Interim Harvard President Makes Almost $1M a Year From Drug Companies in Addition to His $946K Salary

Former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, who resigned after antisemitism and plagiarism scandals which occurred under her watch, will return to the faculty and haul in close to $900,000 a year in salary. Her classes must be amazing.

Her replacement (at least for now), interim president Dr. Alan M. Garber, the school’s provost. He is paid around $946,000 a year for his work – but that’s only the beginning of his earnings. He made more in 2022 -- $936,000 more -- serving as a board member for two major drug companies, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and California-based Exelixis Inc.

The practice of university leaders serving on the boards of private and public for-profit companies — and earning significant compensation for it — is increasingly widespread. But experts on university governance and critics say it can raise a host of conflicts of interest, especially in health care industries where academia and industry are often deeply enmeshed.

Carolyn Becker, a retired associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who wants such gigs to be banned, said: To put someone in as president, even in the interim, who has some major conflicts of interest that take him away from his all-encompassing role — they need his full attention focused on the job at hand.

Garber’s board member gigs have earned him more than $6.6 million, according to the Boston Globe; plus, he’s allowed to expense things like travel and lodging. Harvard is not alone in this practice; about a third of elite university presidents sit on corporate boards and rake in around $250,000 to $275,000 a year.

The scandals that rocked the top-tier of our academic institutions over rampant antisemitism on campuses, and then Gay's plagiarism issues, have brought new scrutiny to these schools.

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More on How 'Ceasefire Now' Chants During Joe Biden's South Carolina Church Speech Backfired

President Joe Biden went to South Carolina Monday to pander to black voters in a blatant attempt to shore up their support ahead of Election Day and at a time when polling shows growing dissatisfaction among black voters for his and Vice President Kamala Harris' performances.

During the speech he gave at Charleston's Mother Emanuel AME Church, which was the site of the June 17, 2015, racially motivated mass shooting that left nine dead and one injured, Biden was heckled by anti-Israel radicals who began chanting "Ceasefire now," as we also reported.

According to some reports, "after being led outside the venue, the protestors hugged and cheered; they were happy for disrupting the president's speech." While the "four more years" reactions of those in attendance clearly showed the protesters' stunt backfired, just how badly it backfired was evident in some of the responses given by congregants who were interviewed in the aftermath.

Even Biden himself, as further evidenced by his remarks from the speech, treated them with kids gloves, saying he respected "their passion" and noting he has been "quietly" working with Israeli leaders to get Israel to back off from trying to eradicate the terrorists who want them dead. It's no wonder the protesters thought it was okay to yell and scream on behalf of murderous terrorists in a church where a horrific mass shooting took place.

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