A new book titled University Inc.: Corporate Corruption of Higher Education by Jennifer Washburn has found an increasing level of corporate involvement in the university system from the privatizing of food and other services, the patenting of research, and corporate contracts for athletics. In an interview on CorpWatch, author Jennifer Washburn details the myriad ways in which the "corporatization" of universities are having a negative effect on the university system. Frequently, government funded research is being conducted using university resources and then given to corporations, as was the case with a University of Utah professor who discovered a human gene for hereditary breast cancer and then patented it on behalf of his own company, Myriad Genetics, who then refused to allow other academics to do research on their patented gene-while taxpayers funded the initial research at a cost of $4.6 million. Corporations who give universities large donations have been allowed to dictate research topics creating a serious conflict of interest. For example, at Stanford University, a $225 million contract to study global climate change allows Exxon and other corporations to dictate what is studied. Universities must now cater to corporate interests and as such have also begun to crackdown on faculty that, either by speaking out against such partnerships or by research that contradicts the claims of their corporate backers, undermine the relations with corporate interests.

While there have always been serious questions with regard to corporate donors and the potential conflicts of interest at the university, direct corporate involvement in research raises a whole new set of questions about how the university should function. Should the university function based on a model based on the free exchange of ideas or a market-based profit motive where research is conducted for corporate, not public, benefit? And furthermore, what are the ramifications of such a shift?