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Harvard University is facing questions and anger over its appointment of former Michigan governor Rick Snyder as a senior research fellow in the Taubman Center for State and Local Government. Jeffrey Liebman, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy and director of the Taubman Center, in an announcement said that Snyder brings "significant expertise in management, public policy and promoting civility" to the campus. Snyder also said that he looks forward “to sharing my experiences in helping take Michigan to national leadership in job creation, improved government performance and civility.” But critics of Snyder soon pointed out that he led the state during -- and was accused of mishandling -- the water crisis in Flint. A 2018 report co-written by professors at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, for example, found that Snyder "bears significant legal responsibility" for the crisis "based on his supervisory role over state agencies." The Associated Press reported last month that Snyder’s phone was seized as part of an ongoing investigation into the matter.
Scholars are calling on each other to write letters to Liebman, stating their opposition to Snyder’s appointment. Tiffani Bell, who runs a nonprofit called the Human Utility for water bill assistance in Michigan and served as a 2017 Technology and Democracy Fellow at the Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, also started a petition to rescind the appointment. “Flint residents were actually expected to pay water bills for water they couldn’t and shouldn’t drink,” the petition reads. “To add further insult to injury, Snyder allowed the state of Michigan to stop providing bottles of water free of charge to families dependent on Flint’s polluted water.”
Liebman did not respond to a request for comment, but he has responded directly to some of his critics in emails that have been circulated online. “The abject failures of governance that caused such terrible harm to residents of Flint raise profound questions about public policy and administration, and especially about the interaction of racial justice and public-sector decision making,” he wrote to one critic, noting that Snyder will face “hard questions” during his time on campus.
