Columbia University Provost Katznelson's Russell Sage Foundation Connection: Part 7

 

19th-Century U.S. Robber Baron Jay Gould's business partner, Russell Sage--from whose inherited wealth Russell Sage Foundation's endowment was obtained.

The Columbia provost who failed to immediately agree to meet the demands of the Graduate Workers of Columbia-UAW 2110 union during its 2021 strike at the Upper West Side university, Ira Katznelson, and former Columbia Provost Claude Steele, are not the only Russell Sage Foundation trustees who ever received “charitable” grants from this foundation before they sat on the “philanthropic” foundation’s board of trustees.

Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Larry M. Bartels has been sitting next to former Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Dean, current Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company board member and Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees Vice-Chair Nicholas Lemann on the Russell Sage Foundation board since 2013.

And besides being paid $8,000 by the Russell Sage Foundation between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019 (according to the foundation’s Form 990 financial filing) for sitting on its board, before joining the Russell Sage Foundation’s board Trustee Bartels received 4 grants from the Russell Sage Foundation between 2001 and 2010, including a “charitable” grant of $8,500 in March 2002 for a “Conference on Trust in Government" and a grant of $29,600 in November 2010.

In addition, when former Columbia Provost Steele was sitting on both the MacArthur Foundation board of directors and the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees in 2012, a MacArthur Foundation grant was, coincidentally, given to Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Bartels a year before he joined the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees in 2013.

Another Russell Sage Foundation trustee, who has been sitting on its board of trustees next to former Columbia School of Journalism Dean Lemann since 2012, is Karen S. Cook; and, like Trustee Bartels, Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Cook received “charitable” grants from the foundation before joining its board of trustees.

Between 1994 and 2009, Trustee Cook received at least 7 tax-exempt grants from the Russell Sage Foundation, totaling over $500,000: a $20,000 grant between 1994 and 1996 for workshops on “The Construction and Maintenance of Trust”; a $120,000 grant between 1995 and 1998 for a working group proposal on “The Construction and Maintenance of Trust;”; a $24,500 grant in November 1999 to study “Reciprocal Trust in Patient-Physician Relationships: Managing the Transition from Individual to Group Trust;” a $300,000 grant between 1999 and 2004 for “The Construction and Maintenance of Trust: Continuation Grant Project Proposal;” a $25,000 “Physician-Patient Trust” exploratory grant between 2000 and 2002; a $5,000 “Physician-Patient Trust” supplemental grant in 2002;  and a $35,000 “Trust Capstone Volume Grant” grant between 2007 and 2009. And between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019, Trustee Cook was also paid $9,610 by the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation for sitting on its board of trustees.

Before joining former Columbia School of Journalism Dean Lemann on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees in 2013, Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Kathryn Edin (who was paid $7,715 between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019 for sitting on its board of trustees) also received a 1991-1992 grant, a 1991-1993 grant, a 1998-2000 grant, a 2000-2003 grant and  a 2003-2005 grant from the Russell Sage Foundation; and during the 1992-1993 academic year was also a Russell Sage Foundation “Visiting Scholar.”

And, coincidentally, the MacArthur Foundation, on whose board former Columbia Provost and former Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees Chair Steele has sat since 2008, also gave Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Edin a 2009-2014 MacArthur Foundation grant and a 2014-2015 MacArthur Foundation grant (at the same time MacArthur Foundation grant recipient Edin was sitting next to MacArthur Foundation board member Steele on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees).

In addition, Trustee Edin has also received a 2019-2021 grant from U.S. Multi-Billionaire Oligarch Bill Gates’s Gates Foundation, while sitting on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees (around the same time the Russell Sage Foundation, itself, received a tax-exempt “contribution” of over $1.3 million from the Gates Foundation).

Russell Sage Foundation Trustees David Laibson and Hazel Rae Markus also received grants from the Russell Sage Foundation in the years before they joined the “philanthropic” foundation’s board of trustees. Trustee Laibson was given a “charitable” Russell Sage Foundation grant in 2010; while Trustee Markus received a 1998 to 2000 grant, a 2000 to 2003 grant, a 2000 grant and a 2002 to 2004 grant from the Russell Sage Foundation and was its 2018-2019 “Margaret Olivia Sage Visiting Scholar,” before becoming a Russell Sage Foundation trustee.

In addition, a 2016 to 2018 MacArthur Foundation “charitable” grant was given to Trustee Markus by the MacArthur Foundation, when former Columbia Provost and MacArthur Foundation board member Steele and MacArthur Foundation board member Martha Minow both also sat together on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees.

And, coincidentally, when current Columbia Provost Katznelson was still a Russell Sage Foundation trustee, the current chair of the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees (who received $11,000 from the Russell Sage Foundation between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019 for sitting on its board), Michael Jones-Correa, was a 1998-1999 “Visiting Scholar” of the Russell Sage Foundation; while the Russell Sage Foundation’s current president and trustee (whose photograph and bio are posted on Columbia’s “Columbia World Project” website page), Sheldon Danziger, was a 2002-2003 “Visiting Scholar” of the Russell Sage Foundation, whose 1993, 2007, 2009 and 2013 books that he edited were also published—by the “philanthropic” and “non-profit” Russell Sage Foundation.

(end of part 7. To be continued). (This article was first posted on the Upper West Side Patch website).