John Harvard’s Body Molting In His Grave

My incessant reading of Democrat manipulations, deceptions and transgressions are killing me, but I can't help myself. The latest: Bill de Blasio, former NYC mayor, avowed socialist, supporter of the Sandanistas, child of communist sympathizers, Hillary Clinton campaign manager, who honeymooned in Cuba, welcomed Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe to New York’s City Hall and was so tone deaf that he once chanted Che Guevara slogans at a Miami political rally…….yeah, that Bill de Blasio, ended his congressional campaign run last month and has been appointed to a position as senior leadership fellow at Harvard University. Seriously. Maybe he and Liz Warren can get together for tea. After all they have the time to teach only one class apiece. The WSJ reports that Mr. de Blasio, formerly William Wilhelm until he chose to reject his father’s family and take his mother's maiden name, will hold office hours, meet with students, and teach at least one class at the T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Sounds super taxing. And how interestingly appropriate that he lands a position at the Chan School, named for its benefactor that contributed the largest single donation to Harvard in history, enough to get them to change the name of the place. According to an article by Guillermo Hava of the Harvard Crimson, the donation is not from the Chan family directly but from the Morningside Foundation, a 591(c)(3) non-profit entity founded by Gerald and his brother Ronnie. Morningside apparently derives their income from three sources. The first two sources are benignly named after East Asian Teas, Bancha and Keenum, and coincidentally occupy the same address in Iowa. That address is linked to Morningside Private Investors, yet another tentacle of the Chan corporate octopus. The two entities, according to the Crimson article, donated precisely the same amount: $1.05 million apiece. Interestingly, Mr. Hava reports that neither entity has an internet presence, with no mention in the public domain, thus having all the earmarks of a shell corporation. The third income source is Echo Enterprises International Holdings Group, Ltd, located in tax haven Monaco. Echo is linked to Stealth BioTherapeutics, which is, you guessed it, yet another part of the Chan corporate empire. 

While Gerald Chan seemed to be the frontman for the donation, his brother Ronnie was also involved and is a much more interesting case study. Both brothers serve both the Hang Lung Group as well as Morningside with the distinction between the two corporations described as being blurry. Pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai was quoted calling Ronnie Chan “ a pawn of the CCP.” Ronnie, as Co-chair of the Asian Society’s Hong Kong Chapter, has been accused of defending China’s incursion into Hong Kong, supporting pro-China censorship, and is purported to have close ties with Beijing. He appeared to be instrumental in the firing of a Forbes contributing author who penned an article critical of Chan, an article that mysteriously was removed from their website. Interesting to note that a Hong Kong investment firm purchased a majority stake in Forbes in 2014. Also, under Chan’s tenure at the Asian Society, the NBA came under pressure to censure tweets supporting pro-democracy demonstrations. Joshua Wong, leader of Hong King’s pro-democracy Umbrella Movement, suggested that Chan was “behind decisions to build connections with US universities while suppressing dissent at home,” wondering if Chan plays “a supplemental role in China’s global propaganda campaign.”  Adding further credence to Chan’s Beijing ties, Mr. Hava reports that he serves as governor of the China-US Exchange Foundation, a registered foreign agent chaired by Tung Chee-Hwa, Vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Orville Schell, yet another Harvard man serving as the Ross Director of the Asian Society New York Center on US-China relations, suspects Ronnie Chan’s motives “may be purely economic” but goes on to call the Asia Society’s Hong Kong Chapter “insufferable and quite repellent.”  Further, he states, “Ronnie Chan seeks to appease an increasingly authoritative government for money, and Harvard renames an entire school after his family-all with just enough legal and financial opacity to make it impossible to ascertain the fund's origins.”  

So is Harvard purposely moving farther to the left and supporting the CCP as it makes inroads into American educational, financial and government institutions?  Or are they, like Robbie Chan’s lesser detractors imply, simply sleeping with the enemy for purely financial motives? Either way, I fail to see how America benefits, how our public policy improves, and how our students will continue to receive a superior education. What does yet another socialist like Bill de Blasio brings to Harvard?  Certainly not diversity in public policy. Harvard, for all its claims of Ivy League elitism, is beginning to lose its luster. You will be judged by the company you keep, the faculty you employ, and the donations you accept. And,the policies of those you choose to honor.