A new report to Congress shows the Ivy League school's board of governors is retaining a powerful law firm and the board's It was confirmed that the long-time leader is serving as a senior partner.
WilmerHale partner William Lee was a senior fellow at Harvard University until June 2022.
Despite retiring from Harvard in 2022, Lee, who is also a law professor at the school, said that he will continue to work with Harvard's “senior administrators, members of Harvard, and his successor, including Penny Pritzker, a senior fellow. has continued to exert significant influence on the highest leadership.'' harvard crimson.
A prominent law professor, who requested anonymity, criticized Harvard's choice to retain Lee's office, saying Lee's role at the university had “benefited the firm tremendously.” “It doesn't meet the semblance of justice,” he told the Post. He was a major figure in the law firm and a major figure in the corporation. ”
“There was no collision,” Lee told the Post.
But New York State Representative Elise Stefanik isn't satisfied with that.
“Harvard worked aggressively to cover up Harvard's inactions and failures and went to great lengths to defend its corrupt leadership,” Stefanik told the Post in a statement. “In fact, former Harvard University Board of Trustees Senior Fellow William Lee was lining the pockets of his own law firm, WilmerHale, in exchange for protecting Jewish students and eliminating Claudine Gay. [hired] to defend the former Harvard University president's history of serial plagiarism and anti-Semitism. Clearing is taking place. Our powerful Congressional investigations continue to expose the systemic problems plaguing our most elite universities and provide the accountability needed by the American people. ”
Neither Mr. Lee nor a WilmerHale spokesperson responded to the Post's questions about whether the company was compensated “in connection with any of these…retentions,” as reported. [plagiarism] Suspicion. ”
According to an April 2022 article on the office's website, Lee was “instrumental in the university's two previous presidential searches.” He clarified to the Post that this was a reference to Harvard University's past presidents, Drew Faust and Larry Bacow. I was not involved in the recent search. ”
Mr. Lee, 74, along with another lawyer in his firm, personally helped Mr. Gay prepare for his damning Stefanik-led testimony on campus anti-Semitism before Congress last month. I was involved. Earlier this month, the embattled president resigned after facing multiple plagiarism allegations.
“Harvard is playing a game with everyone,” says Carol Swain, a prominent African-American scholar and former political science professor at Vanderbilt University. He accuses Gay of plagiarizing his research. “This is how they responded every step of the way.”
Swain said her attorney sent a letter to Harvard University on January 3 asking to know what “remedies” the Ivy League is seeking for unauthorized use of her work. Ta. Swain told the Post on Wednesday that she had not heard from the school's governing body.
“I'm not going to abandon this issue,” she said. “It is deeply disturbing that Harvard University can ignore its own academic guidelines, the rules that other students are expected to follow.”
among them Six-page report to the House Education and Labor Committee “We understand and acknowledge that many view our efforts as insufficiently transparent and call into question our review processes and standards,” Harvard University said in a statement last week. “There is,” he admitted.
According to the letter, the company appointed a subcommittee of four fellows and then a review committee of “three of the nation's most distinguished political scientists” to review Gaye's work. The corporation declined to reveal the names of the three academics, citing their own wish to remain anonymous.
“They were anonymous because they knew what they were doing was bogus,” Swain said. “They should have been willing to put their name up there. This is clearly someone who wants something from Harvard and is afraid.”
The company made all of these moves in response to questions from the Post in October about more than 20 plagiarism allegations by Gay. Three days after The Post submitted questions to the school's communications office on October 24, and even before the school launched its own investigation, it said in part that the accusations against gays were “patently false.” received a 15-page threatening letter. .
Now watchdog groups are calling on the accreditor to investigate Harvard over its handling of gay plagiarism allegations, as the Ivy League school continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. The Post reported that it could affect whether the
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., sent a formal complaint to the New England Commission on Higher Education earlier this month. 1885.
A Harvard University spokeswoman declined to comment.
