Most presidents of Catholic colleges and universities and most theologians on their faculties believe that the mandate compromises the autonomy of these institutions as well as the academic freedom of their professors. It does so by introducing an external, nonacademic agent into the internal academic governance of the college or university, specifically with regard to the appointment, retention, and promotion of faculty, and, by extension, in the designation of which courses individual faculty members may or may not teach and in which departments. The fact that the agent is external is not the whole of the problem. As some defenders of the mandate have pointed out, Catholic colleges and universities are subject to regular scrutiny by external accrediting agencies. What the defenders fail to note, however, is that those who render judgment for the accreditors are academically qualified to do so.
Bishops have no such academic qualifications.
It is therefore the nonacademic, not the external, element that is at the heart of the problem. Only the academic administration of a university or college and the chair and the faculty of its departments are competent to determine who is qualified to be appointed, reappointed, promoted in rank, or granted tenure. Only these agents can decide which courses the faculty can teach and in which departments. If other, nonacademic agents determine such matters, there is no academic freedom or institutional autonomy, the two hallmarks of an institution of higher learning. Without academic freedom and institutional autonomy, a Catholic institution would no longer be a college or university in the commonly accepted academic meaning of the word.