To comprehend those events, we need to understand other forces acting on administrators, including the fear of bad publicity and threats of litigation. Administrators are bombarded with directives (from in-house counsel, outside risk-management professionals, the school’s public relations team, and the upper echelons of the administration) that they must limit the university’s legal liability in everything from personal injury lawsuits to wrongful termination, and from intellectual property to wrongful-death actions.
