Billionaire Michael Steinhardt, founder of a charter school chain called “Hebrew Language Academies,” was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment.
A story in the New York Times began:
“Sheila Katz was a young executive at Hillel International, the Jewish college outreach organization, when she was sent to visit the philanthropist Michael H. Steinhardt, a New York billionaire. He had once been a major donor, and her goal was to persuade him to increase his support. But in their first encounter, he asked her repeatedly if she wanted to have sex with him, she said.
“Deborah Mohile Goldberg worked for Birthright Israel, a nonprofit co-founded by Mr. Steinhardt, when he asked her if she and a female colleague would like to join him in a threesome, she said.
“Natalie Goldfein, who was an officer at a small nonprofit that Mr. Steinhardt had helped establish, said he suggested in a meeting that they have babies together.
“Mr. Steinhardt, 78, a retired hedge fund founder, is among an elite cadre of donors who bankroll some of the country’s most prestigious Jewish nonprofits. His foundations have given at least $127 million to charitable causes since 2003, public filings show.
“But for more than two decades, that generosity has come at a price. Six women said in interviews with The New York Times and ProPublica, and one said in a lawsuit, that Mr. Steinhardt asked them to have sex with him, or made sexual requests of them, while they were relying on or seeking his support. He also regularly made comments to women about their bodies and their fertility, according to the seven women and 16 other people who said they were present when Mr. Steinhardt made such comments.
“Institutions in the Jewish world have long known about his behavior, and they have looked the other way,” said Ms. Katz, 35, a vice president at Hillel International. “No one was surprised when I shared that this happened.”
“Mr. Steinhardt declined to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, he said he regretted that he had made comments in professional settings through the years “that were boorish, disrespectful, and just plain dumb.” Those comments, he said, were always meant humorously.”
Steinhardt insisted he was joking. The women who spoke up did not get the humor.
Is there something about billionaires that makes them believe they are irresistible and invincible?
Steinhardt’s Hebrew language charter schools are part of a growing chain that operates in several cities. Its students are ethnically diverse but classes are taught in English and Hebrew. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $5 million to the chain, though it was never in need of external funding.
Michael Steinhardt’s daughter Sara Berman is chair of the chain’s board.
Since Hebrew is a spoken language only in Israel, it is not clear what the value of Hebrew is to Black and Hispanic students.
Steinhardt endowed the New York University School of Education, which bears his name, as well as the conservatory at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the SteinhardtGallery at the Metropoitan Museum of Art.
Steinhardt made his fortune as a hedge fund manager. He overcame inauspicious origins. According to Wikipedia, Steinhardt’s father Sol was a compulsive gambler and a notorious “fence” for stolen jewelry. He hung out with “underworld crime bosses Meyer Lansky, Vincent Alo (aka “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo), and Albert Anastasia (he was out gambling with Anastasia the night before he was killed). Sol, aka “Red McGee,” was later convicted on charges of buying and selling stolen jewelry and sentenced to five to ten years in prison.”
A gambler and criminal in one generation produces a successful hedge fund manager in the next. Hmmm. Food for thought.
I’m probably going to get myself thrown back into moderation for saying this, but I have to ask: is there a reason why we believe the two women accusing Mr. Steinhardt but we don’t believe the eight women accusing Al Franken? Is it because we like Franken but not Steinhardt? Franken is a good liberal and Steinhardt is not?
For the record, I believe all ten women (along with the women who accused Brett K and Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore and Bill Clinton and, and, and….). I’m just curious about the differences between certain cases.
Six women accused Steinhardt, not two, and one filed a lawsuit.
Why do you say two?
“But for more than two decades, that generosity has come at a price. Six women said in interviews with The New York Times and ProPublica, and one said in a lawsuit, that Mr. Steinhardt asked them to have sex with him, or made sexual requests of them, while they were relying on or seeking his support. He also regularly made comments to women about their bodies and their fertility, according to the seven women and 16 other people who said they were present when Mr. Steinhardt made such comments.”
More than six, with witnesses.
Dienne,
Why do you think you would be in moderation for defending Steinhardt’s innocence?
That’s your view and you are welcome to doubt the six women and believe Steinhardt.
Since you asked, I will try to explain since you seem confused about the differences between Franken, Weinstein, Moore, Clinton, and Steinhardt and what they are accused of doing.
“Six women said in interviews with The New York Times and ProPublica, and one said in a lawsuit, that Mr. Steinhardt asked them to have sex with him, or made sexual requests of them, while they were relying on or seeking his support.”
If you meet a stranger at a bar and you start talking to him and he tries to make a pass, which you deflect, causing him to walk away and not continue to try to sexually assault you, that is NOT the same as sexual harassment. Not understanding that there is a power arrangement that defines the harassment is very important. If you are at the bar with your boss at work and he makes a pass, THAT is very different than a stranger or acquaintance with no power over you making a pass.
I’m not sure why you are inventing falsehoods that liberals judge sexual harassment based on whether the accused is liberal or not.
Harvey Weinstein is “liberal”. He used his power — and threats, both implied and real about hurting or promoting someone’s career — to sexually harass and assault women. If he was Harvey, the middle aged Home Depot clerk who invited a woman who worked in a grocery store 5 miles away on a date, and made an unwanted pass, she would deflect it. If he continued despite her saying no, he would be sexually assaulting her. If he leaves because the woman who made a pass at said she wasn’t interested, he hasn’t sexually harassed her (at least in my mind). If he had driven her to a dark, lonely place far from anywhere, that would change things and more information would be needed because in that case she could feel he had power over her.
But Weinstein wasn’t a Home Depot clerk. He used his powerful position in the industry as a threat so that his actions toward women whose career could be harmed by him to coerce them.
Al Franken was accused of being handsy with a woman he worked with in a show in which there was a lot of hands on touching between the performers (as witnessed by his accuser touching a man during the performance). He should not have done that but even her story made it clear he did not continue when she asked him not to. The photo makes everyone who was there look bad since someone had him pose for it, someone took the photo and someone thought it was so harmless that they included it in a memory book (because he obviously wasn’t touching her and she was wearing body armor over where he was pretending to reach!) By all accounts every single person who didn’t stop that and who saw that photo is guilty yet none of them have apologized. Some of the other cases — where a stranger was asking for a photo and Franken squeezed them — are not even near the same instance. Most notably, Franken wanted these investigated. Franken did not try to shut down the women and destroy them — although there was certainly a lot he could have done to do so — but asked for a full investigation.
Compare that to what Kavanaugh did when he was accused of a much worse crime than being handsy or posing for an sexually inappropriate photo. Kavanaugh didn’t call for a full investigation. He instead attacked his accuser, something Franken did NOT do.
Let’s compare Kavanaugh to how Bill Clinton was investigated. Bill Clinton’s accusers had a prosecutor who absolutely despised Bill Clinton working to help them accuse Clinton. Ken Starr had more power than any prosecutor in history to subpoena absolutely anyone he wanted and force them to answer his questions under oath or he sent them to jail. Ken Starr started his all-powerful investigation in August of 1994 — and that was AFTER a different Republican had spent years investigating Clinton and found nothing.
And then Starr spend another 4 years plus trying to “get” Clinton on something — including fully investigating every single accusation against Clinton. In the end, the only thing Starr found was a consensual sexual relationship that stopped short of intercourse because Clinton did not want to “go all the way”. And it’s not as if Starr didn’t have more power and desire than any prosecutor in history to “get” Clinton on one of the other sexual harassment/assault charges. Starr just kept finding evidence that discredited the women accusing Clinton, even though he was desperate to find evidence to corroborate it.
Back to Kavanaugh, who was NOT investigated by a left wing Democrat given all-powerful subpoena power to interview all witnesses under oath. Instead, Kavanaugh had a one week investigation in which the investigators were limited in who they could talk to.
I find it offensive that you would accuse people like me of condoning sexual harassment or sexual assault by Democrats because we understand that the difference between how Clinton was investigated and Kavanaugh was investigated was like night and day. There is a reason to believe Clinton and doubt Kavanaugh — one got the most comprehensive investigation by an all-powerful prosecutor who hated him and wanted to get him and the other got a whitewash.
Ray Moore was accused of having sex with a minor. He was an adult AND he was in a power relationship with her. Again, for you to equate that with Al Franken being too handsy with people who could walk away truly shocks me.
Steinhardt is being accused by quite a few women who were relying on him and seeking his support. I sure hope those women have a prosecutor with the power of Ken Starr to make sure their charges are given full hearing. I sure hope it isn’t the whitewash of the faux investigation given to the charges made against Brett Kavanaugh.
I hope this helps. This has nothing to do with being a democrat or republican. Why are you so certain that it does?
My other comment is not posting so I hope this one will.
Clinton’s accusers had a right wing Republican all-powerful prosecutor with unlimited subpoena power and time — Ken Starr — working with all the power of his office and the unlimited time (over 4 years!) and budget to prove that the Clinton accusers’ charges had some merit. He could not.
Kavanaugh’s accusers had an investigation overseen by a member of his own party in which the investigators had a few days to do a limited investigation of the charges with the intention of proving they were not true.
That is the “differences” between certain cases and to me, it is quite stark. In fact, I have to wonder about the agenda of anyone who insists the accusations in both these cases were treated equally and does NOT understand the difference.
You’re kidding!!! A charter founder with questionable ethics? Quelle surprise!
An interesting thought…
Billionaires are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to shape public education to their own visions, imposing their ideas on the public, and attacking our democratic values…
They obviously have more money than they can possibly need…their homes and cars and yachts and planes are all paid for, many times over.
The money that has been spent on the privatization movement, just imagine…
if it had been spent to support our public structures and institutions…
would have helped tens of millions of Americans, and would have created less crime, less hardship, and less division in our nation…think of the new ideas and inventions, and the countless opportunities that ordinary Americans would have been able to achieve and attain…
The billionaires simply have an over-abundance if they are buying elections in states they do not live in.
The solution is so simple, yet few potiticians want to face the answer…
Tax them to prevent their meddling in the lives of others, and use the monies to strengthen our nation, and our public foundations!
Politicians…legislators…governors…senators…
Wearing an American flag on your jackets looks great when you are on television or in front of the camera, or are running for office…but wearing a $5 dollar flag pin doesn’t make you an American…it’s your actions that count…
A challenge to all…for them to decide where they stand…
Dienne may have a bit of a point. I’ll be interested in whether we ever get a post here about Morris Dees and the workplace climate at the Southern Poverty Law Center when the facts behind his firing become more concrete and public.
FLERP,
I hope the story of what happened at SPLC comes out. I expect it will.
But I don’t see the false equivalence: if we don’t know what happened at SPLC, then the multiple women who accused Michael Steinhardt of sexual harassment can’t be trusted?
Not saying that at all. Just waiting to see if the SLPC details, if and when they come out, get featured prominently here (assuming the story that comes out is consistent with the vague statements we’ve heard so far about sexual harassment, workplace abuse, and racism at SLPC). I also wonder whether they wouldn’t have already been featured on this blog if Morris Dees had been a big time charter booster.
FLERP,
It’s not my job to report on every sex scandal of the #metoo era. When people who call themselves reformers and lecture the rest of us about how to live are caught in a scandal, it gets my attention. I feel no need to report what happened inside SPLC, if it should come out. They are a great force for good. No one got rich filing lawsuits against gross misjustice. The story that gets my attention is when hypocrites get caught. Morris Dees did a world of good, unlike the Sackler family, which became multibillionaires marketing opioids. They have 200,000+ ghosts flitting around their mansions. Dees does not. He did good works.
I agree you have no reporting obligations.
Am I missing something here? Is Diane Ravitch supposed to mention every man accused of sexual harassment on her blog? Because there are a lot of others who haven’t been mentioned.
Is it that Morris Dees is at the SPLC and they actually try to protect the rights of children in public schools? So the innuendo by FLERP! is that is why he wasn’t mentioned?
There was a discussion about Rafe Esquith on here thanks to posts by Diane. Rafe is not a “big time charter booster”. There may have been a discussion of Weinstein but I can’t recall. But there were no posts about Aziz Ansari. Nor Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Spacey, John Hockenberry and a lot of other men.
Thanks, NYCPSP. I also didn’t write about Woody Allen. I was on Charlie Rose’s show and he didn’t make a pass. Was it me?
Diane, you did mention Jeremiah Kittredge from Families for Excellent Schools who had to resign in disgrace and brought the entire organization down with him. Maybe you weren’t allowed to do that if you didn’t mention every one of the other 250 powerful people (according to vox) who have been accused of sexual harassment.
I would ask FLERP! the same question about why he is asking about why you didn’t post about Morris Dees but FLERP! never asked you why you didn’t post about Steve Wynn, Israel Horovitz, Sherman Alexie, Geoffrey Rush, Les Moonves, Tom Brokaw, Ryan Seacrest, Mike Bloomberg or many, many more.
Why the focus on Morris Dees? Is he more important to mention than Leon Wieseltier, who I believe, to her utmost shame, Diane Ravitch also failed to mention on this blog? (Sorry, Diane, I was just joking about the shame).
The difference is the SPLC strives to make the world a better place. What a person(s) have done within the SPLC will receive scrutiny.
Ed deformers, through billionaire-funded organizations that corporatize and privatize the common good, make the world a worse place.
A blog host rightfully focuses on the wrong doing of the latter.
That wasn’t Diane’s explanation, but it may the real one.
That’s wasn’t Diane’s explanation, but your rationale may be the real one that’s at work. We’ll see.
FLERP-
FINRA is a self-regulatory entity for financial institutions like TIAA. The Federal Reserve has regulatory powers over banks. Do you know what regulatory body covers charter funders like Capital Impact Partners and the Charter Schools Growth Fund?
Lucie Aubrac (a French history teacher), Jean Moulin and Germaine Tillion fought for the greater good- France’s democracy. In my view, if someone like you or Dienne 77 wrote and submitted some whining plea for “fair and balanced” treatment for the opposition, in the pamphlets of the Resistance, the mildest rebuke you should expect is, WTH?
Bill Gates funds almost all of the education news, the ed policy makers, a vast PR machine that burnishes his image and that astroturfs for his plots. Z-berg’s Board includes Marc Andreesen who said, India was better off under colonialism, Reed Hastings, who called for an end to democratically elected school boards and Peter Thiel, who described women voting in a capitalistic democracy as an oxymoron. Gates and Z-berg mask their oligarchy by funding establishment Dems, giving voters no choice but the right and far right agendas.
You and Dienne 77 should spin your wheels telling hedge funds and tech monopolists to be “fair and balanced”.
Thank you.
Diane,
What you are doing for democracy earns your place in history.
It’s an honor to be a guest in your blog living room.
Well, thank you, Linda. The time will come when this blog disappears. Not soon, I hope.
The blog will never end. By writing and posting the work, an immortal testament has been created. The dedication and idealism of one amazing person who knew at her core what was right for students, communities and the nation can’t be extinguished any more than Gandhi’s legacy.
Billionaire Robert Kraft who spent millions so that charters would be expanded in Mass. has, reportedly opted for a non-jury trial before a judge for the spa-related charges. He’s assembled a legal dream team. Without seeing the videotape that led to the charges or the prosecutor’s case, let’s predict the outcome for a rich person like Kraft who is politically connected. My speculation- the only people who will suffer any consequences are the trafficked Chinese women.
People in Trump’s circle received very short sentences because Mueller requested short sentences. A judge gave a short sentence to the one person that Mueller didn’t recommend for a short sentence. America’s system.
It’s curious that your headline identifies Steinhardt solely as “billionaire charter founder” when his philanthropy has included many other subjects. In fact, the linked article says the following: “A lifelong New Yorker, Mr. Steinhardt has given millions to city institutions. N.Y.U. Steinhardt is New York University’s largest graduate school, with programs in education, communication and health.” According to the NYU website, that’s the very same Steinhardt School where you are listed as Research Professor. You might have called him Ravitch Benefactor, no?
John Arnold, formerly of Enron and hedge funds spends big at universities. For example, he funds centers within education departments that function designing private education products and the marketing for them. Arnold’s money is in the same coffers with DeVos’ Dept. of Ed. grants for her privatization agenda.
Koch’s grants to universities come with strings attached in terms of professor hiring and curriculum. What the contracts of current university donors look like and how much academic independence and how much service to the oligarchy they provide, is the subject of a current court win by students at George Mason University. Smith, you can read about it at UnKochMyCampus.org.
AEI’s Frederick Hess co-wrote with a an employee of a Gates’ funded organization, the oddly titled, “Don’t Surrender the Academy”, (Philanthropy Roundtable). The authors told us the self-appointed ed reformers wanted to “blow up the ed schools” because they didn’t buy into the changes. Instead of blowing them up, Hess laid out a plan to use money to get what the reformers wanted. Is that the landscape in which Steinhardt donates(ed) to NYU?
The rich should pay extremely progressive taxes. It would prevent the
richest 0.1%’s abuses against the 99% who generate the wealth that they have. Or, preferably, the U.S. becomes a democratic socialist country like Iceland and Finland where the people aren’t “left to die like feral dogs in the gutter”.
Steinhardt appears to be a flaming old lech who has enjoyed [for decades] embarrassing and demeaning women who work for him or are soliciting his funds, with effusive, non-stop, ludicrous proposals. An over-the-top version of the garden-variety harasser who makes you feel like you’re T&A first, brains irrelevant. Made his $ so early in life he probably never had to check his libido at the office door.
Let’s not forget Clarence Thomas! Sneakier & more malicious than Steinhardt, but as a judge, absolutely a hypocrite. And how ’bout Cosby? A serial sex assaulter playing a wonderful Dad on TV. Oh there are just too many to count [let alone excoriate on Diane’s ed blog].
I ran into a fair amount of this in ’70’s as an admin tech in the then-virtually-all-male engrg biz. Some nearly as blatant as Steinhardt, but fortunately peers not bosses. Thank god I was buying not selling, & had a wonderfully neutral boss. The electricity was always in the air. You just had to know how to jam the signal.
Apparently he still believes in “droit de seigneur”