Harvard's Uninspired Hire to Run Its Money, Leaves After...Uninspiring Performance

At the time, six years ago, I said that Harvard made a lackluster hire, perhaps even a diversity-inspired hire to run its endowment.  After a lackluster number of years, Jane Mendillo is out.  She's candid about the reality, even after six years she's blaming it on her predecessor (sound familiar?).

"When I first got here, I would say the portfolio was not well-positioned for the financial crisis," Ms. Mendillo said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. "The first couple of years here, we were not able to put money to work in the way we would have liked."

For the institution, this bad hire's consequences can be measured in actual dollars.

Harvard has placed an unnecessary burden on future stakeholders as the shortfall in resources will demand higher tuition or more donations to meet the university's resource requirements. For what? In the name of the false gods of Diversity and/or Income Equality. Time will tell, but the amount laid at the feet of these gods in sacrifice could amount to billions of dollars.