A trustee subpoenaing his university’s students is kind of bad form; it kind of undermines the whole “university family” meme of which publicists are fond.
Of course we know a university is not a family, strictly speaking; but on the other hand there’s this idea that a university is a community, there’s a certain united feeling and history and commitment there… And that, as in families, certain things aren’t done. It’s a news story when children sue their parents; and it’s totally a news story when, angered by students calling for an investigation of a trustee’s rumored unfair labor practices, the trustee subpoenas their emails, journals, shopping lists…
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There are eight million stories in the Naked City, as they say, and the Daniel Straus saga is only one of them; but in its small way – in a way that interests University Diaries – it’s paradigmatic. Now that Straus is, uh, off the NYU law school board of trustees, it’s worth reviewing the plot elements.
The intriguing problem in regard to choosing trustees is the following:
You’re after the most staggeringly bohemoth moneybag in the world. You’re after the Mothra of money.
Some of America’s most wealthy have acccumulated their wealth in morally and legally questionable ways.
Some of these same people have rather aggressive and even imperious personalities. They were already that way when somewhat unscrupulously, perhaps, accumulating their wealth. Now that everyone treats them like Louis Seizième (pre-guillotine) they are far worse.
If you’re this kind of guy (Platonic ideal: Donald Trump) you customarily sue the shit out of anyone who dares to get in your way, and lookee here. Now it’s two of your charges, two of the law students whose welfare you’ve agreed to oversee, and they’re making noise in various ways about your labor law violations. They seem to think you’re a little soiled to be a trustee.
Unfortunately for you, you are not a Yeshiva University trustee, where being Zygmunt Wilf is not a problem. You do your subpoena, and NYU immediately decides to represent – at no cost – the students. So now you’re in the awkward position of being at very serious odds not just with the students whose welfare you oversee, but with the university that appointed you.
Something’s got to give, and that’s you.
NYU gets bad publicity; you get ridiculed (‘Mr. Straus’s lawyers accuse the union of conspiring with students to “embarrass,” “shame” and “publicly denigrate” him. You might argue that Mr. Straus has done a good job of this on his own.’).
So to repeat: The problem with recruiting trustees (people pay much more attention to the problem with recruiting the best football players, but I’d argue that they’re equally interesting problems) is that… Well, let me quote Fran Lebowitz (UD interviewed her not long ago): “You don’t earn a billion dollars. You steal it.” This is not always an accurate statement, but you get the idea. You can’t be too careful when choosing trustees.