In studying the performance of academic systems, one often tries to find out--by inspecting some well-defined parameters--how specific changes in the legal system influence the volume and quality of desired outputs, such as publications, patents, or alumni. This mechanistic approach neglects the fact that the main actors in this spectacle are not passive, but have their own priorities, and actively self-organize in response to any changes in their professional environment. In this contribution, we investigate such collective social behavior using the data for academic promotions in Poland in the years 2011 to 2020. Focusing on degrees higher than the PhD, we analyzed over 12,500 "habilitation" (= higher doctorate) and over 3,000 professorship applications, extracting personal data on academic promotion panel membership along with official roles on the panels. These details were then linked with data on the personal make-up of three consecutive terms of the central body overseeing academic promotions in Poland, "Centralna Komisja do Spraw Stopni i Tytulów" ("Central Board for Degrees and Titles"). As a result, we were able to identify a privileged group of individuals who controlled a substantial majority of academic promotions beyond the PhD degree by virtue of being part of the Central Board. We found that this relatively small group of academics held dominant control over academic promotions by repeatedly serving on promotion panels. Thus, despite the well-meaning intentions of the reformists who had designed it, the Polish system of academic promotions in the past decade can hardly be regarded as based on pure merit.