Columbia University's "Dinkinsgate Scandal" Connection--Part 8

After New York City voters decided in the 1993 mayoralty election that David Dinkins did not deserve a second term as New York City’s mayor, the Columbia University administration hired the local Democratic Party politician to be a professor “in the practice of public affairs” at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. And during the last few years Columbia University Professor Dinkins (http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/academics/directory/dd98-fac.html ) has apparently attempted to use his remaining special political influence in New York City politics to help his private employer undemocratically implement its land-grabbing campus expansion plan north of West 125th Street in West Harlem, despite the objections of local community tenant activists. Not surprisingly, when Columbia University Professor Dinkins tried to sell Columbia University’s expansion plan to the 700 community residents who attended the local community board’s hearings in August 2007, the former New York City mayor was booed, hissed and shouted down by West Harlem residents and their Columbia and Barnard student supporters.

Following, is another section of an article on “The Dinkinsgate Scandal” which first appeared in the August/September 1991 issue of the Lower East Side newspaper, Shadow:

In September, 1975, Mayor Beame appointed Inner City Broadcasting Corporation Director Dinkins to the New York City Clerk patronage post. According to the 1990 Current Biography Yearbook, the “City Clerk does little besides process marriage licenses and the financial disclosure forms of public officials, but the plum patronage post afforded Dinkins an opportunity to rehabilitate his reputation and establish political ties that would later prove useful.”

Dinkins held his City Clerk patronage post from 1975 to 1985, during which time he sought election as Manhattan Borough President three times.

When his Inner City Broadcasting Corporation business partner, Sutton, decided to run for Mayor in 1977, Dinkins unsuccessfully attempted to succeed him as Manhattan Borough President and thus keep the post in the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation “business family.” In 1981, Dinkins again attempted to win election as Manhattan Borough President and again the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation Director/New York City Clerk/Carver Clubhouse politician lost. In 1985, however, after receiving an additional patronage appointment from white corporate establishment interests to the New York Urban Development Corporation [UDC] in 1983, Dinkins finally was elected Manhattan Borough President. In his 1985 campaign for Manhattan Borough President, Columbia University Professor Dinkins was also supported financially by real estate developers Donald Trump and Peter Kalikow.

Next: Columbia University’s “Dinkinsgate Scandal” Connection—Part 9