"top-down" and "bottom-up" meaning?
What do top-down and bottom-up mean in this paragraph?

There are several difficult issues that still need to be hashed out. For example, although I see a willingness to use trigger warnings as part of pedagogical best practices, I don’t believe their use should be mandatory. There is already too much threat to academic freedom at the moment because of top-down interference from overreaching administrators. But when it comes to the bottom-up pressure from students on professors to adopt practices like giving trigger warnings, I am sympathetic. It’s not about coddling anyone. It’s about enabling everyone’s rational engagement.

from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/sunday/why-i-use-trigger-warnings.html

Question

"top-down" and "bottom-up" meaning?
What do top-down and bottom-up mean in this paragraph?

There are several difficult issues that still need to be hashed out. For example, although I see a willingness to use trigger warnings as part of pedagogical best practices, I don’t believe their use should be mandatory. There is already too much threat to academic freedom at the moment because of top-down interference from overreaching administrators. But when it comes to the bottom-up pressure from students on professors to adopt practices like giving trigger warnings, I am sympathetic. It’s not about coddling anyone. It’s about enabling everyone’s rational engagement.

from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/sunday/why-i-use-trigger-warnings.html

Answer

It's basically just explaining the direction from where the action is coming from. In this case, there's a hierarchy in the school that relates to what is top and what is bottom:

(top)
Administrators
Faculty (professors)
Students
(bottom)

That's why you wouldn't call the actions of students, for example, as top-down pressure, because the students are not at the top of the "command chain".

Answer

Read "top-down" as [from the social status] top [pressing in the direction] downward; read "bottom-up" as [from the status of] bottom [pressing in the direction] upward.

Pressure (or orders) from administration and government are "top-down" pressures; pressure from students (who have lower status) is "bottom-up" pressure.

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