Collin Anderson writes for the Washington Free Beacon about a high-profile, left-of-center foundation’s questionable leadership selection.
The left-wing Ford Foundation has a new president: Heather Gerken, the scandal-plagued dean of Yale Law School whose tenure attracted national attention when administrators threatened the professional prospects of a second-year student for his use of the term “trap house” in an email.
Both Yale and the Ford Foundation announced the move in Monday morning emails. Ford Foundation board chair Francisco Cigarroa called Gerken “a thoughtful and innovative leader and a tireless advocate for equity, justice, and values of democracy,” while Yale president Maurie McInnis praised her work “to foster discourse across the political and ideological spectrum.” Neither message mentioned the free speech and anti-Semitism scandals that defined Gerken’s tenure and led Yale to pass her over when it named a new president in the spring of 2024.
Gerken made headlines in 2021 when Yale Law School administrators who reported to her spent weeks threatening a Native American law student for sending a lighthearted email invitation to classmates, asking them to a party at his “trap house” apartment for a Constitution Day celebration. Yale Law School diversity director Yaseen Eldik called the language “triggering” and suggested the student’s decision to serve fried chicken at the party could be “used to undermine arguments that structural and systemic racism has contributed to health disparities in the U.S.,” according to leaked audio obtained by the Washington Free Beacon at the time. Eldik also suggested the student’s membership in the conservative Federalist Society could feel “oppressive to certain communities.” The blowback was so intense that Gerken was reourtedly in danger of losing her job.
In another scandal, more than 100 Yale Law School students attempted to shout down a bipartisan 2022 panel on free speech, causing so much chaos that police were called to escort the panelists out of the building. The school’s associate dean was present at the panel, hosted by the Federalist Society, for its entirety but did not confront the protesters for violating Yale’s free speech policies.
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Author: Mitch Kokai
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