A four-part investigative series
The Network traces how ideas, organizations, legislation, governing authority, and institutional choices are reshaping American public higher education.
The investigation
The Network traces how arguments developed by policy organizations and political movements travel through legislatures, governing boards, administrative systems, and finally into classrooms. It follows people, careers, money, appointments, laws, and institutional relationships across national, state, regional, and local levels.
The purpose is not to invent a hidden command center. It is to document the visible machinery, test every connection against evidence, and show how power moves. Each installment changes the level of analysis while keeping one question in view: who gets to govern the university, and what happens when authority moves farther from the people who teach and learn there?
Published installments
New installments will be added here as they are published.
Part I · September 2026
The investigation begins with the policy supply chain: how arguments become model policies, legislation, governing authority, administrative direction, and eventually changes inside the classroom.
Read Part I on Substack ↗Part II · September 2026
The investigation moves inside the institution to examine how statutes and political expectations become procedures, incentives, administrative judgments, and changes in academic practice.
Read Part II on Substack ↗