The Mystery of the University of Tokyo's Presidential Selection: If Winning a Majority Does Not Get You Chosen, What Was the Vote For?

The other day, I was watching YouTube when a University of Tokyo professor made a sarcastic remark about the selection of the university’s president.

Apparently, the person who received the most votes was not chosen, and someone else became the next president.

Come to think of it, I had also seen the story in the news.

What on earth had happened at Japan’s most prestigious university? I was curious, so I looked into it.

Lost Despite Winning a Majority?

In September 2026, faculty and staff at the University of Tokyo took part in a preference poll to help choose the university’s next president.

Takao Someya finished first with 1,107 votes. Yuko Fujigaki came second with 553.

Someya received almost twice as many votes. He also won a majority.

Yet Fujigaki, who placed second, was ultimately chosen. She is due to become the first woman to serve as president of the University of Tokyo.

People inside the university began questioning the decision, and the situation reached the point where even the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology asked for an explanation.

Then What Was the Vote For?

When I looked into it, I found that the vote by faculty and staff was merely an internal “preference poll.”

Final authority rests with a separate selection council.

In other words, the council is under no obligation to choose the person who finishes first in the poll.

Apparently, that is how the system is designed.

But if so, why involve so many faculty and staff members in a vote at all?

Why not simply let the selection council decide from the beginning?

The university explained that it had made a comprehensive assessment of factors including the candidates’ abilities and their plans for managing the university.

However, some people remain unconvinced by the explanation for not choosing the candidate who won a majority.

If promoting women or emphasizing diversity was a priority, the university could simply have stated that clearly as part of its selection policy. I do not know whether that was actually the deciding factor, but when the criteria are invisible, suspicions naturally arise.

If the university had said from the outset, “In the interest of gender equality and diversity, we deliberately chose a woman as president this time,” probably no one would have complained.

Do University of Tokyo Professors Actually Have Little Interest in Their President?

This brings me to what I found interesting about the professor I mentioned at the beginning.

According to him, the university president does not possess as much power as the public might imagine.

What matters most to university researchers is their own research. No matter who becomes president, their daily research lives will not change dramatically.

That is why the professor himself said he was not particularly interested in who became president.

But he could not accept the way the selection was conducted this time.

On top of that, the internet was in an uproar over it.

As a result, he apparently became interested in a presidential selection that he would normally have ignored.

He does not care who becomes president. But when the selection process looks wrong, that is a different matter.

When you think about it, that is a very researcher-like response.

In research, it is not only the conclusion that matters, but also the process and evidence that led to it.

“Why did you reach this conclusion?”

“We made a comprehensive assessment.”

If that were enough to pass peer review, life would be much easier for researchers.

This is Japan’s most prestigious university. At the very least, I would like it to explain the reasons for its selection to a standard that could survive peer review.