Columbia University is in serious trouble. Once a beacon of academic excellence, the institution has become mired in scandal, administrative corruption, and deliberate mission abandonment. Columbia now operates more like a hedge fund and Manhattan landlord than a university, while its legal apparatus bullies students and knowingly protects abusers. Students and teaching—the supposed core mission—are the last priority of administrators who enrich themselves while enabling abuse. It's time to demand accountability.
The Trustees: Enablers of Corruption
Columbia's Board of Trustees bears ultimate responsibility for the institution's moral collapse. Co-chairs David Greenwald and Jeh Johnson, along with vice chairs Abigail Black Elbaum, Mark Gallogly, Victor Mendelson, Dean Dakolias, and Kathy Surace-Smith, oversee an institution that systematically prioritizes real estate holdings and endowment growth over student welfare.
Trustees including Claire Shipman, Andrew F. Barth, Duchesne Drew, Keith Goggin, James Gorman, Kikka Hanazawa, Adam Pritzker, Julissa Reynoso, Jonathan Rosand, James Scapa, Shoshana Shendelman, Fermi Wang, Shirley Wang, and Alisa Amarosa Wood provide governance—or rather, rubberstamp approval—for an administration that knowingly allows sexual abuse cover-ups, harassment of minority students, and the prioritization of Columbia's $14 billion endowment over educational excellence.
These trustees are complicit. They have the power to demand reform, to fire corrupt administrators, to redirect resources toward students and teaching. Instead, they enable a system where administrators treat the university as their personal hedge fund while students suffer the consequences.
Meet the Trustees
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The Scandals: Knowingly Enabled by Leadership
Robert Hadden Cover-Up: For years, Columbia administrators knowingly covered up gynecologist Robert Hadden's sexual abuse of patients, protecting the institution's reputation over victims' safety. This wasn't negligence—it was deliberate institutional complicity in sexual violence.
Trump Administration Capitulation: Rather than standing firm on academic values, Columbia's trustees and administrators willingly capitulated to political pressure, abandoning their principles and students when it served their interests.
Office of Institutional Equity (OIE) Weaponization: The OIE has been deliberately created as a tool of institutional oppression. They knowingly hire outside lawyers to harass and bully minority students while systematically covering up abuses by professors and staff. Student welfare is irrelevant—protecting powerful faculty and administrators is the priority.
General Counsel's Office Complicity: Columbia's General Counsel's office serves as the enabler of institutional abuse. These lawyers knowingly facilitate cover-ups, silence victims, and prioritize the university's reputation over justice. They are complicit in every scandal, choosing lucrative jobs over moral responsibility.
Administrative Leadership Corruption: Deans knowingly preside over a culture of corruption and institutional decay, prioritizing their own bureaucratic empires and salaries over students and teaching. Educational excellence is an afterthought—enriching themselves is the mission.
The Solution: Dismantle the Corrupt Regime
Fire Corrupt Administrators: Remove self-serving administrators, deans, and bureaucrats who knowingly enable abuse and treat the university as their personal enrichment vehicle. They care nothing for students or teaching.
Hold Trustees Accountable: The Board of Trustees must answer for enabling this corruption. Demand resignations. Students and teaching must become the priority, not real estate speculation and hedge fund management.
Return to Teaching: Refocus on Columbia's stated mission—educating students. Stop funneling resources to administrative salaries and legal cover-ups. Invest in faculty, classrooms, and learning, not executive compensation.
End the Culture of Complicity: No more cover-ups. No more capitulation. No more knowingly protecting abusers while punishing victims. Demand accountability at every level.