Ha! We do that all time at the university and nobody cares. At all. Nothing happens. Ever. It is somewhat infuriating, to be honest!
Are you saying that academia is "not the real world" ?
Universities are a unique creature where ideas and debate are the whole point, “more so than getting things done.” That’s also part of the “real world” in some sense, but it isn’t the world nearly all of us reside in. I would recommend any organization that wants to be successful outside of that unique context to not emulate the model of universities. That includes non profits and NGOs. Hierarchy exists almost universally in human organizations. That’s not an accident—it’s necessary for groups of humans working together to be effective.
Saying it's "not the real world" is unfairly denigrating, but people have made the argument that academia is it's own bubble with different rules to the world of private enterprise. Challenging existing ideas is a core tenet of higher education, but that can cause blowback in the private sphere. The existence of tenure, and sidelining of the profit motive (not quite elimination) also changes things.
We are all in the same world; this whole "you are not real enough" argument is ridiculous, and doesn't really mean anything.
People in academia do not. The fact that you missed this and thought comparing the number of people in a particular industry subset of a capitalistic enterprise to academia would somehow prove a point basically shows me how poor the thought/logic skills are in academia... The one thing they're supposed to be better at.
Even though they too act like businesses, because of 500-year precedents, wouldn't be a fair comparison.
If you are attempting to compare liberties those in academia have to corporate employees e.g. most people who are employed, no its not like the "real world".