ABSTRACT
The American university emerged in the context of a complex arrangement of American social and political institutions and traditions that were essential prerequisites for the institutional innovations discussed in this chapter. In this section I want to focus on one aspect of these prerequisites-the civil society and its attendant liberties-that is both ubiquitous and easily overlooked. With many non-democratic governments vying to organize or acquire “world class” universities in their countries, the liberties of speech, association, and organization are often viewed as optional, in stark contrast to Jefferson’s belief that liberty is “the great parent of science and of virtue; and that a nation will be great in both always in proportion as it is free.”1
