The Case of NYU’s Phantom Philanthropy Records

An interesting story in today’s Washington Square News where my intrepid former colleagues, quite literally, “follow the money” and expose both NYU and the state’s Department of Education as — at the very least — shoddy record keepers, and maybe (but probably not) part of a $30 million fraud conspiracy!

The article in question is interesting for a number of reasons, but especially for its underlying suggestion that NYU may or may not have accepted a $30 million donation from Saudi Arabia shortly after September 11th, lied about it to avoid the public relations shitstorm, and got away with it because neither NYU nor the state agency NYU is required to report foreign donations to can find that year’s records!
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An Ode to John and My Supreme Court Peeps

I took a class last semester with 15 freshmen and taught by NYU President John Sexton. We had a little “class dinner reunion” tonight at the “presidential penthouse” (which, um, is sick), and afterwards, John asked me to make a few “closing remarks” about the class. I kept it brief, but then I thought about it on the walk home, and ended up with 1,300 words. Heh.

I first met John Sexton when I was but a wee freshman staff reporter for NYU’s student newspaper.

I had been assigned the “university senate beat,” presumably because I was the only rookie without class when the senate convened from 2-4 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month, and while Sexton chaired these meetings, I didn’t actually meet him until November.

My other beat (yes, I had two!) was higher education, and in September, Margaret Spellings (the then-Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education) had published a report proposing a series of initiatives to “reform” American higher ed.

Sexton had vaguely criticized the so-called Spellings Report in October, and I had so impressed the paper’s editor by then that when she decided to arrange a sit-down interview about Sexton’s (and NYU’s) “reaction” to the Report, she handpicked me to do it.

“I told Sexton today that you’re coming, too, and now my plan is to sit back and smile and let you interview him,” she said.

Sarah had come to the first senate meeting with me to “show me the ropes;” I remember she would point out who was who among the school’s administrators, and we would write little jokes and comments to each other about the funny (and frequently ridiculous) things people said. Someone, maybe Sexton himself, made some ridiculous remark about NYU as a “gas giant” of American universities, so I drew a picture of Jupiter in the margins of my notebook.

“You take good notes,” she scribbled. More »