Being a member of The Elite™ is a pretty good gig.

Normal rules don’t apply to you. The pay is good. The benefits are great. And the applause you received for doing little but scratch the backs of your buddies is good for your self-esteem.

I missed my calling, to tell the truth. Too late in life did I realize that I could have had all that if I had just played along. Instead I chose the thankless task of taking potshots at these folks. Silly me.

The latest outrage that got my blood boiling was uncovered by a friend and University of Minnesota graduate. He had pointed out an extortion scheme run by the U of M president to get alums to donate $15 million to keep up the president’s mansion. The president is required by contract to live there, and she wants a larger endowment to make it more grand and keep it so. Otherwise she will sell the house.

Seemed sketchy to me, but also par for the course in academia. Barely worth a mention, not because it isn’t awful, but rather because it is run-of-the-mill academia awfulness, and there is so much worse to be found.

Like this.

Last year, as unionized University of Minnesota workers fought for 1.5% pay bumps, President Joan Gabel received a significant—and contentious—raise that will make her the first U leader to pull a $1M+ salary. By 2023, her pay package will include: $706,000 base pay, $250,000 retirement contribution, $100,000 “performance pay” bonus, $10,000 car allowance, and $15,000 for an “executive physical.” University presidents are also contractually obligated to live gratis in the 10,000-square-foot Eastcliff mansion.

It’s apparently not enough.

On Friday, the U of M Board of Regents voted 9-3 to green-light Gabel’s invitation to join Securian Financial’s board of directors, provided she agrees to conflict of interest disclosure terms. Gabel’s compensation for four annual in-person Securian meetings and several lunch-hour calls? About $130,000, the fourth-year president told the Strib. The conflicts are numerous. The U pays Securian around $4.6 million each year for employee life insurance, and the St. Paul-headquartered firm manages $1.3 billion in “legacy [retirement] business” with the U.

Says one regent: "Like, is this really happening?” https://t.co/96Lj95vPri

— Racket (@RacketMN) December 21, 2022

There is nothing unusual about large corporations buying prestige and connections by putting prominent people on their boards. It is par for the course, and a great way to fund a cushy retirement for ex-politicians and CEOs. It is sketchy as hell, because it can serve as payments after the fact for services rendered while the people in question were in power, but that is how the corrupt game is played. Everything is stacked in their favor.

But it is unusual for the payment for services rendered to be done so openly. Whatever you think about the former practice, this is so openly corrupt that it takes your breath away. For the CEO of a major institution that spends billions of dollars a year to join the board of a company with which she does billions of dollars of business with–that is so big a conflict of interest that the SEC would probably look into it if the U were a company on the public market.

The U overflows with money. From the state. From tuition. From grants. From patents…you name it. It is huge. It has an annual operating budget of $4.2 billion and assets that are vastly larger than that. It is not too much to ask that the president of this major entity not be looking for side jobs with her vendors.

Yet the Board of Regents–a politically appointed group whose own interests often coincide with the president’s and her vendors–approved this by a margin of 3-1.

Nobody is looking out for the taxpayers or the institution itself. They are all looking out for each other.