University students actively participated in the 2019 Hong Kong protests. In this context, the students expected that their universities would support their political stance. Drawing on data from interviews with student leaders, this article documents and examines students' expectations for their university heads, how they interacted and negotiated with university management and how university leaders variously responded to the students' expectations during the social movement. Noting the difficulties in reconciling conflicts over the positioning of the university amid strong political polarisation and social divisions in the society, this article argues that university leaders can only passively adapt to political unrest, and that such passive adaptation exemplifies university's vulnerability to political crises.