If only Lee Bollinger, the former president of Columbia University, hadn’t already tarnished his reputation with his weak responses to the medical school sexual assaulter and the fake U.S. news numbers. If it hadn’t been for that, he would’ve been a perfect person to stand up to the government’s attack on universities. He’s an expert on the first amendment, he’s had a long and distinguished career, and he had the full confidence of the board of trustees.
I see an analogy to Tony Blair, who had so much political authority, all destroyed by his terrible decisions on the Iraq War. As with Bollinger at Columbia, but on a much larger scale, the problem was not just that Blair made a bad call but that he made no effort to get to the bottom of the problem. Bollinger’s association with the Columbia sexual assaulter and the Columbia fake data are magnified by his apparent lack of interest in making things right, in both these cases.
Other examples are Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, and Lyndon Johnson and the expansion of the U.S.-Vietnam War. As with Bollinger and as with Blair, it all seems tragic, in that these presidents squandered immense power, authority, and popularity—and you could easily imagine a world in which these events didn’t happen.
A few months ago, Bollinger gave an interview on universities in the current political climate. He had some reasonable things to say, but he doesn’t have so much moral authority to say it. I’m sure that Tony Blair has some reasonable things to say about foreign policy, too. It’s too bad it had to be this way.
> Lee Bollinger … with his weak responses to the medical school sexual assaulter
This probably belongs in the “Correct Me!” thread, but you seem to be consistently uncharitable to those you disagree with. I am no fan of Lee Bolinger, but what precisely do you think he should have done and when exactly should he have done it? I am unable to identify a moment when Bolinger was not probably following the advice of Columbia lawyers. Do you think he should not follow the legal advice of Columbia’s own attorneys? Did you want current president Claire Shipman to not listen to Columbia’s lawyers?
Robert Hadden was a monster. But, if you run an institution with thousands of employees, you are guaranteed to employ some monsters. I could imagine that Bollinger did some sleazy things with regard to the Hadden case, but I have seen zero evidence that he did so. (There is a much more evidence that, as with the USC case, Hadden’s direct superiors acted immorally.)
What would you have done differently if you had been Columbia’s president?
I know nothing about this case, so I am not addressing the particular merits of the legal advice or Bolinger’s actions (or lack thereof). But your comment seems to imply two things that I do not agree with. First, that legal advice should always be followed. There are plenty of lawyers who give bad advice and sometimes doing what is right may not be what they would advise. As I said, I am not saying this applies in this case, but I want to emphasize that legal advice is only one consideration and does not eliminate a decision maker’s responsibilities.
The second issue is that the reality of having thousands of employees, some of whom are guaranteed to be ‘monsters’ is not a good excuse for permitting these actions to continue. Somebody must take responsibility and the saying “the buck stops here” should have some meaning. If we permit those in charge to escape responsibility with an excuse that they run large organizations, then I fear we have established a framework devoid of accountability. Bollinger either needs to be held responsible or needs to hold those delegated such responsibility are held responsible. If that was done in this case, then perhaps this does not apply, but it doesn’t sound like it from the description in the post.
D:
1. I don’t see why I should be particularly “charitable” to Bollinger. He doesn’t need my charity. He was a well-paid and powerful university president. I guess the job of university president is mostly (a) to raise money, (b) to make tough decisions, and (c) to handle crises as they came up. I assume he did a good job with (a), I don’t have much to say about (b), and he did badly on (c).
2. I have no idea “precisely do you think he should have done and when exactly should he have done it.” That’s not my job! It seems pretty clear that he didn’t do things right. I’m not saying I could’ve done any better–but I would never claim to be competent to do so. As it is, Bollinger seemed to have taken a long time to do anything about this case.
3. I know more about the fake U.S. News numbers. There it seems very clear that Bollinger, and the rest of the Columbia administration, failed completely. Even now there seems to have been zero interest in tracking down what happened, firing who did it, and figuring out what was happening in the university’s governance structure that made this happen.
Finally, all of this is just my opinion, and I very much appreciate you going on here to disagree with me!
I think this misunderstands Andrew’s point, which is rather different. The problem he’s highlighting is not error, which we all are guilty of at one time or another. It’s the refusal to examine it later on — to admit it and then try to figure out what caused it so it won’t happen again. This is an ongoing theme in the main subject of this blog, and it’s relevant to administration and politics too.
We don’t expect perfection from anyone, but we should expect reflection.
D:
Also, to continue my response: what I wrote again was that Bollinger “tarnished his reputation with his weak responses to the medical school sexual assaulter and the fake U.S. news numbers.” I think this is an accurate assessment and I think his reputation was justifiably tarnished. Again, I’m not saying I would’ve handled the medical school thing any better–I do think I would’ve handled the U.S. News thing better, but who knows?–I just think he had a weak response and that this tarnished his reputation. Maybe this is unfair to Bollinger–perhaps he was just dealt a bad hand on this one and a weak response was all he could’ve done–but, yeah, life isn’t always fair. Bollinger took the big job with the big salary and part of his job is to avoid this sort of thing. And the result is that he had to step down as university president and is not in a position to be much of a credible spokesperson for universities. On the plus side, it could’ve been worse–it doesn’t seem that he exchanged chummy emails with Jeffrey Epstein, took flights in that private jet, or hit up Epstein for dating advice or money for his wife’s celebrity interview project.
>> Millendorf was infuriated to discover how much evidence Columbia had failed to turn over — or possibly even lost — during her investigation. The DA found that the university “expended little or no effort to preserve documents” and put in place no record-retention holds until April 2020 — an elementary step when an organization is involved in litigation. The university did not give prosecutors emails from Brenda Cruz documenting the patient complaint in October 2008 and noting that it had been discussed with John Evanko, nor an email exchange in October 2013 about another incident. Columbia also did not turn over critical pieces of Hadden’s personnel file, including his censure for inappropriate computer use and the letter from Harold Fox to Dian Monson.
> Robert Hadden was a monster. But, if you run an institution with thousands of employees, you are guaranteed to employ some monsters. I could imagine that Bollinger did some sleazy things with regard to the Hadden case, but I have seen zero evidence that he did so. (There is a much more evidence that, as with the USC case, Hadden’s direct superiors acted immorally.)
Bollinger, as the president of the university, is in no small sense culpable for the things Hadden’s direct superiors did. At least one of the people that ran interference and actively impeded the DA was the school’s general counsel, who reported to him.
Furthermore, Columbia disregarded legally mandated reporting of complaints about Hadden and at the same time appears to have intentionally and willfully disregarded the need to preserve documents relating to his actions.
>> When the NYPD arrested Hadden in June 2012, Columbia acted swiftly to find him a lawyer. That weekend, Helen Cantwell, an attorney representing the university, called Isabelle Kirshner, a prominent defense counselor who had developed what she calls a “niche practice of men behaving badly.” She agreed to represent him. But even Kirshner was puzzled by Columbia’s stance toward Hadden. “I was a little surprised that they let him go back,” she recalls, letting out a chuckle of disbelief. “I have no idea how that came about.”
Again, Bollinger was in charge of the university during the weeks after Hadden’s arrest, during which the university allowed him to continue practicing medicine and assaulting patients.
Presidents of private universities now earn substantially more than a million dollars per year. They work hard for that, of course. But a lot of other people on university campuses work equally hard for a lot less money. The salaries to presidents can only be justified if we think of them as people who have to make correct decisions in tough circumstances. That’s really what they are paid for.
Andrew’s comments strike me as entirely fair.
This reminds me of a line in a recent piece on the class formerly taught by Larry Summers that made me laugh out loud: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/21/summers-classroom-absence.
Heartbreaking: The Worst College Administrator You Know Just Made A Great Point
Link: https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/
Anon:
Just to clarify: I don’t think Lee Bollinger is the worst college administrator, or anything close to it! I think he mostly did a good job, but unfortunately his moral authority was crippled by some bad decisions he made. That’s what makes me sad. If Bollinger had been a complete scammer of the Robert Sternberg variety, then it wouldn’t be such a tragedy that he had to leave.
Please don’t take my throwaway joke too seriously. Certainly, Bollinger isn’t the worst college administrator there is; Gordon Gee is still here!
Had a similar feeling when I saw the Chronicle’s recent interview with Gordon Gee, except the “if only” was a lot longer list (though, perhaps nothing on the scale of the Hadden mess)…
Wayne:
Kinda, but my impression of Gordon Gee, from what I’d heard of him, is that he’s a corrupt time-server through and through so no great loss.
Consider a comparison:
> If only Lee Bollinger, the former president of Columbia University, hadn’t already tarnished his reputation with his weak responses to the medical school sexual assaulter
> If only Barak Obama, the former president of the United States, hadn’t already tarnished his reputation with his weak responses to the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooter
On one hand, this is fair. Bollinger could have responder more strongly and Barak Obama could have responded more strongly. If you are the leader of a large organization, you can always respond more strongly.
To provide intelligent criticism, you need to specify what Bollinger/Obama could have done after the event. Then you need to discuss the what the costs/benefits of that response would have been, and how the response might have impacted Bollinger/Obama’s other goals and responsibilities.
If you are a partisan, however, you can just criticize! Obama was president. Bad thing happened. He could have done more afterwards. He didn’t. That failure has “tarnished his reputation.” And, in a sense, that is true, at least among the partisans and the less thoughtful observers.
Andrew writes:
> I have no idea “precisely do you think he should have done and when exactly should he have done it.” That’s not my job!
If you don’t have any idea what Bollinger might have done differently, then how do you know that he didn’t perform as well as any university president could have?
“Then you need to discuss the what the costs/benefits of that response would have been, and how the response might have impacted Bollinger/Obama’s other goals and responsibilities.”
This is very troubling to me. On one hand, you are undoubtedly right that such questions matter. On the other hand, almost any leader can justify almost any action using this logic. I can’t help but think of the current administration – any of their actions could be ‘justified’ by appealing to this logic. In fact, I think they often do exactly that. And it is driving me crazy. I think much of what they do is just wrong- unethical in substance (sometimes) and wrong as a matter of process (virtually all the time). So, your statement, while undoubtedly true, opens a can of worms that I can’t see how to close.
> almost any leader can justify almost any action using this logic
Sort of. Judgment is difficult! There is just no way around that fact. Too many people are too quick to say things like Joe “tarnished his reputation with his weak responses” even though they don’t have the information necessary to make that judgment.
My message: Be more skeptical, of claims to both knowledge and judgment.
Regarding Trump’s right-sizing of academia: so far it looks like too little too late. Lets hope more – much much more – is in the pipeline.
Columbia’s fake ratings were a tool to hide the university’s disasterous DEI / descrimination decline and keep the donations flowing on. All Federal funding should simply be pulled from Columbia, MIT, Harvard and the rest of the DEI / discrimination academic clown show. Then you can join the parade of white q-tips protesting “discrimination”.
I can’t even tell what part of your comment is sarcasm. But in any case I totally reject Trump’s involvement in higher education. Trump’s “right-sizing of academia” is simply much too much, not “too little too late.” The question of whether DEI was good or bad, or went too far, or whether changes are too late, are all worthy issues to discuss, but kind of irrelevant to my view of Trump and higher education. I simply believe he has no business (no, this is not a legal argument I am making) involving his views in higher education. I’m sure there are legal arguments for his involvement, but I nevertheless reject his involvement. There is plenty wrong with higher education but I think it is for universities themselves to fix that. If they can’t or won’t, then they will suffer the consequences. Those of us involved may also suffer the pains of trying to address past discrimination with sensible policies that don’t do more harm than good. This is not easy but it is our responsibility to do that. I don’t need or want the President to become involved, especially when all the evidence shows that he is not open to hearing any views other than his own or his selected group of yes-people.
It’s not clear to me Bollinger is experiencing any negative effects of his actions. Sure, Trump is a problem for many universities, but that seems to be true regardless of whether they fudged their U.S. News numbers.
Wonks:
I wasn’t saying that Bollinger is personally experiencing any negative effects. He seems to be living a comfortable retirement and I doubt he’s even experienced any social shunning of the Dershowitz variety. What I was saying was that, absent these scandals, Bollinger might well have been able to mount a stronger defense of the universities against recent government attacks. For one thing, absent the scandals Bollinger still might be president of Columbia University. But, even beyond that, he doesn’t have much moral standing to criticize the government stepping in and interfering with the university, given that when he, Bollinger, was president, he sat by and did nothing while the sexual assaults and the fake U.S. News numbers were going on.
Have other university presidents been able to mount more successful defenses?
Wonks:
I think Columbia’s experience with the government has been worse than most, and I also think that had pre-scandal Bollinger been the president of Columbia University, that the government might have not wanted to pick a fight with him and they would’ve gone after a softer target.
This seems wrong:
> absent the scandals Bollinger still might be president of Columbia University.
Gemini reports:
> Lee Bollinger stepped down as the president of Columbia University on June 30, 2023, after serving in the role for 21 years. His departure was a planned retirement rather than a resignation due to a specific crisis, though his final years were marked by several campus-wide challenges.
In particular, the retirement date was set in October 2020, before the rankings data scandal even broke. So, absent a time machine, it would have been hard for that scandal to impact Bollinger’s status. Gemini concludes:
> If the Board of Trustees or Bollinger felt he needed to step down because of the Hadden federal indictment or the rankings scandal, they would not have voted to keep him in office longer (extending him from 2022 to 2023).
> Typically, when a university president is forced out by a scandal, the Board announces an “immediate” search or a very short transition period (often 6 months or less). Giving a president a three-year runway (from the October 2020 announcement to the June 2023 exit) is a hallmark of a prestigious, orderly retirement.
> While the Hadden and rankings scandals significantly tarnished Bollinger’s final years and legacy, the administrative record indicates he would have retired in 2023 regardless. He was 76 years old and had already completed the longest tenure in modern Ivy League history.
D:
I said “might,” not that I know it. It’s possible he would’ve retired in 2023 anyway; it’s possible that with the scandals coming down he decided it would be a good idea for him to leave, even if not “forced out.” Also, absent the scandals, the university might have brought him back in as an interim president during the recent turmoil. In any case, given that he did very little when the university was harboring a known sexual assaulter on the medical school and then did very little when the university was faking its numbers, I think he didn’t have much moral standing to push back against attempts by the government to interfere in the university’s business.