The administrator concludes that the university must reduce faculty salaries. Why? Because the university must save money. He suggests two ways it could achieve this: reducing faculty salaries or eliminating faculty positions. The university won’t eliminate faculty positions.

This is the cookie-cutter flaw of creating a false dichotomy. The administrator presents two options for the university reduce its budget—reducing salaries and firing staff. However, he gives no reason to believe that these are the only two options. Perhaps the university could save money by spending less on student dining or facilities maintenance.

Consequently, we can’t conclude that not choosing one of the administrator’s options means that we have to choose the other one.