And it’s easy to understand why the city doesn’t come down hard on the University. It’s because so many arrangements that exist between the two, it’s a delicate balance. Like a few years ago the battle over OxBow Lane getting opened up, was basically over OU withholding funds for a new fire truck for the city of Athens that covered campus. That was a fun time.

I doubt that this is what they are relying on, but the original university charter by the territorial legislature (as American Western University) and later the state legislature charter (as The Ohio University) were granted under the authority of the Confederation Congress, whose authority was passed on to Congress under the Constitution after its ratification. As a result university lands are part of a federal land grant. My father had an attorney friend in Athens who opined often this gave the Ohio University Board of Trustees legal authority greater than any other state university’s trustees. OSU’s land grant under the later Morrill Act, while providing boatloads of money did not provide in its legal wording the same level of control of land. This same attorney felt the the sales of university lands, authorized only by the state legislature, not the Federal government, were illegal, and that, therefore, all the original university lands still technically belonged to the university. Remember, the land grant gave the university all the land in the original larger borders of Athens and Alexander townships. This could be quite a bargaining chip if ever used. Again, I doubt that this answers the question at hand, but it does provide background for the body politic that is the Ohio University Board of Trustees.