Why Boards Need “Red Lines”

When institutions are placed in challenging situations, we like to think that they are led by boards and executive leaders that make decisions based on a core set of inviolable principles grounded in the organization’s mission and values. Much of the time our expectations are met. Sometimes they are not.

Increasingly, boards are being pressured to make decisions that do not further the mission, violate core values, behave as managers rather than trustees, and jettison principles that have formed the heart of American higher education since the beginning. Too often boards are surprised when these pressures arise, exposing a general lack of planning, thereby forcing them to make decisions and take actions without consideration of the context or consequences of doing so. The crises that result have frequently led to compromise (at best) and capitulation (at worst) with the source of the pressure based on a reasoning that this is inevitably the best course of action for the institution. It’s not.

When boards are willing to capitulate to pressure and compromise principles that they had touted as foundational and inviolable, they jeopardize the integrity of their college, university, or related foundation. When institutional integrity is traded, for example, for a short-term expedient outcome, long-term reputational damage and broken trust can result. For example, consider the long-term consequences for institutions whose boards or executive leaders solicited donations from questionable sources, failed to investigate abuse thoroughly, censored course content, eliminated shared governance, or bent to regularly shifting political winds.

Why do boards and executive leaders risk seriously damaging institutional integrity? In many cases they simply did not plan for how to deal with the intense pressures and power levers like those being wielded now by the federal government, some state governments, and certain influential donors. For instance, it might never have occurred to boards that the federal government could, and would, use research funding as a power lever to force boards to rewrite the curriculum. Thus, the most important step boards and executive leaders must take is to identify the conditions under which compliance, negotiation, doing nothing, or resistance is the appropriate response that addresses the challenge while maintaining institutional integrity.

How do boards do this? They clearly identify and articulate “red lines.”

Red lines are guardrails prohibiting actions or decisions that, if taken, would clearly and unequivocally violate general ethical or legal boundaries which underlie the institution’s mission or values so as to place the institution’s integrity at serious risk. It is the point at which boards and executive leaders say, “this far, no farther”—the point beyond which there is no more flexibility to comply, bend, or negotiate.

Red lines operate similarly to other plans for crises and catastrophic events. As such, they are part of enterprise risk management in regard to governance risks. Think of disaster plans, continuity of operations plans, crisis communication plans, and insurance. Although they might never be needed, when events occur that challenge institutional integrity, red lines provide well-designed and, ideally, well-practiced guidelines for decisions and actions. In practice, red lines map onto the institution’s mission and values, as well as other core operational principles (such as academic freedom and institutional autonomy).

Clearly articulated red lines communicate the board’s and executive leaders’ set of inviolable principles to stakeholders such that responses based on them should be unsurprising and firm. Demands that stop short of red lines are potentially negotiable items; those that reach or cross red lines are not. Red lines also send a message that the board and executive leaders have carefully considered the consequences of invoking them and are willing to accept them in order to protect the institution’s integrity.

AGB suggests a process for identifying and defining red lines in the new edition of its How to Govern for Institutional Autonomy: A Practical Guide for Higher Education Boards.

John C. Cavanaugh is an AGB senior consultant, the former president and CEO of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, former chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, and former president of the University of West Florida.