<p>@ Logicalidea. You said "This would be a blatant violation of the Kalven Report. No doubt UChicago would be happy to have Obama, but if he did what you are proposing, the University would be violating its own policy and drowning in hypocrisy. " If you did not mean this to be “hiring former politicians” then what are your criteria for when it is ok to hire former politicians and when it is not? Their profile? I would draw your attention again to Levi, possibly one of the highest profile political actors of his day. Attorney General is not dog catcher. And Attorney General for the president who followed Nixon was a particularly high-profile position. </p>
<p>Second, with regard to Jamie Kalven and John Hope Franklin, I am not lecturing you, but you have misread what I wrote. I said that they expressed the view that divestment was not inconsistent with the principles of the Report. That is correct. In fact, Franklin was particularly eloquent in saying that genocide is precisely the kind of political activity that fell within the Kalven Committee’s understanding of what kind of the exceptions there should be to the general principle the Report stated. As I read the report, it sets out a general idea: No general University involvement in politics – and it sets out the idea that there will be principled exceptions to that idea. Both the general idea and the exceptions are the principles set out in the Report.</p>