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 previously posted on the Upper West Side Patch website)