Columbia University Provost Katznelson's Russell Sage Foundation Connection: Part 2

 

Russell Sage Foundation headquarters building at 112 East 64th Street in Manhattan

The Russell Sage Foundation, whose board of trustees Columbia Provost Katznelson chaired between 1999 and 2002, claims to be a “non-profit” institution (despite it having an endowment of over $350 million in assets). But, according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2018, between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019, the Russell Sage Foundation collected over $15.5 million in total revenues, including over $11.5 million from its net investment income; and also including over $1.3 million from a “charitable” contribution it received from U.S. Multi-Billionaire Oligarch Bill Gates’s Gates Foundation, during this same time period.

In addition, according to a financial statement that’s posted on its website, in 2020 the Russell Sage Foundation had total revenues exceeding $52.5 million. Yet “the Foundation is exempt from federal taxes,” “is classified as a private foundation” and “the Foundation is further classified as an exempt operating foundation, and is therefore exempt from federal excise taxes;” although “the Foundation is subject to income taxes…on income derived from private equity partnership investments.”

According to the same 2020 financial statement, less than $27 million, of the over $350 million that the Russell Sage Foundation endowment has invested in stocks and bonds of corporations that exploit workers and consumers around the globe, is invested in “private equity partnership investments.” But over $328 million of the Russell Sage Foundation endowment is invested in either a domestic equities fund, an international equities fund, a commingled international equities trust fund or mutual funds--which produce dividends and interest income for the foundation, yet is apparently not subject to federal income or federal excise taxes.

So, for example, the “philanthropic” Columbia University-linked Russell Sage Foundation paid its president, Sheldon Danziger, a total annual compensation of between $594,000 and $623,000, and gave him an expense account of over $84,000, between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019; and, during the same period, it paid over $686,000 to firms like BlackRock and Silchester International Investors for “investment management services.” Yet the main tax that the “non-profit” Russell Sage Foundation (whose headquarters building is located at 112 East 64th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side) paid between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019 was a real estate tax of less than $30,000.

The Russell Sage Foundation, incidentally, “was started with a $10 million [equal to around $280 million in 2021]  bequest by Mrs. Sage in 1907,” as G. William Domhoff recalled in his 1970 book The Higher Circles: The Governing Class In America. But “philanthropist” Mrs. Sage was the second wife and widow of a long-time business partner of 19th-century U.S. Robber Baron Jay Gould:  Russell Sage. And, according to Gustavus Myers’s A History of the Great American Fortunes, Russell Sage “had the reputation among the knowing of being an old hand at political and financial corruption.”

 (end of part 2. To be continued.) (This article was initially posted on the Upper West Side Patch website.)

Columbia University Provost Katznelson's Russell Sage Foundation Connection: Part 1

 

Russell Sage Foundation headquarters building at 112 East 64th Street in Manhattan

On March 17, 2021 the then-striking Graduate Workers of Columbia [GWC-UAW 2110] union posted an update on its website, which noted that on March 16, 2021 the “Columbia community” had “received another email from the Provost Ira Katznelson mischaracterizing our negotiations and the ongoing strike of our union;” in which “the Provost blatantly misrepresents what transpired on the eve of our strike.”

Yet, besides now being a Columbia University interim provost and Columbia administration negotiator on the Upper West Side, Katznelson is a former chair of the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees who, as recently as 2020, was also a Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar.”

For 10 years—between 1992 and 2002—Columbia Provost Katznelson sat on the Russell Sage Foundation’s board of trustees; and for 3 of those 10 years—between 1999 and 2002—Columbia’s current provost was the chair of this foundation’s board of trustees

.

In addition, besides also being a Russell Sage Foundation “Visiting Scholar” during the 1991-1992 academic year before he first joined the foundation’s board of trustees, Katznelson was a Russell Sage Foundation “Visiting Scholar” during the 2004-2005 academic year and a Russell Sage Foundation “Associate Scholar” during the 2009-2010 academic year—after he left the Russell Foundation board of trustees in 2003. And, according to the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation’s website, its “Visiting Scholars” are currently paid with “salary support up to 50 percent of their academic year salary (up to a maximum of $125,000 for a full term).”

Columbia University’s provost is not the only individual connected to the “non-profit” Upper West Side university (and neighborhood real estate developing institution and landlord) who, formerly or currently, has sat on the board of trustees of the “non-profit” Russell Sage Foundation, whose current assets exceed $350 million. Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Professor and Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company Trustee Nicholas Lemann, who was the Dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism between 2003 and 2013, has been a foundation trustee since 2011 and is presently the vice-chair of the Russell Sage Foundation’s board of trustees.

In addition, between 2010 and 2020, a Columbia University provost between 2009 and 2011, Claude M. Steele, also sat on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees; and, like Columbia Provost Katznelson, is also a former chair of the same foundation’s board of trustees.

Historically, another individual connected to Columbia University for many years—former 1960’s Columbia College Dean and Columbia University Vice-President David B. Truman—also sat on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees from 1967 to 1981 and was the president of the Russell Sage Foundation between 1978 and 1979.

According to the Russell Sage Foundation’s Form 990 financial filing for 2018, between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019, Columbia Journalism School Professor Lemann was paid between $5,000 and $8,000 by the Russell Sage Foundation for being its board of trustees’ “vice-chair” and former Columbia Provost Steele was paid $6,500 for sitting on the same foundation’s board of trustees during that year.

And, not surprisingly, between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019, the “philanthropic” and federal tax-exempted Russell Sage Foundation gave between six and eleven tax-exempt “charitable” grants, totaling between $390,000 and $680,000, to either Columbia University or Teachers College of Columbia University, including: a grant of $75,000 to study “socioeconomic inequalities and children’s brain development;” a $34,295 grant to study “the impact of wealthy donor consortia on U.S. politics and public policy;” a grant of $86,825 to study “reclaiming lost data on American racial inequality 1865-1940;” a grant of $23,000 to study “the effect of state immigration policies on preschool enrollment of children of immigrants;” a grant of $83,651 to study “life course sociogenomic analysis of social inequalities in aging;” and a grant of $85,865 for “studying the Rikers Island Jail population.”

 (end of part 1. To be continued) (This article was initially posted on the Upper West Side Patch website)

Bloody Minds--Bob A. Feldman

Columbia--Bob A. Feldman

Gruley Bridge Tunnel Massacre--Bob A Feldman

Community Control Of All Police

Who Profits From Columbia University's Teachers College?

"Non-Profit" Teachers College of Columbia University's 525 W. 120th St. building. (photo by Bohao Zhao (wikicommons))

 Since January 22, 2021, thousands of Columbia University students of the Upper West Side "non-profit" university have been withholding their tuition payments for the Spring 2021 semester, in support of the following 5 demands:

"1) Columbia must alleviate the economic burden on students by reducing the cost of attendance and increasing financial aid.

- Reduce the cost of attendance (including tuition, fees, and room & board) by at least 10%.

- Increase financial aid by at least 10%.

- Replace the "student responsibility" with grants.

- Offer financial aid for summer classes for all schools at Columbia

- Forgive all late fees and other forms of retaliation for unpaid bills for the duration of the pandemic.

- We also demand that this reduction and increased aid should not come at the expense of instructor or worker pay, but rather at the expense of bloated administrative salaries, expansion projects, and other expenses that don't benefit students and workers.

"2) Columbia must fulfill its responsibilities to the people of West Harlem by committing to provide employment, education & affordable housing, and to end expansion.

" 3) Columbia must defund Public Safety and invest in community safety solutions that prioritize the safety of Black students and West Harlem residents, and repair harm caused by prior racist practices of Public Safety.

" 4) Columbia must commit to complete transparency about the University's investments and respect the democratic votes of the student body regarding investment and divestment decisions. This includes respecting the referendums at Barnard and Columbia College to divest from companies involved in human rights violations, divesting fully from fossil fuels, and respecting the results of future referendums relating to investment decisions; and

"5) Columbia must bargain in good faith with unions on campus around their key demands for improved compensation, benefits, and protections. This includes guaranteeing protections to international students and granting union recognition for MA and undergrad student-workers."

According to the Columbia University students who initiated the 2021 tuition strike:, "these issues are united by a shared root cause: a flagrant disregard for initiatives democratically supported within the community" and the administration of Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's "unilateral decision-making process" which "has perpetuated the existence of these injustices in our community despite possessing ample resources to confront them with structural solutions."

In response to either the threat of a tuition strike or the tuition strike itself, Columbia University's Bollinger "administration announced it would freeze tuition, suspend fees on late payments, increase spring financial aid and provide a limited amount of summer grants to students," according to a Jan. 26, 2021 In These Times article, titled "Columbia Students Wage the Largest Tuition Strike in Nearly 50 Years," by Indigo Olivier. But "students who" were "withholding tuition were surprised when they learned of multiple cases in which $150 late fees appeared in students' accounts last weekend, though they have not been able to confirm whether they are expected to pay this fee," according to the same article.

In These Times also noted that, on Jan. 22, 2021, Columbia's Board of Trustees "finally formalized its commitment to divest from publicly traded oil and gas companies;" but on Jan. 20, 2021, "the Board of Trustees also quietly announced it was lifting its 2006 to 2020 policy of divestment and non-investment in `companies operating in Sudan.'"

Despite calling their Upper West Side-based private schools "non-profit" institutions, some of the administrators and professors of both Columbia University and Teachers College of Columbia University have, in recent years, apparently been pocketing total annual monetary compensations much higher than what most New York City workers who are still employed are paid; or what most Columbia students are likely to earn annually during the current decade.

According to the 2017 Form 990 financial filing of Teachers College of Columbia University (on whose board of trustees Columbia University President Bollinger has sat next to Rockefeller Brothers Fund Chair of the Board of Trustees and former "confidential assistant" to Secretary Richard Riley at the U.S. Department of Education during the first Clinton administration, Valerie Rockefeller, in recent years), for example, between Sept. 1, 2017 and Aug. 31, 2018, "non-profit" Columbia's Teachers College paid total annual compensations that exceeded $198,000 to the following folks:

1. Teachers College President and later President Emerita Susan Fuhrman's total annual compensation was $1,059,181;

2. Teachers College VP Suzanne Murphy's total annual compensation was $533,206;

3. Teachers College's then-newly-installed President Thomas Bailey's total annual compensation was $468,469;

4. Teachers College VP Harvey Spector's total annual compensation was $465,600;

5. Teachers College Provost & Dean Thomas James's total annual compensation was $465,250;

6. Teachers College Professor Sharon Kagan's total annual compensation was $423,098;

7. Teachers College Enid & Lesk Morse Chair Ruth Vinz's total annual compensation was $373,390;

8. Teachers College Professor Andrew Gordon's total annual compensation was $362,407;

9. Teachers College Professor Jeanne Brooks-Gunn's total annual compensation was $356,392;

10. Teachers College VP Janice Robinson's total annual compensation was $350,941;

11. Teachers College's former Vice-Provost William Baldwin's total annual compensation was $334,607;

12. Teachers College Professor Anne Lin Goodwin's total annual compensation was $330,646;

13. Teachers College Assoc. VP Nancy Streim's total annual compensation was $318,679;

14. Teachers College Vice Provost Catherine Embree's total annual compensation was $279,550;

15. Teachers College Chief of Staff Katharine Conway's total annual compensation was $230,181;

16. Teachers College Vice Provost Steven Goss's total annual compensation was $225,955; and

17. Teachers College's former General Counsel Lori Fox's total annual compensation was $198,594.

In 2018 the "non-profit" Teachers College of Columbia University also had over $149 million invested in "non-public equity funds" and over $28 million invested in "private equity and real estate funds," according to its 2017 Form 990 financial filing.

Between Sept. 1, 2017 and Aug. 31, 2018, the total revenues of Columbia University's Teachers College exceeded $241 million, which included over $47 million that came from "contributions and grants" and over $4 million that came from its investment income. In addition, Teachers College of Columbia University spent $1 million on "lobbying" between Sept. 2017 and August 2018.

So, not surprisingly, in July 2020,the privately-controlled Teachers College of Columbia University was awarded $6.3 million in two publicly-funded U.S. federal government grants from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Science for a "study of the Federal Work-Study program." And in October and November 2020, Multi-Billionaire U.S. Oligarch Bill Gates's Gates Foundation also gave four "charitable" grants, totaling over $1.2 million, to the Teachers College of institutionally racist Columbia University; including, ironically, a $499,000 tax-exempt "charitable" grant "to advance knowledge of which advising reforms disproportionately benefit students of color and students experiencing poverty" and a $100,000 "charitable" grant "to support reporting on racial inequities in education."