In 1938, Pimenta resisted an invitation (Silva Rêgo, History in times of Fascism, 55) that would implicitly place him at the service of the Academic Council, in other words outlining a clear hierarchy that was not statutorily defined. Pimenta declined since "The Council does not have the statutory authority to make decisions of this nature, and the Academy did not entrust it with such. Some of the Academy's statutes have not been respected at all. The Academy is not made up of children or servants to whom the Council can give orders without further appeal, or specify services to be provided [sic]" (Pimenta, [letter sent to Tovar]). Without other voices to back him on this issue, Pimenta ultimately lacked causal efficacy beyond rejecting from the commission proposed to him. The Council continued to operate vertically. However, this episode marked the beginning of a conflict within the Academy itself that would define the institution in the subsequent decades: to what extent could an academic be independent of the institution?

Initially, the Academic Council had partly consisted of individuals with high social capital within the Regime. Luís Teixeira de Sampaio and the Count of Tovar were diplomats. Manuel Múrias was a publicist. The other members of the initial Council however had limited social capital and high cultural capital. António de Vasconcelos had been the director of the Faculty of Arts in Coimbra; António Baião was the director of the Torre do Tombo, where Laranjo Coelho also worked; Dornelas was a writer. In the early years of the Academy, the first three members eventually left the Academic Council (or were absent from it, in the case of the Count of Tovar). Vasconcelos and Dornelas passed away. Thus, the Academic Council was mainly entrusted to the new 1st Vice-President, Caeiro da Mata who, due to his position as a minister, was not present for much of the day-to-day activities of the Academy. In other words, the Academy remained predominantly in the hands of the two figures who relied the most on institutional positions to wield power: António Baião and Laranjo Coelho.

In fact, it was with these two individuals that Alfredo Pimenta would reignite hostilities between 1943 and 1948. When Pimenta began to write publicly and openly against the Academy, António Baião and Possidónio Mateus Laranjo Coelho tried to use the Academy's rules to remove him for non-compliance with various statutes, including the 13th, which prohibited "public and manifest immoral and civil misconduct" ("Estatutos" art. 13º [Statutes", Art. 13]).

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