Fire Prof or Lose Funds, Some Alum Donors Say

Columbia Spectator ^ | Published on April 03, 2003 | Margaret Hunt Gram

[Exton1]

Fire Prof or Lose Funds, Some Alum Donors Say Donors use email campaign to pressure Bollinger to fire Prof. De Genova. By Margaret Hunt Gram Spectator News Editor

Some alumni donors are pressuring the president's office and the Office of Development and Alumni Relations to fire Professor Nicholas De Genova for statements he made in last week's anti-war teach-in. In the past few days, donors have barraged the offices with emails and phone calls, informing the University that they feel that De Genova overstepped the limits of academic free speech.

In mass-mailed email messages circulated among each other, alumni have urged each other to issue an ultimatum to the University: Fire De Genova or lose our donations.

"We've gotten a lot of calls," said Thomas Gray, who is in charge of alumni giving in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. "The people who have called have been very upset. They're proud of their college heritage, and they're very unhappy that this occurred."

CC alumnus Steve Stuart wrote an email a few days ago to over 100 alumni--whose combined "net worth," he said, is at least $250 million--asking them to express outrage to University President Lee Bollinger.

"Until he is fired, the University will suffer," Stuart said. Many of those alumni responded to Stuart's request with letters sent directly to Bollinger. Like Stuart's, nearly all of the emails issued warnings regarding the alumni's continued financial support of the University.

Frank Cicero, CC '92 and Senior Vice President of Investment Banking at Lehman Brothers, told Bollinger that he felt De Genova's presence on campus "pollutes the educational atmosphere."

That "pollution" may compel Cicero to stop contributing to the University.

"In the past, I believed that it was naive and in bad taste for alumni to withhold gifts because of the political opinions of faculty members," Cicero said in his email to Bollinger. "However, I am now considering doing just that in response to the vile and mendacious comments made by De Genova."

Donor Peter Ross, CC '87, MBA '94, and a member of the Ivory Capital Group, told Bollinger that De Genova's comments made him ashamed of the University.

"This will weigh heavily on my heart at the end of the year when I consider the financial sacrifice that I am willing to make for the University," Ross wrote.

For other alumni, the controversy has become a family matter. Vincent Butkiewicz, CC '79 and MBA '85, promised Bollinger that he would cancel the donation he made in a recent fund drive, assuring him that "you should not expect to see any donations from me nor an application for admission from any of my children until Prof. De Genova has been fired."

Peter Butkiewicz, CC '85, sent a nearly identical email. And their father, John Butkiewicz, CC '51 and a former member of the U.S. Army, informed Bollinger that he was revising his will to exclude Columbia.

Not all donors who have spoken on the matter have expressed dismay or issued ultimatums.

Phyllis Mailman and her family's foundation donated $33 million to the school of public health in 1998. Mailman told the New York Post that she thought Bollinger "handled it very beautifully when he certainly disavowed, personally, for the university and for himself, all of the professor's comment, but upholds his right to make them."

Joseph Sullivan, CC '86 and Law '89, is also not planning to make the University choose between him and De Genova. Sullivan, a regular donor who has been one of De Genova's most vocal opponents for the past week, says that he "would like to see De Genova fired." But he says that he will not express his discontent by threatening to stop donating to Columbia.

"I realize it's a large university, and I'm not interested in making any ultimatums," Sullivan said. "I know Bollinger has a very strong opinion regarding tolerance--he believes that it's good to let the enemy and all the kooks make their statements so you can see where they are."

Gray, and others working in the Office of University Development and Alumni Donations, said that the University would not necessarily heed ultimatums even if important donors issued them.

"They'd love for us to fire him, but it's not going to happen," Gray said. "He's protected under academic free speech."

[bedolido]

Please fire the idiot

[zingzang]

I think the professor and the president should both be fired. Hopefully common sense will prevail, even though we're talking about the liberal halls of academia here.

[PeterPrinciple]

CC alumnus Steve Stuart wrote an email a few days ago to over 100 alumni--whose combined "net worth," he said, is at least $250 million--asking them to express outrage to University President Lee Bollinger.


Notice how they track alumni............you are just a number.

[Plutarch]

fire Professor Nicholas De Genova...

Sloppy reporting, they've got his rank wrong. He is a mere Assistant Professor, not a full Professor.

[PeterPrinciple]

My apology.....I thought this was the alumni dept presenting this.

[Paladin2b]

I knew Bollinger when he was Dean of the U of Michigan Law School, and you can take it to the bank that he'd rather get rectal cancer than fire De Genova. There is no anti-American comment he would not excuse. There's probably no anti-American *act* he would not excuse. He'd p*** away the whole endowment before he would stop worshipping at the altar of Academic Tenure.

[Rocky Mountain High]

Money talks, Zing.

[Mr. Mojo]

Bollinger is going to keep getting emails from me until that traitorous sonovabitch is fired.

[SENTINEL]

Ain't capitalism great !

[Verginius Rufus]

I ran across Bollinger speaking on C-SPAN yesterday...didn't listen very long but he seemed to be speaking in favor of racial preferences, not about De Genova. I would guess that Bollinger can understand that calling for massive deaths among American troops is poor PR, but he probably doesn't see anything objectionable in the rest of De Genova's remarks.

If De Genova does get fired at Columbia (which I don't expect), he will probably find a job at another elite university. The department that hired him at Columbia was presumably aware of his views when they selected him.

[HenryLeeII]

Literally, the alumni of any large university are numbers, numbers in a tracking database, and also numbers in a potential gift ranking system which varies from school to school. Alumni are tracked, through the school's interaction with them, through searches in proprietary databases showing property and stock holdings, through online search engines, etc., and based on that information various formulae are applied to determine an estimated net worth, and then a potential gift-giving range.

[talleyman]

"Money talks, B.S. walks."

[1L]

He'd p*** away the whole endowment before he would stop worshipping at the altar of Academic Tenure.

I of course, don't know him and you may ultimately be right, but remember a few weeks ago the ahtletic issue at St. Bonaventure. The President stood behind the team's stupid decision and ultimately got fired by the BOR. With fewer dollars chasing more opportunity, they aren't going to let one man destroy their endowment.

[rj45mis]

I agree with you. Loyalty can only go so far. It would be interesting to know from where the basis of his (Bollinger's) loyalty comes.

[PeterPrinciple]

Numbers by the alumni dept were my assumptions but this article talked about an alumni using those same numbers to get a universities ATTENTION.

[HenryLeeII]

Right you are, sir. $$$ talks, and hopefully in this case Columbia will listen, although I wouldn't hold my breath. They probably have enough sheep, left-wingers, radicals, or politically-disconnected alumni that Bollinger can afford to lose a few donations and in a couple years everyone will have forgotten.

Important point to keep in mind: The $250 million net worth doesn't mean $250M that can be given to the school. It's the estimated personal worth of the complaining alumni combined. Typically, a school will consider a person as being able to give about 3% of their est. net worth to all causes/charities that he or she supports. So, the $250M represents at most about $7.5M in total lifetime giving - a drop in the bucket for Columbia, with its wealthy business school grads.

[vernongr71]

You can rest assured that Bollinger will hear from me too, until he fires that creep, De Genova

[vernongr71]

You can rest assured that Bollinger will hear from me too, until he fires that creep, De Genova

[Sloth]

"I know Bollinger has a very strong opinion regarding tolerance--he believes that it's good to let the enemy and all the kooks make their statements so you can see where they are."

So Bollinger is in favor of hiring morons in teaching positions, just so they can make fools of themselves? De Genova isn't the only one that should be fired.