Prof. Biden and His Ambassadors The University of Pennsylvania paid the future president more than $900,000. By Paul S. Levy
Presidents often reward big political donors with plum ambassadorships, but Joe Biden and the University of Pennsylvania appear to have come up with an innovation on the practice. Amy Gutmann, Penn’s president, awaits Senate confirmation as U.S. envoy to Germany, and David L. Cohen, until July chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees, as ambassador to Canada.
Ms. Gutmann isn’t a donor. Mr. Cohen and his wife, Rhonda, gave more than half a million dollars to Democratic campaigns and political organizations between 2017 and 2020, according to OpenSecrets.org. That includes the maximum $11,200 to the Biden campaign and $50,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, according to the Federal Election Commission database. (Mr. Cohen also donated a smaller amount to Republican candidates and organizations.)
Here’s the innovation: After Mr. Biden left the vice presidency in 2017, Penn created the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and appointed Mr. Biden to the bespoke position of Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor. Mr. Biden was paid personally for this job—$371,159 in 2017 and $540,484 in 2018 and early 2019 before launching his campaign.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the arrangement in July 2019. The paper noted that the average salary for a Penn professor was $217,411 in 2017-18 and described Mr. Biden’s position as “a vaguely defined role that involved no regular classes and around a dozen public appearances on campus, mostly in big, ticketed events.” It added that according to “higher-education experts,” the university “was likely paying for . . . the prestige of associating with a former vice president and senator who had burnished his reputation as a global figure.”
The Inquirer noted that Penn had one other presidential practice professor: Jeb Bush, who “appeared with Biden for at least two events on campus, including an April discussion on opioids, just weeks before Biden left to run for president.” Mr. Bush, whose compensation was “private,” took the post in 2018, left in 2020, and is unlikely to be in a position to name any ambassadors.
Mr. Levy is a private-equity investor and a board member of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. He has served as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and an overseer of Penn Law School.
Comments are closed.
