Power, Property, and the Campus Conquest: Historiographical Perspectives on Higher Education and Eminent Domain

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Saturday 1:45 pm
  In Poster Session: Division J Section 6: Poster Session

Abstract

This historiographical essay examines how scholars have interpreted and debated the role of higher education institutions in urban renewal and eminent domain from the 1940s to the present. Early literature framed universities as civic stewards advancing public good through legally sanctioned redevelopment. Over time, however, scholars have increasingly critiqued these narratives, highlighting the racialized displacement, wealth extraction, and spatial injustice that often accompanied campus expansion. Influenced by critical urban theory, more recent work interrogates universities as entrepreneurial and exclusionary actors. The essay traces this scholarly shift and explores emerging calls for reparative justice. Case studies, including the University of Georgia’s displacement of Linnentown, illustrate how academic discourse has evolved from legitimizing institutional power to exposing its complicity in systemic harm.

Authors

• Jaden Alexandra Mikoulinskii, University of Georgia

• Abigail Affholter, University of Georgia

• Jordan Mackenzie Mitchell, University of Georgia