Michigan Ex-Governor Rick Snyder will not teach at Harvard,The outcry over Snyder’s role in the Flint water crisis made his position at Harvard untenable.
Snyder announced midday Wednesday his decision to withdraw from a senior research fellow position at Harvard Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government.
“It would have been exciting to share my experiences, both positive and negative,” Snyder wrote on Twitter. “Our current political environment and its lack of civility makes this too disruptive.”
Douglas Elmendorf, dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School, said students would have learned from questioning Snyder over Flint and other issues, but “we and he now believe that having him on campus would not enhance education here in the ways we intended.”
Snyder’s appointment began June 1 and was to include teaching, studying and writing about issues affecting state and local government in the country.
In a statement issued last Friday, the head of the Taubman Center said the university welcomed Snyder’s “significant expertise in management, public policy and promoting civility.”
He could have lectured on his decision to poison the people of Flint to save money. Or he might have taught about the failure of his “Educational Achievement Authority.” Or he might have reviewed how the expansion of charters contributed to the collapse of Michigan’s standing on NAEP.
But to do any of that requires reflection and critical thinking, qualities Snyder never exhibited.
The ethical standards at the Taubman Center may be flexible, however. It was established with funding by businessman A. Alfred Taubman, who was convicted in a criminal price-fixing scheme that involved two prominent auction houses. He served several months in prison. Taubman, like Snyder, was born in Michigan.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There may be hope for Harvard students, no so much for the people who took Taunbman’s money, put his name on this program, and invited Snyder. Appreciate the history lesson.
I was sickened when I read that Snyder had been appointed to a position at Harvard. If anyone should be accountable for bad policy that served up polluted water to the people of Flint, Michigan, it is Snyder. He should be in an orange jumpsuit for the role he played in the debacle. I am glad Harvard pulled the offer.
I think it’s important to note that Snyder actually withdrew and Harvard actually did not withdraw the offer.
The Taubman Center was supporting him right before Snyder withdrew.
Members of the Harvard community may have problems with Snyder but the Harvard administration seems to have no such problem with Snyder or they never would have offered him the fellowship to begin with.
PS it’s funny: autocorrect originally changed Snyder to Shyster
Neo-liberalism is the gift harvard’s administration gives to the oligarchy.
A statement issued last Friday, the head of the Taubman Center said the university welcomed Snyder’s “significant expertise in poison management, cover-up policy and promoting denial”
“Our current political environment and its lack of civility makes this too disruptive.” — Rick Snyder
“Civility”
Civil gist?
Or civil buzz?
Civil is
As civil does
civil is an orange —
orange is the new black —
let’s hope it soon suits
this & that political hack.
The oranges of civility?
The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor
well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and
something of that jealous complexion.
— Beatrice, Much Ado, 2.2.671–3
(punning on Seville oranges)
2.1.671–3
LMAO!
I really wish someone would look into the oranges of civility.
The definition for “oranges of civility”:
Someone like The Emperor of Orange Donald Trump who models by his behavior, tweets and what he says at his hate rallies what civility means to him: insulting the dead, the disabled, public servants doing their job, gold-star parents, and anyone no matter who they are that doesn’t praise him all the time and give him credit for every achievement throughout the history of the human raise.
For instance – Praise the Emperor or Orange for inventing fire, electricity, the wheel, and ice cream.
XLV = The Crockwork Orange
Thanks for the explanation of Taubman and the money. I wondered why Harvard would think of hiring such an individual. Time for these academic institutions to start thinking harder about the people they offer positions. What made him qualified to teach at Harvard, even if he had some deal where he wouldn’t have much of a schedule but would occasional give a lecture, do a special seminar (Poisoning Children for Fun and Profit), and write a book? Shame on Harvard.
Snyder’s qualifications- a DeVos toadie.
Previously, harvard gave the same offer to Jeb Bush …the response-…no student protests.
American loves the Bushes
America loves the Bushes
And not the kind that blooms
But kind that daily pushes
The rest of us in tombs
“Our current political environment and its lack of civility makes this too disruptive.”
Really! LOL
Rich Snyder with a net worth of $200-million, and the rest of his privileged corrupt snobbish class haven’t seen anything yet … if they don’t learn from history and change their ways.
Civility
Civil lead in civil pipes?
Civil Snyder? Jebus Cripes
I laughed because of your short poem about civility.
How can anyone laugh with criminal, want-to-be brutal dictator idiot Donald Trump and his putrid family and their autocratic-kleptocratic Trumpish Republican Party doing all they can to destroy the U.S. Constitutional Republic?
SomeDAM Poet,
PERFECT! You sure have the knack. Thanks.
https://www.colorlines.com/articles/flint-update-prosecutors-examine-phone-and-hard-drive-former-governor-rick-snyder
What a choice: Harvard or federal prison?
Well State prison in any event. If Snyder had been heading to Federal prison in 16. Trump might not be president. Thanks Obama !!!!!!!
Having just read NACPS’ pathetic, poltical-not-factual critique of NPE’s “Asleep at the Wheel” report—authored by researchers from Harvard’s Kennedy School– & now seeing Harvard Kennedy School wanted Rick Snyder onboard faculty—I’m beginning to get why so many here are skeptical of Harvard. Thank goodness for student pushback or I might start suspecting the entire community of being shills for neolib & neocons think-tanks.
I agree. I wish as a nation that we could move beyond the insistence that an Ivy League pedigree is best for the offices of president and Supreme Court justices. The Ivies perpetuate policies that overwhelmingly favor the elites that they serve.
Look at what graduates of Yale (via Bush) and Harvard (via Obama) have done to public education. Let’s not forget that a significant proportion of the Ivies’ student bodies are legacies.
If Harvard were simply a private institution receiving no public (federal or state) aid, they would be entitled (as they certainly believe they are) to hire who they want and to pass off propaganda as “research”.
But Harvard receives nearly $600 million dollars of public grant money from the Federal government every year.
Harvard has an endowment of $38 billion, so it’s not at all clear why we the tax payers are financing their “fine fellows” and fake research, particularly when there are so many excellent public universities that need the money so much worse.
Harvard receives nearly $600 million per year in Federal grants and to date, they have paid nothing on the “earnings” on their endowment. Harvard balks even at the current proposal to tax endowment earnings at a meager 1.4%. An entitlement attitude run amok.
Just from the federal grants, Harvard receives from the American public over $25,000 per year for every student at Harvard. The amount they save on endowment earning tax breaks depends on earnings and the rate at which they are taxed, but if one figures Harvard earns even 3% per year on their $38 billion endowment, that would amount to $1.1 billion per year. If that were taxed at ANY reasonable rate (and 1.4 % is not reasonable) it would amount to over 100 million more. For example, taxed at just 15%, it would amount to $170 million. That would push the federal funding to about $33,000 per year for EVERY student at Harvard.
Given that we the public are giving them so much per student, at a bare minimum, Harvard should be giving MANY more full tuition scholarships to needy students. But of course, Harvard has two separate admissions policies, the legacy one for the relatives and friends of big donors and previous grads (which admits about 40% of applicants) and one for “ordinary” people that admits just 5% and since Harvard decides their admissions criteria, they can ensure that the vast majority who are admitted can pay the tuition.
The 1.4% tax on endowment income actually went into effect recently, so Harvard actually has been taxed a small amout.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-tax-treatment-college-and-university-endowments
harvard is a taker like the rest of the ruling class. When the school sells its degrees by allowing the under qualified to be admitted (assuming they cough up donations), the school’s reputation as a sham is proven.
My 3% estimate of earnings on Harvards endowment was a significant underestimate. In 2017, Harvard earned 8% and in 2018, they earned 10%, so I’d bet that this year’s earnings will probably be around 10% as well.
At any rate, the amount they save per year by paying almost no taxes on endowment income (1.4%) is considerable and effectively amounts to a massive federal grant to Harvard.
Open The Books documented federal subsidies to the Ivy League, of which Harvard is one of the biggest recipients
https://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_oversight_report_-_ivy_league_inc/
Harvard is another university that must brainwash its students to become stormtroopers in the coming Autocratic Kleptocracy of Trumplandia, the former United States. At least that’s what the Alt-Right thinks they are going to pull off.
Will Trump attempt a coup today during his Nazi, Soviet Style fascist military parade in Washington DC to celebrate Independence Day? After all, he will have all kinds of military gear including tanks on the Mall in DC.
He’s probably ignorant enough to think that all he needs is to occupy DC and the country will be his to rule forever.
This is the Kennedy School–the institution that perpetrated the Apotheosis of Henry Kissinger
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/1/31/galant-welcoming-war-crimes/
harvard’s links to Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express- exposed by the Crimson.
As I am sure you are well aware, it’s not just the Kennedy school that is the problem.
Thei Business school is the source of the “disruption” model that has been applied to schools with devastating effect and their econ and Ed departments have been the source of junk research forever (eg, Chetty and Friedman’s famous VAM paper that was used by President Obama to visit so much hell on teChers and the Reinhart-Rogoff “error” that was used to justify economic cruel austerity programs around the world. These departments are nothing more than a cruel joke populated by hacks.
And this crap is all supported by Harvard Presidents, who are chosen not for their scholarship but their ability to bring in money and to cow tow to the Harvard board of trustees.
The current Harvard president agreed to be the “commencement speaker” for Eva Moskowitz’s graduates (survivors) of2019. All 20+.
It’s not simply that these people are unaware of the outcry their actions will provoke.
It’s that they actually seem to relish the thought of pushing the buttons of “ordinary” people.
They seem to do it precisely to stick it to the rest of us.
Being that you brought it up. And the author can not be accused of being an anti intellectual. He has a very personal connection to Harvard.
But I pulled out a few zingers from a rather long article. Written shortly after he announced.
“If someone asks you “How do I know you’re not just some bullshitter?” and you’re not just some bullshitter, you can say “Because I have done X, Y, and Z. I have shown that I’m a person of my word. I have clear plans, and I can tell you why they’ll work, how they’ll help you, and exactly what I’m going to do to make sure they come about.” If, on the other hand, you are just some bullshitter, and your entire life experience up to this point has been going to Harvard and working for one of the world’s worst companies, you will flounder. You have no plans, no ideas, you have no record of good deeds and community service. He’s got you figured, and all you can do is “keep on with your pitch” and stammer the word “accountability.” ”
…
“Alignment of attributes? Are we building a Sims character? This is McKinsey-speak: optimizing candidate attribute matrix for maximal cross-national vote share. Unfortunately, many in the political press still find this meaningful. Have a read through the profiles and see how much time is spent thinking about Buttigieg’s Attribute Alignment versus asking him to name a single thing he plans to do to help working people.
A labor organizer friend of mine has a test he uses for politicians: When they talk, is it all about themselves, or all about the causes they care about? Do they talk incessantly about their Journey and their Homespun Values, or do they talk about people’s needs, the power structure, and how to build a more just world? Pete’s book is, for the most part, all about Pete. That’s not what you want.”
“Demand the evidence. Examine the record. We have got to learn to see through this stuff. You have to look at what they did and said before it was politically opportune to say what they’re saying now. Five minutes ago, Pete Buttigieg was “the management consultant making the South Bend sewers run on time.” Now he’s suddenly a radical who want to pack the Supreme Court. From Mitt Romney to Eugene Debs in a single news cycle.”
“Why? Why have I spent so long talking about the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, an underdog candidate for the presidency? Why have I been so relentlessly negative? Because I see what this is, and I see how these things go, and we can’t afford to make this mistake again. No more Bright Young People with their beautiful families and flawless characters and elite educations and vacuous messages of uplift and togetherness. Give me f**ked-up people with convictions and gusto. Give me real human beings, not CV-padding corporate zombies.”
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/all-about-pete?fbclid=IwAR3ReCl_uiqMAa2zNRfiX_1Q541BBtJhR6cCd_QX9zgf_Z4-1Td6RQHSqyE
I know. I saw McKinsey on Pete Buttigeig’s resume and had to suppress a gag reflex. Here’s what Mayor Buttigeig says about Organized Labor under the “Issues” heading on his campaign website:
Key Policy
Pass a new Wagner Act to support the role of organized labor and defend the right of workers to organize
Our nation’s middle class was built by organized labor, and rising attacks on labor have led to the middle class becoming more and more vulnerable. And because of historical exclusions in our labor laws, many women workers and workers of color have been unable to collectively bargain. Pete believes that unions must have a powerful seat at the table — to stand up against unfair and abusive practices and to collaborate in improving work environments and productivity.
However, there is no discussion, here, of what the provisions of such a “new Wagner Act” would be.
Here’s Buttigeig discussing Capitalism and wealth and income inequality: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/12/2020-candidate-pete-buttigieg-on-taxing-the-rich-future-of-us-capitalism.html
In this interview, he calls for a higher marginal tax and a wealth tax and higher estate taxes and for increased taxes on financial transactions.
Bob Shepherd
“Demand the evidence. Examine the record. We have got to learn to see through this stuff. You have to look at what they did and said before it was politically opportune to say what they’re saying now. Five minutes ago, Pete Buttigieg was “the management consultant making the South Bend sewers run on time.”
When this article was written there was zero policy on Mayor Pete’s page. So show me the record. Almost as laughable as Booker talking about big Pharma in the debate.
Not for nothing South Bend is twice the size of my school district. Half the size of my Town. If you suggested to me that my Town Supervisor run for President I would laugh you out of the room. He is the media darling precisely because he will do no harm to the corporate bottom line.
And the Democrats had their chance to reform labor law in 2009. It did not even make it into committee in the Senate.
The biggest dog and Pony Show is supporting or opposing a bill that your donors know will not pass. So all are for labor reform or M4All until the it stands a chance of becoming law.
“to stand up against unfair and abusive practices and to collaborate in improving work environments and productivity.”
How about redistributing wealth and letting it come back to the laborer?
The founders of the Gate/Zuck investment, Bridge International Academies, whose “innovation” was the not-so-original doubled class size and a 20% ROI for investors are harvard’s privileged grads.
Yay!
Snyder should be IN JAIL.
Harvard itself is actually a sort of jail — an intellectual jail.
It tries to impose a certain sort of thinking on its students.
It is not always successful, as protests of Harvard students indicate, but too often it has been successful.
Ironically, the rationale provided by Harvard for inviting Snyder was to inform students. It’s not at all clear what they thought they would be informing students about, given that one would have to have lived under a rock in the Gobi desert for the past few years not to have heard about Snyder’s role in the Flint lead poisoning.
drinking toxic water and visited by Obama.
If Rick Snyder goes to Massachusetts, he should NOT be teaching there.
He should be jailed there and tried successfully for crimes against humanity!
What a horrible, horrible, sniveling, evil, narcissistic person! What a pure racist! A plague upon his house! . . . . .