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Refreshing Honesty from a Member of Yale’s New ‘On What Grounds Do We Sandblast Names of Donors from Our Buildings, Named Professorships, and Programs’ Committee

‘… David Blight, a history professor and a member of the committee … said the Sackler program is just one of many potentially unsavory names at Yale. The renaming of Yale Commons as the Schwarzman Center following a donation from Stephen Schwarzman ’69, a private equity manager who served briefly on one of President Donald Trump’s business advisory councils, also spurred contention on campus this year. [UD wouldn’t take his name off a building for that reason; but surely Yale could find gross shit out about Schwarzman unrelated to Trump…]

“The reality is, as you know, this is how major universities function. Almost everything here has someone’s name on it,” said Blight. “My first reaction, I’m afraid, is skepticism, because behind great wealth there is always going to be an awkward story. Behind great wealth there will be a crooked path of some type, whether that wealth was made in fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals, real estate or finance.”’

Yes, it’s icing on the cake that the guy’s name is Blight.

He doth speak the truth. Almost all the major moneybags – David Rockefeller comes to mind as one of the highest-profile, at Harvard – are unsavory, and plenty of them go beyond that, well in the direction of Sackler criminality. I mean, Steven Cohen? Pretty much anyone at Yeshiva University? Don’t get me started. Blight’s right that going down that road means noisy incessant sandblasting.

Margaret Soltan, January 29, 2019 10:26AM
Posted in: just plain gross

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2 Responses to “Refreshing Honesty from a Member of Yale’s New ‘On What Grounds Do We Sandblast Names of Donors from Our Buildings, Named Professorships, and Programs’ Committee”

  1. Van L Hayhow Says:

    Not surprised it is David Blight. He has a reputation for straight talking. I once saw a talk he gave to a general audience on his work on how memory affects how the Civil War is treated. Again, this was not an academic conference but a talk to a general audience sponsored by the US Park Service. At the end he received a standing ovation.

  2. dmf Says:

    “Behind great wealth there will be a crooked path of some type, whether that wealth was made in fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals, real estate or finance’
    yes and all Ivy League faculty profit from it and are in the business of reproducing it…

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