The Harvard seal
Adapted from an item in Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary’’ in GoLocal24.com
Consider the FBI’s arrest of Charles Lieber, chairman of Harvard University’s Chemistry Department, on charges of making false statements to the Defense Department and to Harvard investigators about his hugely lucrative participation in China's Thousand Talents Program, created by the Chinese government to strengthen China's scientific competitiveness. It’s a reminder of how much the Second Gilded Age money culture has infected academia. With multimillion-dollar payouts to football and basketball coaches and university presidents and huge paydays via outside contracts to professors in the sciences, engineering and business faculties, what had been a calling has been turned too often into a business, instead of a “vocation,’’ in this “nonprofit’’ sector.
And now the U.S. Department of Education is investigating Harvard, Yale and other elite universities for failing to disclose hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts and contracts from foreign donors. How much of this is an honest probe and how much is politically instigated by the fact that most of the leaders of these institutions and their professors oppose the Trump regime is unknown.
For more on Professor Lieber, please hit this link.
