Columbia University Students, Faculty, Alums Demand CU President Take Back All The Nice Things He Said About Jamie Dimon
As you may have noticed, Jamie Dimon has had some unwanted attention thrown his way over the last several weeks, on account of one of his employees losing a few billion dollars. Though the JPMorgan CEO has been dealing with public displays of hate previously reserved for Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs, and will certainly be on the receiving end of a lot more tomorrow when he testifies on Capitol Hill, he has had a few people come to his (and his bank's) defense. Yesterday Stephen Schwarzman told Bloomberg to lay off JD and JPM, noting that "occasional losses are inevitable" and "publicly excoriating JPMorgan serves no purpose except to reduce people’s confidence in the financial system," while former Goldman exec Bill Archer said the whale fail makes him just "kind of shrug." Lee Bollinger, who is President of Columbia and chairman of the Federal Bank of New York's board of directors told the Journal that Dimon shouldn't step down from his post as a director, as some have requested, and that those who cite conflicts of interest have a "false understanding of how [the Fed] works." Some individuals from the Columbia community read that comment and are not very pleased. Enter, a strongly worded letter.
Mr. Lee Bollinger
President of Columbia University
Office of the President
202 Low Library
535 West 116th Street, Mail Code 4309
New York, NY 10027Dear President Bollinger,
As faculty, alumni and students of Columbia University, we are writing to express our deep disappointment in your recent decision to support JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon’s continued membership on the Board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.As the Chairman of the Board of the New York Fed, your unambiguous duty - as stated by the Guide to Conduct – is to maintain “the integrity, dignity, and reputation of the Federal Reserve System . . . and to avoid actions that might impair the effectiveness of System operations or in any way tend to discredit the System.”
By supporting Mr. Dimon’s tenure you abdicated this basic responsibility. By echoing Mr. Ben Bernanke’s remarks that it is up to Congress to address this problem, you denied your duty to ensure the integrity of the Fed. By stating that Congress has more pressing issues to address than this one, you, in essence, urged inaction by all parties capable of affecting this important change. Surely you understand that a functioning financial system is a pre-requisite of our country’s economic recovery. By characterizing those who wish to see Mr. Dimon resign as “foolish” and in possession of a “false understanding” of how the Fed works, you have added insult – and inaccuracy – to the injury of encouraging this institution to continue in its current form.
It is worth reminding you that JPMorgan Chase is currently under investigation for its recent $3 billion trading loss – a loss Mr. Dimon initially denied and then characterized as a ‘tempest in a teapot.’ It may also bear repeating that Mr. Dimon has long campaigned aggressively against important regulatory reforms designed to prevent excessive risk taking by Too Big To Fail institutions – institutions the Federal Reserve saved with $3 trillion dollars in special lending facilities and which Congress bailed out with $700 billion of taxpayers’ money. Certainly Mr. Dimon has no place as a leader of this institution.
We urge you to reverse your support for Mr. Dimon and call for his immediate resignation. By way of reminder, there is precedent for this kind of action. In April 2011, Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of General Electric, stepped down from the NY Fed after it was clear that GE Capital would be regulated by the Fed as a ‘systematically important’ financial institution. As one of the largest banks in the world, JP Morgan is similarly – if not more ‘systemically important.’
As an educator, you have a special responsibility to demonstrate moral and intellectual credibility, something you have failed to do in this situation. As the president of a university, you have a responsibility to ensure that students have the best possible opportunities upon graduation. Surely you understand the connection between the unemployment crisis facing young people in America and the 2008 financial collapse. That collapse not only threatened the employment potential of millions of American students, but also risked the fiscal health of the parents and grandparents who co-signed their educational loans. That you would choose to uphold the interests of major financial institutions over students and their families is unimaginable. We certainly hope that the contributions made to Columbia by JPMorgan – sums north of $500,000 – had nothing to do with your decision.
Three years after the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, the country is struggling to rebuild its economy. A stable and appropriately governed financial system is a critical pre-requisite of our recovery. As the Chairman of the NY Fed, we urge you to take the obvious step of demanding Mr. Dimon’s resignation.
Thank you,
Current Students, Alumni and Faculty of Columbia University
Richard Adams
Graduate Student and AlumnusMarcellus Andrews
Professor of Economics
Columbia UniversityJohn Atlas
President of the National Housing Institute Charles H. Revson Fellow, 2004Partha Banerjee
J-School, 2000Hilary Beattie
Asst. Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology in PsychiatryCarl Bettendorf
Alumnus and Adjunct FacultyLila Braine
Dana Burnell
AlumniSylvia Bettendorf
StudentJamie Chen
CC Class of '09Paul Colson
FacultyJonathan Crissman
StudentMina Dadgar
AlumniCarolyn Douglas
Associate Professor of PsychiatryNnaemeka Ekwelum
Class of 2012Tim Foreman
StudentDavid Friedman
OfficerDanielle G.
StudentNancy Goody
Alumnae -GS of Arch & HPWarren Green
AdministratorRobert Hanning
William D. Hartung
Center for International Policy
Columbia College Class of 1978James Hone
FacultyBonnie Kaufman
Faculty, Medical SchoolJee Kim
Columbia College, ‘95Susan Lob
Adjunct Faculty and AlumniBarbara Lundblad
Faculty
Union Theological SeminaryJohn Markowitz
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry,
Alumnus College '76, GSAS '78, P&S '82Rangi McNeil
School of the Arts AlumniSara Minard
FacultyFederick Neuhouser
Professor of PhilosophyMichael Newell
Kaveh Niazi
AlumniJeffrey Ordower
Columbia College Class of 1991Alexandra Pines
Class of 2016Ai-jen Poo
Director
National Domestic Workers AllianceBill Ragen
Columbia College 1980Yuliya Rimsky
Columbia University
Alumnus Class of 2012 & SIPA student Class of 2014Katherine Roberts
Alumna, GSASEva Salzman
AlumniJeff Schneider
AlumniShruti Sehgal
BC Alumnus, Class of 2011Eric J. Schoenberg
Adjunct Associate Professor
Columbia Business SchoolThe Honorable David Segal
Former RI state representative
CC ‘01Anat Shenker-Osorio
Founder and Principal, ASO Communications, Columbia College '99Kobi Skolnick
Current student of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Class of 2013Jill Strauss
Denise J. Tartaglia
AlumniStephanie Taylor
Co-Founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Columbia University alumni, SOA '07Alan Wallach
AlumnusMark Watson
AlumnusJames Williams
Officer LibrariesThomas J. Yager
Associate Research Scientist, Mailman School of Public Health