Corruption is Everywhere > What is Harvard teaching our kids? Not moral values, that's for sure.

 

Top Harvard official accused of ethics breach

over $42M paid to his own law firm

By 

Social Links forIsabel Vincent

Published March 7, 2024

 Updated March 7, 2024, 9:09 a.m. ET

One of Harvard’s former top officials was named in two ethics complaints over the Ivy League college paying his law firm nearly $42 million while he served on the school’s governing board.

William Lee and Harvard University could face an investigation by the Massachusetts attorney general over whether the school was right to pay his firm, Wilmer Hale, between 2011 and 2022, when he was serving as one of the school’s most senior leaders.

The Post has learned that the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers and the state’s attorney general have been sent formal complaints accusing Lee of “possible conflict of interest by trustee/director with pecuniary interest in service provider to Harvard.”

And it took 13 years for someone to speak up about this. Surely, the other governors knew what was happening, or are Harvard graduates complete idiots?

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A law firm connected to William Lee, a former chair of the Harvard Corporation, billed the school nearly $42 million while Lee was on the school’s governing board.Wilmer Hale LLP

Both complaints have been obtained by The Post.

Lee’s most recent known work for Harvard included helping former president Claudine Gay prepare for her disastrous appearance before a Congressional committee probing antisemitism on campus in December when she said that whether calling for the death of Jews broke college rules depended on “context,” according to the Harvard Crimson.

The embattled Gay, the school’s first black president, resigned in January amid allegations of plagiarism, after less than six months in the top job.

Lee, who graduated from Harvard in 1972, served on the university’s board of directors from July 2010 to June 2022, and was senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation from 2014 to 2022.

During the time that he served on the Harvard Corporation board, Lee was also a partner at the powerhouse law firm. He was co-managing partner between 2004 and 2011.

Wilmer Hale served as Harvard’s outside counsel in the landmark affirmative action case “Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard,” which was filed in 2014.

Lee served as Harvard’s outside counsel during the trial court phase of the case, until the initial verdict in 2019.

The case was decided by the US Supreme Court in June 2023 in the plaintiff’s favor.

During the 2019 fiscal year alone, Wilmer Hale billed Harvard more than $11 million, according to the complaint to the AG.

As of June 2023, Harvard had paid out more than $27 million in legal fees related to the case, Bloomberg reported, in which the high court held that race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

“Considering the vast resources entrusted to Harvard as a Massachusetts nonprofit corporation, do the circumstances with Bill Lee and Wilmer Hale raise questions about whether Harvard and its board have the necessary corporate governance procedures to avoid conflicts of interest, conflicts of duty or similar issues,” the complaint, which is anonymous, to the Massachusetts attorney general says.

The complaint alleges that “as a member/chairperson of the board, Bill Lee oversaw the Harvard officers and departments that normally manage relationships with outside law firms, such as the university’s general counsel.”

Lee stepped down from the Harvard board in May 2022 and in an interview with the Harvard Gazette, said the things he will miss most are “the personal relationships” with a host of the school’s leaders, including its general counsel.

Despite billing Wilmer Hale millions for legal work between 2011 and 2019, Harvard’s board of directors consistently answered “No” to a question on its annual disclosures to the state about whether a trustee had “a material financial interest” that was not reported as compensation, public documents show.

Harvard answered “No” to a question on an annual form required by the Attorney General in 2019 on whether a trustee or director had “a material financial interest” that was not reported as compensation despite paying William Lee’s firm $11 million that year.Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Office of the Attorney General

The Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers told The Post Wednesday that they could neither confirm nor deny whether a complaint against an attorney had been received.

“It’s confidential,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesman for the Massachusetts AG said their office had received the complaint “but cannot comment on, confirm, or deny an investigation.”

Neither Lee nor Harvard returned requests for comment Wednesday.

Antisemitism in America > Harvard President resigns; NYPD arrests Jew for defending himself

 

Harvard president Claudine Gay steps down

amid mounting controversies

By Steve Leblanc And Collin Binkley  The Associated Press

Posted January 2, 2024 11:13 am

 Updated January 2, 2024 11:48 am

Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned  Tuesday amid plagiarism accusations and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.

Gay is the second Ivy League president to resign in the past month following the congressional testimony. Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, announced her departure just months into her tenure in a letter to the Harvard community.

Following the congressional hearing, Gay’s academic career came under intense scrutiny by conservative activists who unearthed several instances of alleged plagiarism in her 1997 doctoral dissertation. Harvard’s governing board initially rallied behind Gay, saying a review of her scholarly work turned up “a few instances of inadequate citation” but no evidence of research misconduct.

Days later, the Harvard Corporation revealed that it found two additional examples of “duplicative language without appropriate attribution.” The board said Gay would update her dissertation and request corrections.

The Harvard Corporation said the resignation came “with great sadness” and thanked Gay for her “deep and unwavering commitment to Harvard and to the pursuit of academic excellence.”

How is academic excellance reached, or even pursued, when plagiarism is employed? 

Alan M. Garber, provost and chief academic officer, will serve as interim president until Harvard finds a replacement, the board said in a statement. Garber, an economist and physician, has served as provost for 12 years.

Gay, in her letter, said it has been “distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”

But Gay, who is returning to the school’s faculty, added “it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge.”

Gay and the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania came under fire last month for their lawyerly answers to a line of questioning from New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate the colleges’ code of conduct.

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Israel-Hamas bloodshed flashpoint for students across U.S. college campuses

The three presidents had been called before the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce to answer accusations that universities were failing to protect Jewish students amid rising fears of antisemitism worldwide and fallout from Israel’s intensifying war in Gaza, which faces heightened criticism for the mounting Palestinian death toll.

Gay said it depended on the context, adding that when “speech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.” The answer faced swift backlash from Republican and some Democratic lawmakers as well as the White House. The hearing was parodied in the opening skit on “Saturday Night Live.”

Gay later apologized, telling The Crimson student newspaper that she got caught up in a heated exchange at the House committee hearing and failed to properly denounce threats of violence against Jewish students.

"What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged,” Gay said.

The episode marred Gay’s tenure at Harvard — she became president in July — and sowed discord at the Ivy League campus. Rabbi David Wolpe later resigned from a new committee on antisemitism created by Gay, saying in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that “events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped.”

The House committee announced days after the hearing that it would investigate the policies and disciplinary procedures at Harvard, MIT and Penn. Separate federal civil rights investigations were previously opened at Harvard, Penn and several other universities in response to complaints submitted to the U.S. Education Department.

Liz Magill resigned as president of Penn shortly after the congressional hearing.

NYC: Pro-Hamas thugs assault Jewish man

as he puts up hostage posters, 

NYPD arrests victim

JAN 3, 2024 8:00 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER

Daily life in far-left-controlled New York City.

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Antisemitism in America > Presidents of Harvard and Penn protecting Antisemitic rights to call for the Genocide of Jews; Ackman calls for their resignations

 

Presidents of Harvard and Penn say 

calling for genocide of Jews 

not necessarily against their rules

DEC 6, 2023 8:30 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER

The Left and Islamic jihadis: united in hatred of Jews.

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Billionaire who refused to hire anti-Israel grads

demands Ivy League chiefs ‘resign in disgrace’ 

for antisemitism failures

By 

Social Links forNicholas McEntyre

Published Dec. 6, 2023, 6:35 a.m. ET

“The presidents’ answers reflect the profound educational, moral and ethical failures that 

pervade certain of our elite educational institutions due in large part to their failed leadership.” 

“They must all resign in disgrace,” Ackman said before adding that if it was a leader from one of his companies, they’d be gone within the hour.

“Why has antisemitism exploded on campus and around the world? Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context,” he added.

“To think that these are the leaders of Ivy League institutions that are charged with the responsibility to educate our best and brightest.”

Ackman applauded the politicians for how they conducted the hearing, saying they showed “tremendous leadership and moral clarity in their statements,” and it was a “masterclass of how our government and democracy should operate.”

The billionaire’s anger toward the three school leaders was heightened by their behaviors as they sat in front of the elected officials.

“Throughout the hearing, the three behaved like hostile witnesses, exhibiting a profound disdain for the Congress with their smiles and smirks, and their outright refusal to answer basic questions with a yes or no answer.

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Ackman said the school leaders’ answers amplified the failures of the universities.

AP

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Protesters hold a demonstration on Oct. 14 in Cambridge, Mass., to show their support for Palestinians following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

AFP via Getty Images

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Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand with Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza” at Harvard University on Oct. 14, 2023.

REUTERS

Ackman has been a prominent figure in the fight against antisemitism in the US since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, calling for the release of the names of Harvard students who blamed Israel for the attack and the suspension of a Harvard student newspaper editor.

In November, Ackman called for the editor of the Harvard Law Review to face disciplinary action after he was caught on video blocking the way of an individual purported to be a supporter of Israel during a demonstration.

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Brilliant Pushback from CEOs After 34 Harvard Student Groups Blame Israel for Hamas' Terrorism

 

A dozen CEOs back Bill Ackman’s call to not hire Harvard

students who blamed Israel for Hamas attack

By Ariel Zilber

Published Oct. 11, 2023, 6:38 p.m. ET

At least a dozen business executives have endorsed Bill Ackman’s call to refuse to hire members of student groups at Harvard that signed on to a letter blaming Israel for Hamas’ deadly attack on Saturday that killed more than 1,200 people, including at least 22 Americans.

Jonathan Newman, CEO of salad chain Sweetgreen, was among a group of business honchos who seconded Ackman in urging that the signatories of the letter circulated by a coalition of 34 Harvard student groups that “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” be blocked.

“I would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” Newman wrote in response to Ackman’s post on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.

“Same,” David Duel, CEO of health care services firm EasyHealth, wrote in response to Newman.

The backlash and possible blacklisting has led to a flurry of backpedaling by four of the initial student organizations attached to the inflammatory statement — while board members of other groups have quit in an effort to distance themselves.

Late Tuesday, 17 other Harvard groups joined around 500 faculty and staff and 3,000 others in signing a counter-statement attacking the other groups’ letter as “completely wrong and deeply offensive,” according to the campus paper, the Harvard Crimson.

A third letter from nearly 160 faculty members also ripped Harvard’s response to the scandal, writing that it “can be seen as nothing less than condoning the mass murder of civilians based only on their nationality.”

Fears that some of the nation’s brightest young minds had doomed their futures led former Harvard president Larry Summers to caution against singling out students who were “naive and foolish” about what they were signing.

“I yield to no one in my revulsion at the statement apparently made on behalf of 30 plus @Harvard student group,” Summers posted Wednesday on X. “But please everybody take a deep breath. Many in these groups never saw the statement before it went out. In some cases those approving did not understand exactly what they were approving.”

This should be a very good lesson for all university students. They need to understand that their actions are not just fun and games but are part of global movements where thousands of casualties occur. Where babies are mass slaughtered and hundreds of people at a rave are massacred. 

One would think Harvard students would be a little more mature than the average university student, but it doesn't appear that way, especially as the President pleads to forgive his student's recklessness.

I am pretty sure there are some very upset parents with students at Harvard, wondering if their kids will ever be worthy of the expense of their education.

“This is not a time where it is constructive to vilify individuals and I am sorry that is happening,” he added.

This is the perfect time if you ever want your students to grow up.

The former Treasury secretary had taken school administrators to task for failing to explicitly condemn Hamas and denounce the student letter on Monday.

On Tuesday, Ackman, the hedge fund billionaire and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, posted an item on his X social media account demanding that his alma mater release a list of names of those who belong to the student groups that co-signed the controversial statement.

“I have been asked by a number of CEOs if Harvard would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that have issued the letter assigning sole responsibility for Hamas’ heinous acts to Israel, so as to insure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members,” Ackman, who is married to Israeli-born MIT professor Neri Oxman, wrote on X.

“If, in fact, their members support the letter they have released, the names of the signatories should be made public so their views are publicly known.”

“Share the list, please. We’ll stay away,” Ale Resnik, the CEO of Belong, a rental housing startup, replied on X.

Martin Varsavsky, a tech investor and entrepreneur, told Insider that he thought Ackman was “right.”

Michael McQuaid, the head of decentralized finance operations at blockchain firm Bloq, weighed in, writing: “I completely agree, and have been wondering the same the last couple of days if/when the names of these students would come out.”

Michael Broukhim, CEO of FabFitFun, pledged to Ackman: “We are in as well.”

Other executives who signaled their approval of Ackman’s post with an emoji of applause, a thumbs up, or a gesture of agreement include Stephen Ready, CEO of marketing firm Inspired; Hu Montague, founder and vice president of construction company Diligent; Art Levy, head of strategy at payments platform Brex; and Jake Wurzak, the CEO of hospitality group Dovehill Capital Management.

The Post has sought comment from the aforementioned executives.

Groups that have since recanted include Amnesty International at Harvard, Harvard College Act on a Dream, the Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Student Association, the Harvard Islamic Society, and Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo, according to the Harvard Crimson.

Danielle Mikaelian, a Harvard Law student who sits on the board of a group that co-signed the letter, said she resigned due to the “egregious” nature of the statement.

“I am sorry for the pain this caused. My organization did not have a formal process and I didn’t even see the statement until we had signed on,” Mikaelian wrote on her X account.

The pro-Hamas Harvard groups that signed the letter are African American Resistance Organization, Bengali Association of Students at Harvard College, Harvard Act on a Dream, Harvard Arab Medical and Dental Student Association, Harvard Chan Muslim Student Association, Harvard Chan Students for Health Equity and Justice in Palestine, Harvard College Pakistan Student Association, Harvard Divinity School Muslim Association, Harvard Middle Eastern and North African Law Student Association, Harvard Graduate School of Education Islamic Society, Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine, Harvard Islamic Society, Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine, Harvard Divinity School Students for Justice in Palestine, Harvard Jews for Liberation, Harvard Kennedy School Bangladesh Caucus, Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Caucus, Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Women’s Caucus, Harvard Kennedy School Palestine Caucus, Harvard Muslim Law School Association, Harvard Pakistan Forum, Harvard Prison Divest Coalition, Harvard South Asian Law Students Association, Harvard South Asians for Forward-Thinking Advocacy and Research, Harvard TPS Coalition, Harvard Undergraduate Arab Women’s Collective, Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo, Harvard Undergraduate Muslim Women’s Medical Alliance, Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Students Association, Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, Middle East and North African Graduate School of Design Student Society, Neighbor Program Cambridge, Sikhs and Companions of Harvard Undergraduates, and Society of Arab Students.

“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” the letter states, adding: “The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years.”

The letter has since been updated to remove the list of groups that signed it “for student safety.”