What in the Name of Hydrology Jesus Is Harvard Thinking?
Mocking Harvard is the inalienable right of everyone in Massachusetts-nay, the world-who didn't go to college there. Usually, it's all in good fun. But not this time. This time, eyes wide open, Harvard has stepped into a sinkhole of white privilege and irredeemable complicity in an ongoing American tragedy. From the Detroit Free Press:
Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government announced that Snyder begins work Monday as a senior research fellow. His fellowship is with the school's Taubman Center for State and Local Government. Center Director Jeffrey Liebman says in a statement the former Republican governor, who served two terms starting in 2011, brings "expertise in management, public policy and promoting civility." Snyder says he looks forward to sharing his experiences.Snyder has previously said he's most proud of keeping young people in Michigan and Detroit's turnaround, which began with a bankruptcy filing he authorized. He's also acknowledged failure at all levels of government for the Flint lead-contaminated water crisis.
Harvard, what in the name of Hydrology Jesus are you thinking? Rick Snyder presided over a case of mass poisoning. At the very best, he dragged his feet on the true nature of the crisis in Flint. At worst, he was negligent and didn't care. The prosecutors looking into the Flint water crisis seized Snyder's cellphone two goddamn weeks ago.
One warrant, signed May 19, lists all content from Snyder's cellphone, iPad and computer hard drive. Similar information was sought from the devices of 33 employees who worked in his office, 11 in the Department of Environmental Quality and 22 in the Department of Health and Human Services. The evidence was apparently initially obtained by former special prosecutor Todd Flood with investigative subpoenas. Because it has been kept in a division of the attorney general's office, Hammoud took the unusual step of securing a warrant to search another part of the office. She has been managing the probe since January.
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when Snyder presided over a local government that poisoned a city through sheer bureaucratic stupidity and then try to lie its way out of it. From Michigan public radio:
So back in July, I turned to Brad Wurfel, the spokesman for Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality. Wurfel agreed to talk to me about the EPA report. The first thing I asked him was: what responsibility does the state have in making sure lead isn’t getting into people’s drinking water?“Let me start here,” Wurfel said. “Anyone who is concerned about lead in the drinking water in Flint can relax. There is no broad problem right now that we’ve seen with lead in the drinking water in Flint.” It turns out, there was a broad problem, and it turns out, the MDEQ is exactly the agency responsible. And we know now that the same week I talked to Brad Wurfel, was the same week some of the people he works with at the MDEQ realized that Flint’s latest lead tests weren’t looking too good.
Now, this guy gets a plush fellowship at what my pal Alex Beam calls The World's Greatest University. In case you were wondering, the Taubman Center at which Snyder will be working when he's not back in Michigan answering depositions, is named for one A. Alfred Taubman, a native Michigander his own self. He got rich building malls back when you could get rich doing that. He bought Sotheby's auction house and, in the early Aughts, he did ten months in prison and paid a $7.5 million fine for price fixing. It's nice when rich and influential people can bounce back like that, isn't it? The children in Flint aren't quite so lucky as Snyder and the late Mr. Taubman. Harvard, boy, I dunno.
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