But in determining the process for vetting the finalists, a couple of tenacious notions encroached upon our proceedings: angst over any semblance of an exclusionary or elitist process and a quest for so-called enfranchisement. In the past, an unspecified practice of “self-selection,” as senior colleagues used to put it to me, was thought to be sufficient for assuring that the appropriate professionals were involved in the hiring process. But this time, a non-tenure-track faculty member with friends of all ranks was one of the candidates for the position, and the department’s non-tenure-track faculty—which in recent years had grown steadily in size—wished to self-select into the hiring process.

At that point, a general antipathy toward hierarchical structure made it practically impossible for otherwise rational colleagues of all ranks to acknowledge differences in professional roles and responsibilities among the various types of faculty members. As a result, the conversation was dominated by a demand for equal “rights”—not about better pay and benefits for poorly compensated adjuncts, but about professional, institutional decision-making power.

(source: Who Gets a Vote in Departmental Decisions? – Advice – The Chronicle of Higher Education)

when all things are carried by a democracy, although it be just and moderate, its very equality is a culpable levelling, since it allows no gradations of dignity

(source: The Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero, vol. 1 (Treatise on the Commonwealth) – Online Library of Liberty)