
My understanding is that this is precisely why they have lifetime appointments — a judge can turn around and piss off those who appointed them and there’s little recourse, because they’ll never be up for election again (similar to the nominal purpose of academic tenure).
I think it’s a pretty bad system and there are a million better ways of doing things, but in this one instance the system is maybe working as (I believe it was) intended (even if she holds pretty reprehensible views in other aspects).
Not a lawyer, not a history buff, so grain of salt and all that…
I don’t know how compensation works in academic administration, but if there’s any vesting going on then you could “take a pay cut” but end up making more due to previous compensation vesting.
Certainly possible for public companies, but again, unsure if that could be the case for a university president…