Leader of Prestigious Yale Program Resigns, Showing Donor Pressure

The Brady-Johnson Program at Grand Strategy is one of Yale University’s most renowned and prestigious programs. Over the course of a year, it allows an elite group of about two dozen students to immerse themselves in classical history and statecraft texts, while also standing shoulder to shoulder with guest lecturers from the worlds of government, politics, military affairs and the media.

But now, a program created to train future leaders how to lead in the turbulent waters of history is facing a crisis of its own.

Beverly Gage, the 20th-century political historian who has led the program since 2017, resigned, saying the university failed to stand up for academic freedom due to its donors’ inappropriate efforts to influence curriculum and faculty recruitment.

Donors who are both prominent and have deep pockets, Nicholas F. Brady, a former U.S. Treasury secretary under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, and Charles B JohnsonA mutual fund billionaire and prominent Republican donor who donated $250 million to Yale in 2013—the largest gift in its history.

Days after the 2020 presidential election, Professor Gage said an opinion article in the New York Times by another trainer on the program, describing Donald J. Trump as a demagogue who threatened the Constitution, sparked complaints from Mr. Brady.

After debating the program four months later, Professor Gage resigned after the university administration announced that a new advisory board it would set up to oversee the course under previously ignored bylaws would be dominated by conservative figures chosen by donors, including those opposed to it. strong objections, Henry A. Kissinger, former secretary of state to President Richard M. Nixon.

Yale’s as yet undisclosed resignation raises the question of where universities draw the line between honoring original agreements with donors and allowing them to have an undue say in academic affairs. It’s a question that can get turbocharged when political visions and funding imperatives clash.

Since taking over the program, Professor Gage has expanded the curriculum to include grassroots social movements such as the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and the civil rights movement in the United States. He said until late last year, he had received no criticism from donors or management about the direction of the course.

Yale president Peter Salovey praised his teaching and scholarship in a statement. However, management has disputed allegations that Yale has succumbed to donor pressure.

Pericles Lewis, the university’s vice president of global strategy and vice president of academic initiatives, said the university adhered to the 2006 agreement with donors, which Professor Gage opposes.

“There will be no controlling power,” he said of the board. “But I can see why this isn’t his tea.”

What the administration sees as legitimate oversight is a sudden effort by donors to establish “a kind of oversight and control” over the program, said Professor Gage, who is still a permanent professor in the history department.

“It’s very difficult to teach effectively or creatively in a situation where you’re second-guessed, weakened, and unprotected,” he said in an interview.

‘Traditionally, it is thought that the faculty determines the curriculum.’

The Grand Strategy program was founded in 2000 by Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis. leading scholar Author of the Cold War and Paul Kennedy “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” Along with George P. Shultz and diplomat Charles Hill, a former aide and adviser to Mr. Kissinger.

The idea was to teach leadership through an eclectic curriculum of classic texts, case studies, and crisis simulations, featuring thinkers and topics from Thucydides, Sun Tzu, and Machiavelli to the Cold War.

In his 2005 biography of Mr. Hill, “The Man For whom Nothing Was Lost,” the course was “born from a desire to reaffirm the power of the big idea,” wrote journalist Molly Worthen. “This came from professors’ alarm at the rise of the ‘wonk’, the Clinton-era policy expert with no concept of broad context.”

the course is fast attracted fans (and impersonators) Far beyond Yale, there’s plenty of doubt on the predominantly liberal campus, where some see it as a cult bastion of retrospective “big man” history.

In 2006, a combined gift of $17.5 million was officially awarded to Mr. Johnson and Mr. Brady. Inside 2013 article Professor Gaddis in The Yale Daily News said Mr. Brady gave only one instruction: “Teach common sense.”

“Grand Strategy” is a broad but slippery concept. created constant controversy about the meaning. Professor Gaddis, in his 2018 book “On Grand Strategy”, described it as “the necessarily alignment of unlimited aspirations with limited capabilities”.

In recent years, scientists have extended the concept to business. global public healthparty politics and other fields.

Professor Gage, 49, incorporated social action strategy into the course. (In a recent article, he described himself as “as likely to be a protester as a politician.”) He said he is trying to bring in a demographically, politically and intellectually diverse group of practitioners as teachers and guest speakers. Recent invitees include former Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis; conservative intellectual Yuval Levin; civil rights lawyer Vanita Gupta and racial justice activist Heather McGhee.

Professor Kennedy said he supported the course under Professor Gage. “He is a very talented leader and teacher,” she said.

Professor Gaddis echoed the sentiment, adding: “I don’t think the Yale administration has isolated him enough. Traditionally, it is thought that the faculty determines the curriculum, and I think that’s how it should be.”

‘I don’t teach Grand Strategy the way Henry Kissinger would.’

Professor Gage, recently nominated He was appointed to the National Humanities Council by Yale as program director in July 2020. (She is also a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and has written opinion pieces for The Times.) She described her previous relationship with the donors. as a supporter.

But a week after the presidential election, the tone abruptly changed last November, with a broadcast by Yale political scientist Bryan Garsten, who lectures on the program. an opinion article “How Do We Protect America From The Next Donald Trump?”

The next day, Professor Gage received an email from Mr. Hill saying that Mr. Brady had called “for advice” about the article and “complained that there was no great strategy”. According to the email viewed by The Times, Mr. Brady also said, “Charlie Johnson and I did not sign up for this.” (Mr. Hill died last March, 84.)

In a phone call that day with Professor Gage, Mr. Brady reiterated his view and began asking questions about the curriculum and practitioners. “It was weird because none of that has changed much in the last three years,” he said.

Representatives for Mr Brady, 91, and Mr Johnson, 88, said they could not comment.

In another phone call on 13 November, Professor Gage said that Mr. Brady had complained that the program was “not what it used to be”. When pressed for details, he said he didn’t teach Grand Strategy “the way Henry Kissinger would.”

‘Absolutely true,’ I said. “I don’t teach Grand Strategy the way Henry Kissinger would,” he said.

Later that day, Mr. Brady sent him an excerpt from the 2006 donation agreement, which outlined a five-member “visitor board” that would advise on the appointment of practitioners.

Professor Gage had never heard of this board, which was never formed. Deputy Chief Dr. Lewis told him he would investigate. Two weeks later, Dr. Lewis said he had confirmed the details in the donation agreement and that Yale had a legal obligation to form the board.

Professor Gage was not happy. But if it had been created, Dr. It would need diversity across generations, ideological, methodological, racial, and gender lines, Lewis insisted. And donors could not be allowed to appoint their members.

Yale, he said, seemed to agree. Then, Dr. About two months went back and forth, with Lewis posting a series of proposals, most of them Republican or conservative, said Professor Gage. He said that as long as the board had a different mix, he told him most things would be fine.

But things “started to go downhill” in late February. said. In a phone call, Dr. He said Lewis had told him that donors threatened to sue to get back the remaining Grand Strategy donation. And Mr Johnson $250 million donation There may also be doubt.

Dr. Lewis also said he wanted a researcher that Mr. Brady had previously commissioned to write. 2016 book About the program for observing the class and giving feedback.

On March 4, things reached their climax. According to Professor Gage, Dr. Lewis told him Mr. Johnson’s, Dr. Lewis said there was a false impression that he could choose the board of directors and George W. Bush; Thomas H. Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey; and Mr. Kissinger.

Professor Gage said the board lacked the necessary diversity and objected to Mr Kissinger. “It represents the opposite of the generational change I am trying to make,” he said in the interview.

Next week, Professor Gage, Dr. Lewis, Dr. He said Salovey is moving forward with a board that includes these three men. And it wouldn’t include anyone with social movement expertise, as donors didn’t want that.

That evening, Dr. He spoke to Salovey and asked him to see things from a “university perspective”, describing it as a donation management situation that will likely be resolved.

He told her that he would resign unless Yale came out stronger in favor of academic freedom and support of the current program. A few days later, it did so, effective in December.

‘A clear place of participation along ideological lines.’

Dr. Lewis called Professor Gage “an outstanding historian and a wonderful teacher.” But in an interview with The Times, she turned down the idea that Yale was being swayed by donor pressure. Aside from a strong desire for Mr Kissinger, he said the donors had not chosen any board members other than to focus on international affairs (which he called the “main aim of the programme”).

Dr. Lewis said the donors did not convey any political concerns about the board or the program. “The way they expressed it to me was more about wanting to make sure that the goal of international engagement was there and we had outstanding practitioners,” he said.

As for Mr. Brady’s researcher’s suggestion to attend the lecture and report, Dr. Lewis said the thought may have been time to “update” his book published in 2016—an idea, he said, ruled out.

Professor Gage’s, Dr. When asked about Salovey’s allegations that he had informed him that he planned to include three people on the board, as Mr Johnson was said to have requested, a spokesperson for Yale declined to comment. “We will not confirm this level of detail regarding private conversations,” he said.

Mr Lewis said he did not remember whether Mr Johnson’s $250 million donation had come. Nor did he recall any threat of legal action if for some reason we felt the Grand Strategy had come to the end of its time, although there was debate over whether the remaining funds would be used for other purposes.

Despite these conversations, Dr. Lewis said he has no plans to stop the program, which he calls “one of the jewels in the crown of the Yale curriculum.”

Professor Gage said it’s ironic that the Grand Strategy program is under fire at a time when many people are concerned about the lack of political diversity on elite campuses.

“This program really sought to be something that many people say universities want to be: a place of open engagement between ideological lines,” he said.