William Sjostrom wonders who speak for universities.

No academic should ever append to a piece that the views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the university, because universities do not have views on policy matters extraneous to the university.

When the war started in Iraq, a group protesting the war asked the faculty union to support them. As a member of the union executive, I opposed the idea, on the grounds that to do so would interfere with the academic freedom of the union's members to explore, study, and express views on the war. For reasons entirely obscure to me, I succeeded. A good day for academic freedom.