The Rich and the Famous

[letitbe]

While I was at Columbia Business School, there was a guy in my class by the name of Luke Weil, a prodigal son of Scientific Games CEO Lorne Weil who sits on the School's Board of Overseers and sponsors an annual business plan competition. Back in 2003, Luke had a brush with fame in an Emmy-nominated HBO documentary called "Born Rich" in which he

Comments

[budhist_milf]

This is just so sick...but not surprising.

If having tons of $$$ lead to those kind of offspring, keep the money and I will keep my kids

[_tsvetkov_]

Стас, не могу завтра пойти на ланч.
next week?

A

[letitbe]

Sure!

[janya]

"Apparently a physical assault on a highly regarded tenured professor by a student who is a convicted felon in front of the whole class didn't warrant any disciplinary action on the part of my School's administration."

well, according to your own account, this is simply not true. Columbia did take disciplinary action in this particular case - against the professor.

[letitbe]

Conversely, it appears that in return for keeping the incident under wraps, he was able to negotiate a pretty good separation package for himself. In fact, he got to keep a nominal professorship status as well as to retain some kind of an ongoing "consulting" arrangement with the school, as per his CV.

[janya]

how's that "conversely"? The guy was a subject of a disciplinary action, so he had to leave. Since he's a tenured professor he can not be simply let go, and the school had to negotiate - the separation package, the status, etc..

[letitbe]

Columbia can fire a tenured professor for a cause, but obviously none existed. In fact, it can even even lay off tenured professors (as Anya's college just did). Columbia also had policies in place that in no uncertain terms required that the student be terminated, but failed to act on them.

To add insult to injury, what was happening in the background was a highly publicized propaganda campaign on the importance of Ethics in Business and the corresponding strict enforcement of the Honor Code within the school. None of this, however, the administration deemed applicable to themselves. Anybody with first hand knowledge of their own corruption who was able to blow the whistle had to be generously compensated to keep quiet. At least that's my theory.