Ex-Ohio State president didn't kowtow to Wexner Mafia. Board could have learn from Harvard

Les Wexner is the billionaire owner of Limited Brands (he is Victoria’s Secret) and he has been a massive influence at Ohio State.

https://www.dispatch.com/story/opin...ina-johnson-harvard-claudine-gay/71988216007/

Ohio State board should have stood with Kristina Johnson
The Dec. 13 Dispatch report on the non-firing of Harvard University President Claudine Gay might recall the recent different experience at Ohio State University.

A major force pressing for the firing of Gaywas reportedly a very large Harvard donor with ongoing complaints against her even before Oct. 7.

The Harvard board stuck with her.

By comparison, the OSU trustees, egged on by GOP legislators, swiftly dumped former OSU President Kristina Johnson for not adequately kowtowing to the Wexner Mafia that runs the OSU hospital system.

Then stifled any comments in protest. While I have always been proud of the many differences between OSU and Harvard, this is not one of them.

 

https://www.columbusmonthly.com/sto...rsity-president-kristina-johnson/69836610007/

Did Les Wexner Play a Role in Johnson’s Departure?
At Ohio State, there’s the president, and then there’s the “owner.” Presidents come and go, the joke goes, but the “owner,” Les Wexner, never leaves.

Long Columbus’ most powerful leader, Wexner is no longer quite the civic force he once was in Central Ohio after his connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became a public scandal. But the 85-year-old billionaire philanthropist and L Brands founder remains a power player at Ohio State, where he continues to chair the OSU Wexner Medical Center Board, which oversees the $4.89 billion health care operation. And several of his allies (including his wife, Abigail) remain on the board of trustees, ensuring he retains influence there. So when intrigue occurs at Ohio State—like the sudden resignation of a seemingly popular president—all eyes turn to him.

 

“Did Wexner push out Johnson? A knowledgeable community source says Johnson and Wexner did not have a strong relationship, with tensions developing over the management of the med center. But the source says the conflict wasn’t just with Wexner; it was with all the med center board members, along with university trustees.

These problems seemed to come to a head over Johnson’s handling of the search to replace Dr. Hal Paz, the med center CEO who left Ohio State in October 2021 to become the executive vice president for health sciences at Stony Brook University in New York. A pair of sources says Johnson pushed out Paz, even though he was admired by many trustees and university leaders. (Paz didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

Then, as the search to replace Paz reached what was supposed to be the final stages in 2022, Johnson failed to share critical information with trustees and med center board members, two sources say. The university had zeroed in on a top candidate, Dr. Mark Anderson, then the director of the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. But Anderson ended up taking a job at the University of Chicago instead. Board members were surprised, wondering how they didn’t know about this competition for their prized recruit. It turned out Johnson did know, the sources say, but she didn’t share that information with board members. (On Jan. 13, 2023, Ohio State named Dr. John Warner of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as the new OSU Wexner Medical Center CEO.)”

 

Moral of the story is: the donor class runs the show.