Subject: Re: Higher Education: The Mission Is Money
Liz Magill.....A leader who was unable to think on her feet effectively enough to answer a simple question like does public speech calling for a genocide against a particular group violate the school's code of conduct?. That's not a trick question. That's not a particularly difficult logical question.

Article in today's NYTimes about the identical evasive and unacceptable responses of the presidents of Harvard and UPenn at that Tuesday hearing discussed the reality that they were not thinking on their feet. They chose not to deviate from the intensive preparation they each received for that hearing by the law firm WilmerHale. The president of MIT had also talked with lawyers from WilmerHale. Lawyers from the firm sat in the front row at the hearing.

"At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, the leaders of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave carefully worded — and seemingly evasive — answers to the question of whether they would discipline students who called for the genocide of Jews. The intense criticism that followed led many to wonder: Who had prepared them for testimony?

It turns out that one of America’s best known white-shoe law firms, WilmerHale, was intricately involved.

Two of the school presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard and Elizabeth Magill of Penn, prepared separately for the congressional testimony with teams from WilmerHale, according to two people familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified because the preparation process is confidential.

WilmerHale also had a meeting with M.I.T.’s president, Sally Kornbluth, one of the people said."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/1...

"White-shoe law firm" was a new descriptor for me. I learned that it refers to the white suede, red-soled shoes that were favored by students at the Ivy League schools, and the phrase refers to companies that serve the elite graduates of Ivy League colleges.