Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 512

This was particularly true as I recall, particularly true of Columbia, of the question of Columbia University, perhaps of both of them. I remember saying, either to him or to his mother or perhaps both, that I certainly saw no reason at all why he shouldn't hold board members in those institutions.

I myself was a member of a board of one or two educational institutions, and environmental institutions, which were, at that time I guess, a good deal more controversial than the Metropolitan.

Q:

Sierra Club, for instance?

Oakes:

That's right. I was a member of Sierra Club. But it's also true that I eventually resigned from the board of the Sierra Club, as I did from one or two others, mainly because I felt that they were so controversial, that I felt that as editor of the editorial page, I probably shouldn't be a member. That was one of my motivating factors in resigning. But it's absolutely true that I was a member for quite a few years, when I felt that there wasn't any serious conflict, and on that same basis, I felt that it was perfectly appropriate for Punch to be a member of these big institutions in New York.

However, I did change my mind, and because, as I saw during the later sixties, that such an institution as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and also, for that matter, Columbia University, got into very serious public controversies, affecting the city and affecting matters that had really nothing to do with strictly educational matters on the one hand or





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help