A governance proposal for widening legitimate participation in universities, research communities and knowledge infrastructure without turning scientific validity into a vote.
A majority cannot vote weak evidence into becoming strong evidence. But institutions make many decisions that are not scientific facts: funding priorities, access rules, hiring processes, platform governance, curricula and the conditions under which dissent can survive. Those choices require accountability as governance choices.
Methods, data quality, replication, critique and domain competence should determine epistemic weight. Voting may settle a procedure; it does not manufacture truth.
Resource allocation, institutional priorities and platform rules affect multiple groups and should expose who decides, on what grounds, with what conflicts and what appeal path.
Academic freedom, privacy, due process and protection from retaliation cannot simply disappear because a temporary majority prefers another outcome.
Protect the right to question. Dissent from dominant theory, institutional strategy or AI-assisted judgment must not itself become evidence of misconduct.
Make evidence and reasons visible. Consequential decisions should point to their criteria, evidence and conflicts, with narrow exceptions for privacy, safety and legitimate confidentiality.
Distribute agenda-setting. Participation is weak if only established gatekeepers may decide which questions ever become discussable.
Keep deliberation competence-sensitive. Equal dignity is not equal evidentiary weight. Different questions require different forms of expertise and affected-party knowledge.
Preserve minority reports. Rejected arguments and unresolved evidence should remain recoverable so future conditions can reopen them.
Build in reversibility. Policies should have review dates, reopening triggers or sunset conditions when uncertainty is material.
Require AI legibility. AI may search, summarize and model options, but material AI influence should remain auditable and contestable under human accountability.
The proposal does not require a total constitutional rewrite. A laboratory, journal, university unit or research network can test bounded mechanisms and measure whether they improve accountability without degrading evidence standards.
Record question, options, evidence, conflicts, owner, decision and review date for consequential policies.
Create a bounded challenge period for high-impact rules and preserve substantive dissent after the decision.
Rotate review roles, disclose conflicts and maintain appeal/post-mortem paths so authority remains revisable.
The short form is designed as a governance heuristic rather than a scientific law.
This is an independent proposal in development. Theory Group keeps outreach receipts, external critique and editorial-submission state separate from scientific validation. One substantive external open-science response has been received; there is currently no confirmed peer-reviewed acceptance or institutional endorsement for the broader BL∞ architecture.