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| Drew Faust / AP |
By Emanuel Pastreich
The recently retired president of Harvard University, Drew Faust, has joined the board of directors of Goldman Sachs. She will receive an "annual grant of restricted stock valued at $500,000" and "an annual retainer of $75,000."
Faust is a renowned historian of the Civil War whose 2008 book "This Republic of Suffering" detailed the change in the awareness of death that resulted from that terrible war. Such research does not have much to do with Goldman Sachs and its ruthless exploitation of American society, however.
Goldman Sachs is plagued by extensive ethical problems and is infamous as most ruthless and is well known as the "vampire squid" for its reckless promotion of government deregulation through the "once illegal" showering of cash on politicians. Multiple members of the Trump administration have close ties to Goldman Sachs.
In a normal age, the president of Harvard would politely refuse such an obvious conflict of interest. The article in the Harvard Crimson does not even mention a possible conflict of interest, but it is well known that universities like Harvard, with large endowments, have become "hedge funds with schools attached."
Some 15 percent of Harvard's endowment of $38 billion is invested in hedge funds that generate large profits for Goldman Sachs and other financial players, but does not do much for scholarship or education.
The decision by Faust to step over the line and join Goldman Sachs suggests that the circle has been completed and we no longer have enlightened people of means making donations to great universities, but universities that generate great wealth for investment banks and whose administrators are properly rewarded for encouraging this unhealthy trend. Her decision was most certainly a Faustian bargain.
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