Seeing Like a Lawyer: The Legalization of American Higher Education, 1968-2017

• In Event: Sociology of Education Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 17. The Structure of Academe: Graduate Students, Faculty, and Staff

Abstract

In recent years, in-house lawyers have played an increasingly conspicuous role in American higher education. However, the legal lens we take for granted in today’s universities was simply not in place before WWII. What are the social sources of legalization in American higher education, and why are some universities more receptive to this innovation? Using event history analyses and a nationally representative dataset of 235 colleges/universities, we argue that American higher education has become more legalized as university linkages to industry and society grow stronger, as more issues become framed through the lens of individual rights, and as higher education becomes more relevant in shaping societal progress. These institutional processes have generated a more intensively legalized institutional environment, and in-house general counsel roles diffuse in response to these growing external pressures; schools that are linked to a professionalizing field of university attorneys in this environment also adopt in-house general counsel roles sooner. Some school-specific characteristics, like a school’s size, selectivity, and the existence of a law school also shape the diffusion of in-house lawyers. The loss of the traditional authority of the faculty means that more dimensions of university life are reduced to the logic of Weber’s iron cage, but due process and impartiality can also generate great social benefits.

Authors

• Tom Nachtigal, Stanford University

• Jared Furuta, Stanford University

• Francisco O. Ramirez, Stanford University