Columbia University Provost Katznelson's Russell Sage Foundation Connection: Part 10

 

Foundation, on whose board successor to Columbia provost as Social Science Research Council president, and a Russell Sage Foundation trustee, also sat in 2020. 

Columbia Provost and 2019-2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar” Ira Katznelson’s successor as Social Science Research Council president, former Columbia Professor of Sociology and “Dean of Social Science” Alondra Nelson, was also “tapped” to sit on the Russell Sage Foundation’s board of trustees (that Columbia Provost Katznelson sat on between 1992 and 2002) in June of 2020—less than 5 months after she was “tapped” to sit on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s board of trustees in late January 2020.

In addition, besides sitting next to Hall Capital Partners LLC Founder and Co-Chair Kathryn A. Hall, former Tishman Speyer Senior Managing Director Katherine G. Farley, Canyon Partners LLC Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO Joshua S. Friedman and Lone Pine Capital Managing Director and Portfolio Manager Kelly Grant on the Mellon Foundation’s board of trustees, Columbia Provost Katznelson’s successor as Social Science Research Council president also sat next to Duke University President Emeritus Richard H. Brodhead and Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway on the Mellon Foundation’s board.

And, coincidentally, like institutionally racist and classist Columbia University, both “non-profit” Duke University and “non-profit” Rutgers University have been given “charitable” grants in recent years by the “philanthropic” Mellon Foundation—whose board includes a Duke University president emeritus and the current president of Rutgers University.

Between March 15, 2018 and March 12, 2021, for example, the university that Mellon Foundation Trustee Brodhead is president emeritus of, institutionally racist and classist Duke University, was given 7 grants by the Mellon Foundation, totaling over $5.2 million, including:  a “charitable” grant of $698,000 on March 15, 2018 for “Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement;” another “charitable” grant of $3 million ($3,000,000) on March 15, 2018 “to support the Humanities Unbounded Institute;” a “charitable” grant of $630,000 on March 12,, 2021 “to support an intergenerational project archiving and documenting contemporary activism;” and another “charitable” grant of $300,000 on March 12, 2021 “to support a New Directions Fellowship for Tsitsi Jaji” (a Duke University Associate Professor of English), according to the Mellon Foundation’s website.

And since 2018 the university that Mellon Foundation Trustee Holloway is president of, institutionally racist and classist Rutgers University, has been given over $21.2 million by the “philanthropic” Mellon Foundation, including: a “charitable” grant of $300,000 on March 6, 2019 “to support a New Directions Fellowship for Susanna Schellenberg,” a Rutgers University professor of philosophy and cognitive science; and a “charitable grant of $15 million ($15,000,000) on Sept. 18, 2020, “to support the establishment of an institute for the advanced study of race and social justice”--which, according to the institutionally racist and classist Mellon Foundation’s president, former Columbia University Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor in the Humanities Elizabeth Alexander, purportedly “seeks to resolve global racism and injustice through the power of humanistic inquiry,” rather than through systematic revolutionary institutional change.

But, as a Sept. 24, 2020 Rutgers University press release indicated, this $15 million “charitable” grant from the Mellon Foundation “will support and amplify the scholarship of researchers who are based in the humanities” and “will provide opportunities for Rutgers faculty” at a university whose president is, coincidentally, a member of the “philanthropic” Mellon Foundation board of trustees.

The Manhattan-based “non-profit” Mellon Foundation which, like the Upper West Side-based Columbia University, still fails to pay a fair share of NYC, state and federal taxes in 2021, also paid total annual compensations to its executives in 2018 that were a lot more than the total annual compensations most essential workers in NYC were paid in 2018.

According to its Form 990 financial filing for 2018, for example, between Jan. 1, 2018 and Dec. 31, 2018 the “non-profit” Mellon Foundation paid Mellon Foundation Senior Portfolio Manager Monica C. Spencer a total annual compensation of over $993,000 and paid Mellon Foundation Senior Portfolio Manager Karen Grieb Inal a total annual compensation of over $713,000.

In addition, Mellon Foundation Portfolio Manager Abigail Archibald was paid a total annual compensation of over $581,000 and Mellon Foundation CFO Thomas J. Sanders was paid a total annual compensation of over $539,000 in 2018 by the Mellon Foundation. And Mellon Foundation Senior Program Officer Diane S. Harris was paid a total annual compensation of over $500,000 (including a $60,000 annual expense account) during this same period, by the “non-profit” Mellon Foundation.

But although the Mellon Foundation claims to be a “philanthropic” organization, much of the money it utilizes to give “charitable” grants to Columbia, Duke and Rutgers and pay generous salaries to its own executives is obtained from the interest and dividends it receives each year from owning corporate stocks or corporate bonds in corporations that exploit essential workers and consumers.

In 2019, for example, over $3.5 million worth of Wal-Mart corporate stock was owned by the Mellon Foundation—on whose board of trustees Columbia Provost and 2019-2020 Russell Sage “Olivia Sage Scholar” Katznelson’s successor as Social Science Research Council president, as well as a Russell Sage Foundation trustee in 2020, also sat in 2020.

(end of part 10. To Be continued). (This article was first posted on the Upper West Side Patch website).