, rises to their defense. A prominent scholar of American constitutional law, Bollinger’s deep expertise allows him to offer an analysis that is grounded both in a deep appreciation of fundamental American constitutional principles and in a practical understanding of the realities of American higher education. It should be read by all who wish to comprehend the scope and stakes of the current crisis.”
—Robert Post, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Recommended Citation
Bollinger, Lee C., "University: A Reckoning" (2026). Faculty Books. 406.
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/406