Columbia University's Historical Russell Sage Foundation Connection Revisited

Did Columbia University.-linked Russell Sage Foundation get its "charitable" grant money, historically, by investing in corporations that exploit workers and from a foundation with Israeli investments?

The Russell Sage Foundation--whose board of trustees former Columbia University Provost and Columbia World Politics Deputy Director in 2024, Ira Katznelson, chaired between 1999 and 2002--claimed, historically, to be a “non-profit” institution (despite it having, historically, an endowment of over $350 million in assets in 2019).


But, according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2018, between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019, the Russell Sage Foundation collected over $15.5 million in total revenues, including over $11.5 million from its net investment income; and also including over $1.3 million from a “charitable” contribution it received from Bill Gates’s Gates Foundation (which—besides including former Columbia U. President Shafik on its board in recent years—in 2022 invested $9 million in an Israeli biotechnology company, Eleven Therapeutics, whose COO and Co-Founder is a “mission commander in active reserve duty” in the IAF and a former “F-16 co-pilot” and “IAF Major”, according to the Eleven Therapeutics website.) during this same time period.


In addition, according to a financial statement that was posted on its website, historically, in 2020 the Russell Sage Foundation had total revenues exceeding $52.5 million. Yet “the Foundation is exempt from federal taxes,” “is classified as a private foundation” and “the Foundation is further classified as an exempt operating foundation, and is therefore exempt from federal excise taxes;” although “the Foundation is subject to income taxes…on income derived from private equity partnership investments.”


According to the same 2020 financial statement, less than $27 million, of the over $350 million that the Russell Sage Foundation endowment had, historically, then invested in stocks and bonds of for-profit corporations that exploit workers and consumers around the globe, was then, historically, invested in “private equity partnership investments.”


But over $328 million of the Russell Sage Foundation endowment was, historically, then invested in either a domestic equities fund, an international equities fund, a commingled international equities trust fund or mutual funds--which produced dividends and interest income for the foundation, yet was apparently not then, historically, subject to federal income or federal excise taxes.


So, for example, the “philanthropic” Columbia University-linked Russell Sage Foundation paid, historically, its then-president, Sheldon Danziger, a total annual compensation of between $594,000 and $623,000, and gave him an expense account of over $84,000, between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019; and, during the same period, it then paid, historically, over $686,000 to firms like BlackRock and Silchester International Investors for “investment management services.” Yet the main tax that the “non-profit” Russell Sage Foundation (whose headquarters building is located at 112 East 64th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side) paid, historically, between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019 was just a real estate tax of less than $30,000.


The Russell Sage Foundation, incidentally, “was started with a $10 million [equal to around $280 million in 2021] bequest by Mrs. Sage in 1907,” as G. William Domhoff recalled in his 1970 book, "The Higher Circles: The Governing Class In America". But “philanthropist” Mrs. Sage was the second wife and widow of a long-time business partner of 19th-century U.S. Robber Baron Jay Gould: Russell Sage. And, according to Gustavus Myers’s "A History of the Great American Fortunes", Russell Sage “had the reputation among the knowing of being an old hand at political and financial corruption.”

Was Columbia University-linked Russell Sage Foundation started with inherited wealth of Robber Baron Jay Gould's business partner?

The Russell Sage Foundation--whose current president is a former Russell Sage Foundation "Visiting Scholar" and a former Harvard U., Princeton U. and Columbia University Professor named Bruce Western--is named for a super-rich U.S. capitalist who, by the time of his death in 1906, had accumulated an individual fortune of between $70 million and $100 million [equal to between $2 billion and $2.9 billion in 2021 U.S. dollars], by economically exploiting U.S. railroad workers, small farmers and, U.S. taxpayers, as well as by engaging in corporate stock and bond manipulation, in partnership with 19th-century U.S. Robber Baron Jay Gould.


As Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais indicated in their "Labor’s Untold Story" book, by the late 1880’s, Jay Gould and Russell Sage “had owned and pillaged the Union Pacific, the Wabash, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas, the Texas-Pacific, the Western Union Telegraph Company,…and a number of shorter Eastern railroads;” and it was their “practice to gain control of ruined railroads, usually through stock manipulation…, make a pretense of profitable operation, and then sell stocks and bonds based on that pretense before getting out just as the property failed again.”


According, for example to Gustavus Myers’s "History of the Great American Fortunes":


“Sage testified that he himself had begun buying Union Pacific stock in 1868 or 1869. One of the railroads that Gould, Sage…and their accessories bought as individuals, and then sold to themselves as directors of the Union Pacific, was the Kansas Pacific…Its chief assets were an issue of Government bonds, and a land grant of 3 million acres in Kansas and Colorado…In the juggling exchange of stocks and bonds and the fraudulent diversion of funds, they stole…more than $20,000,000 [equal to around $431 million in 2021 U.S. dollars]…The frauds of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, under the direction of Gould, Sage…were truly gigantic.


“Millions of acres of public land were stolen outright. No less than seven million acres were sold without any patent from the Government. Coal lands of inestimable value were fraudulently seized. Millions of dollars were fraudulently shuffled from one corporation to another…


“The Texas Pacific was one of the four main lines that Gould and Sage obtained control of by their well-known methods…Another of their lines was the Wabash, composed of…68 originally separate little railroads…Within 5 years of the time they gained hold of the Wabash, Gould and Sage had obtained a great series of privilege from various States, looted the railroads of millions of dollars, and then had thrown it into bankruptcy…Each new haul gave Gould and Sage a still greater supply of resources with which to manipulate other railroads and other public utility systems into their control…”


In addition, as the Internet Accuracy project noted, Russell Sage was also “a director of several New York banks, was a founding director of the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York City, and was president of New York's Standard Gaslight Company;” and he “was one of the largest stockholders of” of the “Manhattan Elevated Railway Company, Metropolitan Elevated Railway Company” and “many others.”


Gustavus Myers’s "History of the Great American Fortunes" book also recalled that, after holding a government position during the 1840’s in Troy (as an alderman of the Troy Common Council, until 1848) and occupying the Renssalaer County treasurer position in Upstate New York between 1844 and 1851 (before also being elected as an Upstate New York representative in the U.S. Congress between 1853 and 1857), Russell Sage had “gathered in his first notable amount of money.” He did so by “a transaction in which as a public official he betrayed the city of Troy into selling to himself for a small sum a railroad line” which “he later, according to a prearranged plan, sold to the New York Central consolidation at a very large profit.” And “there is nothing vague or conjectural regarding this…transaction” because “the facts are inscribed” in the “public record.”


At public expense, the City of Troy had built the 21-mile-long Troy & Schenectady Railroad in the early 1840’s to connect Troy, NY to Schenectady, NY. But later, in the late 1840's and early 1850’s, then-Renssalaer County Treasurer Sage persuaded the Troy Common Council (of which he had recently been a member) to sell its railroad line for $50,000 [equal to around $1.7 million in 2021 U.S. dollars] down, to a company headed by Sage; who then soon “sold it for $900,000 [equal to around $30.7 million in 2021 U.S. dollars] or so to a group of capitalists forming the New York Central Railroad combination.”


And Russell Sage also gained part of his excessive wealth from being a large stockholder in the 1860’s and 1870’s of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company that “obtained by bribery” large U.S. government subsidies “for carrying the mails between San Francisco and Asia via Honolulu,” according to "The History of the Great American Fortunes".

Has Columbia University.-linked Russell Sage Foundation given "charitable" grant money to its current or ex-trustees, historically?

The Russell Sage Foundation [RSF]—whose board of trustees was chaired between 1999 and 2002 by 2019-2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar”, former Columbia University provost and later Columbia World Politics Deputy Director Ira Katznelson--and whose board of trustees chair in 2023 was then Columbia University Professor and former Russell Sage Foundation "Visiting Scholar" Jennifer Lee —had a “Conflict of Interest Policy” posted on its website in 2021.


And according to this 2021 “Conflict of Interest Policy”, among “the requirements” governing “the activities” of its Trustees, the Trustees “may not be Visiting Scholars, Principal Investigators of a funded project, Authors/Editors of a Foundation book, or compensated participant in a funded project;” and “the Foundation may not approve or engage in any…arrangement that would constitute an act of `self-dealing.’” In addition, in an April 2, 2021 email to this writer, the then-Russell Sage Foundation President, Sheldon Danziger, stated the following:


“The Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees has a robust Conflict of Interest Policy and a Conflict of Interest Committee to ensure that the Foundation serves its mission to strengthen the methods, data and theoretical core of social sciences in order to better understand societal problems and develop informed responses. The Foundation and Committee take seriously any conflicts of interest and address them consistent with New York law and the laws and regulations governing exempt operating foundations.”


Yet, according to the CV that a then-Russell Sage Foundation Trustee and Yale University Professor Jennifer Richeson posted on the internet, the Russell Sage Foundation gave this RSF trustee a grant of $163,531 to "study" the “Sociostructural and psychological factors supporting the misperception of racial economic equality” in 2020-2021; although Professor Richeson [whom a page posted on one of the RSF websites currently seems to indicate might now be the RSF board of trustees chair] had been sitting on the Columbia University-linked Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees since 2019.


In response to an email query asking why a grant of $163,551 was apparently awarded by the Russell Sage Foundation to Russell Foundation Trustee Richeson in 2020-2021 for a funded project, if, according to the foundation’s “Conflict of Interest Policy”, Trustees “may not be Visiting Scholars, Principal Investigators of a funded project, Author/Editors of a Foundation book, or compensated participant in a funded project” and “the Foundation may not approve or engage in any…arrangement that would constitute an act of `self-dealing’”, the Russell Sage Foundation's then-president, Danziger, in his April 2, 2021 email, replied:


“You have only quoted part of the Russell Sage Foundation’s Conflict of Interest Policy. The Policy provides that trustees `may not be…Principal Investigators of a funded project…unless such activity was initiated prior to his or her appointment’ as a trustee. The grant to Jennifer Richeson was initiated before she was invited to join or elected to the Board and was awarded without any input from her whatsoever.


“Furthermore, Ms. Richeson is not the Principal Investigator (PI) on the grant but a co-PI and receives no salary support under the grant. The proposal received very high reviews during the roughly six-month review process involved in approving such grants (which involves input from a panel of expert, independent evaluators), and the Board approved the proposal without the input or participation of Ms. Richeson. As a result, there was no conflict of interest, no financial benefit to Ms. Richeson, and no-self-dealing.”


Yet then-Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Richeson had also previously been a Russell Sage Foundation “Visiting Scholar” in 2004, a member of a Russell Sage Foundation Working Group between 2010 and 2014 and a member of a Russell Sage Foundation Advisory Committee between 2016 and 2019; before joining the foundation’s board of trustees in 2019—and afterwards receiving a $163,531 “charitable” grant from the historically Columbia University-connected Russell Sage Foundation (whose headquarters building is located at 112 East 64th Street in Manhattan).


And, in addition to then-Trustee Richeson being given the $163,531 grant by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2020 (in which the Russell Sage trustee is described as a “Co-Principal Investigator” with M. Kraus PI, according to this then-trustee’s posted CV), Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Richeson had previously been given a grant by the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation of $197,524 between 2002 and 2005 to "study" the “intergroup contact: interpersonal and situational influence of dyadic interactions;” a grant of $174,953 between 2013 and 2014 to "study" the “public views about inequality, opportunity and redistribution: evidence from media coverage and experimental inquiry;” and a grant of $114,316 between 2015 and 2018 to "study" the “inequality, diversity and working-class attitudes.”


Besides receiving all this “charitable” grant money from the tax-exempt “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation since 2002, Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Richeson had also previously been given a $500,000 individual “genius grant” by the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation in 2007. And, coincidentally, a former Columbia University provost and former Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees chair and longtime trustee—Claude M. Steele—and a then-Russell Sage Foundation trustee in 2021 [and current Carnegie Corporation of NY foundation trustee and chairperson of Boston's PBS/NPR station's GBH/WGBH board of trustees]--Martha Minow—had also been sitting on the MacArthur Foundation board of directors, historically, between 2008 and 2021 and between 2012 and 2021, respectively.

Did Russell Sage Foundation board in 2024 include board members of MacArthur Foundation (whose former president then sat on GPF Advisory Board)--which gave "charitable" grants, historically, to RSF and Columbia?

A few weeks after the U.S. government-armed Israel Defense Forces [IDF]’s post-Oct. 7, 2023 attack on people in Gaza—which killed at least 33,970 Palestinian civilians and wounded nearly 76,770 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, as of April 18, 2024—the Genesis Prize Foundation [GPF[ website posted a press release on its website on Nov. 1, 2023 which stated the following:


“The Genesis Prize Foundation (GPF), which administers the eponymous $1 million annual award…is mobilizing its resources in support of Israel…


“Founder and CEO of The Genesis Prize Foundation Stan Polovets said: `…It is imperative that we unite and make sure our government officials, media and civil society continue to support Israel…Sustained support of the United States government and public is crucial if Israel is to succeed…’


“…Genesis Prize has embarked on a campaign to sustain long-term support for Israel… For more than a decade, The Genesis Prize Foundation has been building a global database of millions of like-minded people….


“Polovets added: `We are also amplifying social media posts supporting Israel by Genesis Prize Laureates, including Michael Bloomberg, Barbra Streisand, Robert Kraft, Dr. Albert Bourla, Natan Sharansky, and Natalie Portman….Social media is an important battlefield…’…”


And the GPF website also then revealed that a former Israeli government Ministry of Defense official, former Israeli government ambassador to the UN and current World Likud Chairman, Danny Danon, was also then a member of the GPF Advisory Board. As the GPF websitethen noted:


“Ambassador Danny Danon served as Israel’s 17th Permanent Representative to the United Nations from October 2015 to May 2020. He currently serves as Chairman of the World Likud. With over twenty years of experience representing Israel overseas and within the public sector, Ambassador Danon has developed a reputation as one of Israel’s most ardent defenders….


“Prior to assuming his role as Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Ambassador Danon held senior positions in Israel’s Cabinet, including Minister of Science and Technology and Deputy Minister of Defense.”


And according to the biographical information that World Likud’s website then had posted about GPF Advisory Board Member Danon:


“MK Danny Danon recently returned to the Israeli political scene after his five year tenure as Israel’s 17th Permanent Representative to the United Nations
.

“He currently serves as a senior MK in the ruling Likud party and sits on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee as well as the Subcommittee for Intelligence and Secret Services. MK Danon also holds the position of Chairman of the World Likud…


“…As Chairman of the World Likud Ambassador Danon leads Israel’s public diplomacy efforts on the world stage and conducts advocacy campaigns on behalf of Israel. ..”


Yet a former longtime president of the Chicago-based multi-billion dollar MacArthur Foundation—whose 21st-century board of directors has included, historically, Russell Sage Foundation [RSF] trustees and/or Columbia University administrators—named Jonathan Fanton apparently has sat next to World Likud Chair Danon on the Genesis Prize Foundation’s Advisory Board in recent years. As the GPF website indicates:


“Jonathan Fanton…was President of The MacArthur Foundation from 1999-2009…and for 17 years was President of The New School for Social Research. He is past Chair of Human Rights Watch…and was also a Trustee at the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation…He is also on the Advisory Board of the Social Science Research Council…”


And during the 21st-century the MacArthur Foundation board of directors has included, historically, members of the both the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees and the Columbia University administration.


For example former Columbia University Provost, 2019-2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar” and Columbia World Politics Deputy Director in 2024, Ira Katznelson, was the chair of the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees between 1999 and 2002. In addition, a former Columbia provost, Claude M. Steele, chaired the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees until a few years ago; and a former dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, Nicholas Lemann, was the vice-chair of the “non-profit” Russell Sage Foundation’s board of trustees in 2021.


According to the “Conflict of Interest Policy” of the Russell Sage Foundation, “the Foundation may not approve or engage in…any arrangement that would constitute an act of `self-dealing.’”


Yet in 2014, four years after MacArthur Foundation board member and former Columbia Provost Steele became a Russell Sage Foundation trustee in 2010 and two years before MacArthur Foundation board member [and current Carnegie Corporation of NY foundation Trustee and GBH-WGBH public broadcasting station board of trustees chair] Martha Minow became a Russell Sage Foundation trustee in 2016, the Russell Sage Foundation received and accepted a $350,000 tax-exempt “charitable” grant from the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation to research "the cause and consequences of increasing social, economic, and political inequality.”


In response to an email query asking if the MacArthur Foundation awarded any grants to the Russell Sage Foundation between 2010 and 2020, when either MacArthur Foundation board member Martha Minow or MacArthur Foundation board member Claude M. Steele were also Russell Sage Foundation trustees—although, according to the Russell Sage Foundation’s “Conflict of Interest Policy,” the “Foundation may not approve or engage in…any arrangement that would constitute an act of `self-dealing.’”?, the Russell Sage Foundation’s then-president, Sheldon Danziger, in an April 2, 2021 email to this writer, replied:


“It is not self-dealing for charitable foundations to collaborate with each other in awarding grants to third parties in furtherance of their respective charitable and educational missions. Self-dealing involves the use of foundation assets to benefit insiders to the foundation such as trustees and officers.


“The suggestion that it was self-dealing for the MacArthur Foundation to award a grant to RSF simply because an individual served on the boards of both foundations is fundamentally incorrect. The funds were granted to faculty researchers for social science research following a rigorous process of review.


“Since I became President of RSF in 2013, I have actively sought to collaborate with other foundations that have similar research interests in order to fund third party research that advances our respective missions.


“The RSF trustees do not initiate these co-funding proposals to other foundations, do not review them in advance of their submission (if at all) and do not derive any financial or other benefit from them.


“As I understand, the grant from the MacArthur Foundation was not approved at one of their board meetings because MacArthur program staff have authority to make certain awards without trustee approval. As a result there was no self-dealing and no conflict of interest.”


The “philanthropic” MacArthur Foundation (on whose board of directors former Columbia Provost Steele sat between 2008 and 2021) also, coincidentally, gave over $8.1 million in tax-exempt “charitable” grants to Columbia University between 2008 and 2020, including over $4 million in grants during the 2011 to 2020 period when MacArthur Foundation board member Steele also sat next to former Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Dean Lemann on the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees.


For example, the MacArthur Foundation gave a $230,000 grant to Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism (when the Russell Sage Foundation’s current board of trustees vice-chair Lemann was still Columbia’s journalism school dean) to "study" the "online distribution efforts of magazines” in 2008. And when Lemann was still the dean of Columbia’s journalism school (and, along with MacArthur Foundation board member Steele, was by then now a member of the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees), the MacArthur Foundation also gave Columbia’s journalism school a $35,000 grant in 2013 “to support the Columbia Journalism Review, for a project on understanding the news consumption habits of young adults.”


In addition, when MacArthur Foundation board members Steele and Minow both sat alongside the former dean of Columbia’s journalism school on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees between 2016 and 2020, the MacArthur Foundation gave a grant of $450,000 to Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism to "study" how "journalism and independent publishing are affected by the distribution of news content via social media channels” in 2016; and it gave an additional $850,000 tax-exempt grant to Columbia’s journalism school “in support of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism” in 2018.


Other “charitable” grants given to Columbia, when former Columbia Provost and former Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees chair Steele was sitting on the MacArthur Foundation board, included: a grant of $3,625,000 in 2010 to Columbia’s School of Public Health "to support the research network of an Aging Society;” a grant of $50,000 in 2012 to Columbia University “to support the summer workshop on Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy;” a grant of $500,000 in 2013 to Columbia’s School of Public Health; a grant of $10,000 in 2014 to Columbia “to support the summer workshop on Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy;” a grant of $300,000 in 2015 to Columbia for “its international studies forum; “a grant of $50,000 in 2016 to Columbia “for the summer workshop on Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy;” and a tax-exempt “charitable” grant of $1,750,000 to Columbia University’s Department of Sociology “in support of the executive session on the future of justice policy as part of the Safety and Justice Challenge.”

Did Columbia U.-linked Russell Sage Foundation [RSF] trustees, historically, get "charitable grant" money from it before or after sitting on RSF's board--and also, historically, fund Israeli university-affiliated professors?

In a press release, titled “RSF Announces 2022-2023 Visiting Researchers,” that was posted on the historically Columbia University-connected Russell Sage Foundation [RSF]’s website on June 30, 2022, the RSF stated that it was “pleased to announce the selection” as one of its “five visiting researchers for the 2022-2023 academic year,” a Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor named Ran Hassin. And, according to the same June 30, 2022 RSF press release:


“Ran Hassin is James Marshall Chair in the Department of Psychology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his PhD in psychology from Tel Aviv University. He is a former RSF visiting scholar.”


Yet the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that this Russell Sage Foundation “2022-2023 visiting researcher” and “former RSF visiting scholar” is affiliated with has been institutionally involved, historically, in providing support for the Israel Defense Force [IDF]—which has killed over 70,000 Palestinian civilians and wounded over 160,000 Palestinian civilians (mostly women and children) in Gaza, between Oct. 7, 2023 and December 11, 2025. As a Nov. 22, 2023 article, titled “The Hebrew University in Times of War”, which was posted on the website of the Australian Friends of the Hebrew University noted:


“The Hebrew University is not only Israel’s first and foremost university but it is also the university that has the most important ties and collaboration with the Israel Defense Force.


“The Hebrew University is the home to the elite TALPIOT program housed on the Givat Ram campus. Talpiot is a top-notch Israeli Defense Force (IDF) training program for talented recruits who have demonstrated outstanding academic ability in the sciences and leadership potential. Graduates of Talpiot have been involved in major military developments such as the Merkava tank, the Iron Dome to name but a few.


“The Hebrew University also runs the HAVATZALOT program which trains intelligence officers for key roles in the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate. Havatzalot’s cadets complete a full three-year bachelor’s double major degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
..

“In addition to academic studies, the cadets go through rigorous military and intelligence training, including visits to various IDF units, combat recruit training and officers’ course. The three years of training are followed by six years of service in key positions in the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate. The Havatzalot Program is regarded as one of the most prestigious programs in the IDF.


“The Institute for Research in Military Medicine (IRMM) is an institute of the Faculty of Medicine of the Hebrew University in partnership with the IDF. The IRMM was established in 2013 for the purpose of developing new treatments and technologies of relevance to operational military medicine and disaster management…The University provided diverse logistics equipment to several military units…”


The Russell Sage Foundation also provided, historically, a “charitable” grant to the Head of The B. I. Cohen Inst. for Public Opinion Research at Columbia University-affiliated Tel Aviv University: Sigal Alon. As Tel Aviv University Professor Alon’s website indicates:


“Alon’s research has been supported by grants from the…Russell Sage Foundation,… Israel Science Foundation, Israel Ministry of Science and Technology,…The Edmond de Rothschild Foundation, and the… TAU Center for AI and Data Science (TAD). She was a visiting fellow at…Russell Sage Foundation…”


Historically, former Columbia University Provost, 2019-2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar” and, in 2024, the Columbia World Politics Deputy Director, Ira Katznelson, sat on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees for ten years—between 1992 and 2002. And, during this same 10 year period, one of the RSF’s Visiting Scholars during the 1996-1997 was a Tel Aviv University professor named Yinon Cohen; who, according to his April 2021 cv, was later appointed to be the Chair of Columbia University’s Dept. of Sociology between 2011 and 2014 and a member of Columbia University’s Faculty of A& S’s “Promotion & Tenure Committee” between 2020 and 2023.


In addition, according to this former RSF Visiting Scholar and Tel Aviv University/Columbia University Professor’s website:


“Yinon Cohen is Yerushalmi Professor of Israeli and Jewish Studies in the Department of Sociology, Columbia University. He is a member of…Columbia Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies…”


Prior to sitting, historically, on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees for ten years—between 1992 and 2002—and being the chair of this foundation’s board between 1999 and 2002, Katznelson, was, himself, a Russell Sage Foundation “Visiting Scholar” during the 1991-1992 academic year, before joining its board.

And, coincidentally, before joining the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees in 2010 and becoming its chair until a few years ago, another former Columbia provost and Columbia professor of psychology, MacArthur Foundation board member Claude M. Steele, was given 5 “charitable” grants, totaling over $1 million, by the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation between 1993 and 2003—when Katznelson sat on the foundation’s board of trustees for 9 of these same years.


Among the tax-exempt “charitable” grants former Russell Sage Foundation Trustee and former Columbia Provost Steele received between 1993 and 2003 from the Columbia-linked Russell Sage Foundation were the following: a $420,000 grant to "study" the “stereotype vulnerability and academic performance: an intervention;” a $14,000 grant to do “a field test of `wise’ learning strategies;” a $30,000 grant to again "study" the “stereotype threat and academic achievement: an intervention;” a $350,000 grant to study “from diversity to community;” and a $221,382 grant to "study" the “models of diversity and social identity threat as determinants of successful diversity.
”

And, in 2022, the former provost of institutionally racist Columbia University, long-time member of the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation board of directors and former chair of the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees, Professor Steele, coincidentally, was then now a Russell Sage Foundation “Visiting Scholar” himself—who was then apparently eligible to be provided with “salary support up to 50 percent of" an "academic year salary (up to a maximum of $125,000 for a full term),” according to this foundation’s website.


Yet “self-dealing” was defined in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary in 1983 as “financial dealing that is not at arm’s length” and “arm’s length” was defined, by the same dictionary, as “a distance discouraging personal contact or familiarity” and “the condition or fact that the parties to a transaction are independent.”


Besides also being a former chair of the Russell Sage Foundation board and the same foundation’s 2019-2020 “Olivia Sage Scholar,” former Columbia Provost Katznelson was, historically, the president of the Social Science Research Council between 2012 and 2017.


Katznelson had also been sitting since 2008 on the board of directors and executive committee of the Social Science Research Council—which was “created by the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations, with additional funds from Julius Rosenwald and Russell Sage foundations,” according to Professor Joan Roelofs’s Foundations and Public Policy book. And, according to Professor Roelofs’s 2003 book, the Social Science Research Council was created, in part, “to distribute research funds lightly laundered of the Rockefeller and Carnegie stains.”


So, not surprisingly, besides sitting on the Social Science Research Council’s executive committee, 2019-2020 Russell Sage Foundation "Olivia Sage Scholar” Katznelson sat, historically, on the Rockefeller Archives Center’s board of trustees between 2013 and 2021, as well; while Russell Sage Foundation Trustee and MacArthur Foundation board member Martha Minow also, not surprisingly, had been sitting on the “philanthropic” Carnegie Corporation of New York foundation’s board of trustees since June 2020.

When 108 antiwar students were arrested on Tel Aviv U.-affiliated Columbia University's campus in 2024, was a Columbia U. professor and former RSF "Visiting Scholar" then the Russell Sage Foundation [RSF]'s Board of Trustees Chair?

On April 21, 2024, an article on the Al Jazeera website then noted that “at least 18 children” were “among those killed in a series of Israeli attacks with dozens of Palestinians in Gaza killed overnight;” and that, between Oct. 7, 2023 and Apr. 21, 2024, “at least 34,097 Palestinians" had, by that time, "been killed and 76,980 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza.” In addition, the same article had then also observed that the “US House of Representatives” had then recently passed an additional “$26bn in funding for Israel amid its war on Gaza and tensions with Iran, with the package to now go to the Senate for approval.”


Yet according to the website of the Russell Sage Foundation [RSF] (whose headquarters building is located at 112 East 64th St. in Manhattan) a professor of sociology at Tel Aviv University-affiliated Columbia University—whose university administration had invited New York City cops on April 18, 2024 to invade Columbia’s campus and arrest 108 students who were peacefully protesting against the IDF’s military actions and Columbia’s failure to divest itself from Israeli institutions and corporations with Israeli investments, before suspending the arrested students—was then the board chair of the Russell Sage Foundation [RSF].


And then, according to Columbia University’s website, the then-Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees Chair Jennifer Lee was "the Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Social Sciences at Columbia University", “her research has been funded by the…Russell Sage Foundation", and "she has been… a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.”


Columbia Professor Lee,, former Columbia University Provost and then-Columbia World Politics Deputy Director Ira Katznelson, and former Columbia University Provost Claude Steele, were not the only Russell Sage Foundation trustees who ever, historically, received “charitable” grants from this foundation before they sat on the “philanthropic” foundation’s board of trustees in the 21st-century.


Between 2013 and 2022, for example, then-RSF Trustee Larry M. Bartels sat next to former Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Dean and then-Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company board member and the RSF’s then-Board of Trustees Vice-Chair Nicholas Lemann on the RSF board. And besides being paid $8,000 by the RSF between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019 (according to the foundation’s Form 990 financial filing) for sitting on its board, before joining the RSF’s board, then-Trustee Bartels had received 4 “charitable” grants from the RSF between 2001 and 2010, including a “charitable” grant of $8,500 in March 2002 for a “Conference on Trust in Government" and a grant of $29,600 in November 2010.


In addition, when former Columbia Provost Steele was sitting on both the MacArthur Foundation board of directors and the RSF board of trustees in 2012, a MacArthur Foundation grant was, coincidentally, given to future RSF Trustee Bartels a year before he joined the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees in 2013.


Another RSF trustee, who sat, historically, on its board of trustees next to former Columbia School of Journalism Dean Lemann between 2012 and 2022, was Karen S. Cook; and, like then-Trustee Bartels, then-RSF Trustee Cook received “charitable” grants from the foundation, historically, before joining its board of trustees.


Between 1994 and 2009, future RSF Trustee Cook received at least 7 tax-exempt grants from the Russell Sage Foundation, totaling over $500,000: a $20,000 grant between 1994 and 1996 for "workshops" on “The Construction and Maintenance of Trust”; a $120,000 grant between 1995 and 1998 for "a working group proposal" on “The Construction and Maintenance of Trust;”; a $24,500 grant in November 1999 to "study" the “Reciprocal Trust in Patient-Physician Relationships: Managing the Transition from Individual to Group Trust;” a $300,000 grant between 1999 and 2004 for “The Construction and Maintenance of Trust: Continuation Grant Project Proposal;” a $25,000 “Physician-Patient Trust” exploratory grant between 2000 and 2002; a $5,000 “Physician-Patient Trust” supplemental grant in 2002; and a $35,000 “Trust Capstone Volume Grant” grant between 2007 and 2009. And between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019, then-Trustee Cook was also paid $9,610 by the “philanthropic” Russell Sage Foundation for sitting on its board of trustees.


Before joining former Columbia School of Journalism Dean Lemann on the RSF board of trustees between 2013 and 2022, then-RSF Trustee Kathryn Edin (who was paid $7,715 between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019 for sitting on its board of trustees) also received a 1991-1992 grant, a 1991-1993 grant, a 1998-2000 grant, a 2000-2003 grant and a 2003-2005 grant from the RSF; and during the 1992-1993 academic year was also a Russell Sage Foundation “Visiting Scholar.”


And, coincidentally, the MacArthur Foundation, on whose board former Columbia Provost and former RSF Sage Foundation Board of Trustees Chair Steele sat between 2008 and 2022, also gave RSF Trustee Edin a 2009-2014 MacArthur Foundation grant and a 2014-2015 MacArthur Foundation grant (at the same time MacArthur Foundation grant recipient Edin was then sitting next to MacArthur Foundation board member Steele on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees).


In addition, then-RSF Trustee Edin also received a 2019-2021 grant from U.S. Multi-Billionaire Oligarch Bill Gates’s Gates Foundation, while sitting on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees (around the same time the Russell Sage Foundation, itself, received a tax-exempt “contribution” of over $1.3 million from the Gates Foundation—one of whose foundation board members in April 2024 was also the Columbia University president who invited the NYC cops to come to the campus and arrest the 108 student protesters in April 2024).


Current RSF Trustees David Laibson and Hazel Rae Markus also, historically, received grants from the RSF in the years before they later joined, prior to 2022, the “philanthropic” foundation’s board of trustees. Trustee Laibson was given a “charitable” RSF grant in 2010; while Trustee Markus received a 1998 to 2000 grant, a 2000 to 2003 grant, a 2000 grant and a 2002 to 2004 grant from the Russell Sage Foundation; and was its 2018-2019 “Margaret Olivia Sage Visiting Scholar,” before becoming a RSF trustee.


In addition, a 2016 to 2018 MacArthur Foundation “charitable” grant was given to Trustee Markus by the MacArthur Foundation, when former Columbia Provost and MacArthur Foundation board member Steele and MacArthur Foundation board member Martha Minow both also sat together on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees.


And, coincidentally, when former Columbia Provost Katznelson was still a Russell Sage Foundation trustee, the former chair of the RSF board of trustees (who received $11,000 from the Russell Sage Foundation between Sept. 1, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2019 for sitting on its board), Michael Jones-Correa, was a 1998-1999 “Visiting Scholar” of the Russell Sage Foundation; while the RSF’s then-president and trustee in 2021 (whose photograph and bio were posted on Columbia’s “Columbia World Projects” website page in 2021), Sheldon Danziger, was a 2002-2003 “Visiting Scholar” of the Russell Sage Foundation, whose 1993, 2007, 2009 and 2013 books that he edited were also published—by the “philanthropic” and “non-profit” Russell Sage Foundation.

Was the Tel Aviv U.-affiliated Columbia U.-linked Russell Sage board interlocked to Social Science Research Council, Mellon Foundation and Biden White House, before or after 2022?

As an April 23, 2024 Al Jazeera article noted, between Oct. 7, 2023 and April 23, 2024, “at least 34,183 people" had by then "been killed and 77,084" had by then "been wounded” in Gaza, as a result of military actions by the U.S. government-armed IDF, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health; and “about 72 percent of those killed" then were "women and children.” In addition, “7,000 people” in Gaza by that time were "missing”, with “many presumed dead under the rubble;” and “485 medical staff" had by then "been killed” in Gaza as a result of IDF attacks between Oct. 7, 2023 and April 23, 2024.


Yet the majority of both GOP and Democratic Party members of the U.S. Congress in 2024 still voted to provide at least $17 billion more in U.S. lethal military aid to the Israeli government. And the Russell Sage Foundation [RSF]-connected Columbia University administration has still not divested itself of its investments in firms doing business in Israel or ended its institutional affiliation with Tel Aviv University, which has performed weapons research, historically, for Israel’s Ministry of Defense.


Besides being a former Columbia University provost, a former Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees Chair and Trustee and a 2019-2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar”, Tel Aviv University-affiliated Columbia ‘s Columbia World Projects Deputy Director in 2024, Ira Katznelson, also sat, historically, on the Brooklyn-based Social Science Research Council’s board of directors and executive committee from 2008 until at least late 2017; and, between 2012 and Aug. 31, 2017, Katznelson was, historically, the president of the Social Science Research Council [SSRC].


For being the SSRC’s then-president, Katznelson obtained, historically, a total annual compensation of $323,091 between 2016 and 2017 from that “non-profit” organization, according to the Social Science Research Council’s Form 990 financial filing for 2017. And former RSF Trustee Katznelson’s successor as the Social Science Research Council President between September 2017 and 2021 was a former sociology professor and former “Dean of Social Science” at institutionally racist Columbia University, Alondra Nelson, who had also apparently sat on the boards of both the “philanthropic” Andrew W. Mellon and Russell Sage foundations in 2020.


As a Jan. 30, 2020 press release that was posted on the Manhattan-based “non-profit” Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s website noted at that time:


“The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation today announced that Alondra Nelson, president of the Social Science Research Council…has been elected to its Board of Trustees.


“`We are thrilled that Alondra Nelson is joining the Mellon Board…,’ said Mellon Board of Trustees Chair Kathryn Hall….


“`It is a deep honor to join the Mellon Board of Trustees..,’ said Nelson.


“…Nelson was on the faculty of Columbia University, where she served as the inaugural dean of social science for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences...Nelson’s research has been supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation….”


Coincidentally, less than six months after 2019--2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar” Katznelson’s successor as Social Science Research Council president was “elected” to the Mellon Foundation board of trustees, the Russell Sage Foundation stated in a June 21, 2020 blog post, on its own website, that “the Russell Sage Foundation” was “pleased to announce the appointment of…Alondra Nelson to its board of trustees effective at its November 2020 board meeting."


Then, in a subsequent Jan. 22, 2021 blog post, the RSF(whose headquarters building is located at 112 East 64th St. in Manhattan), coincidentally, announced that the former Columbia professor of sociology, then-SSRC president, then-Mellon Foundation trustee and then-RSF trustee, “Alondra Nelson” had “been appointed by President Biden as deputy director for science and society;” and “in this capacity, she” was going to “help lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).”


On its website, the Social Science Research Council claims it is “an independent” and “nonprofit” institution that “mobilizes necessary knowledge for the public good,” whose slogan is “Mobilizing Social Science For The Public Good.”


Yet according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2018, between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019 the “nonprofit” Social Science Research Council (which, as a “public charity,” paid no federal income tax on its investment income of over $2.2 million and total revenues of over $19.6 million) spent less than $5 million on grants (including $798,712 on 177 ‘research” grants), but over $9 million on “salaries/other compensation/employee benefits.”


For example, then-SSRC President Nelson (who was paid a total compensation of $84,766 between Sept. 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018 by the Social Science Research Council, after she succeeded former Columbia University Provost Katznelson as SSRC’s then-president during this period, according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2017) received a total annual compensation of $276,007 from this non-profit organization between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019; before also later joining the Mellon Foundation board of trustees in January 2020, joining the RSF board of trustees in November 2020 and joining the Biden White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2021.


Coincidentally, the RSF trustee who was given a “charitable” grant of $163,531 by the RSF "to study" the “Sociostructural and psychological factors supporting the misperception of racial economic equality” in 2020-2021, then-Yale University Professor Jennifer Richeson, also sat on the board of directors of the SSRC prior to 2022—next to former Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] “research scholar” and then-Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Trustee Vishakha N. Desai (who was also, prior to 2022, a board member of “one of the five biggest global companies in India,” Mahindra and Mahindra, according to the Social Science Research Council’s website).


In addition, other Social Science Research Council board members who, prior to 2022, then sat next to RSF Trustee Richeson on the SSRC board, included: Columbia University Professor of Economics and former Goldman, Sachs & Company Vice-President Jose A. Scheinkman; former Federal Reserve Bank of New York Senior Vice-President Til Schuerman; Skyview Ventures Principal and former Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust Managing Director Peter Nager; Windcrest Partners General Partner Michael Gellert; Warburg Pincus Special Limited Partner William H. Janeway; and Curten Capital Managing Partner Joseph Schull (who was “a longstanding investor in the technology, media and telecommunications sector,” according to the Social Science Research Council website).


And although prior to 2022, former Tel Aviv University-affiliated Columbia U. Dean of Social Science, then-SSRC President and RSF Trustee Nelson also had sat next to “a longstanding" private "investor in the technology, media and telecommunication sector”, Joseph Schull, on the board of the Social Science Research Council (despite this “non-profit” institution claiming to be mobilizing social science “for the public good”), as previously noted, the RSF website’s Jan. 22, 2021 blog post observed that Nelson, coincidentally, was going to now “help lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy” in 2021 as the Biden White House’s “deputy director for science and society.”