Joel Klein

Early life and education

Klein grew up in New York City and attended public schools, graduating from William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens in 1963. He attended Columbia University, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School, again graduating magna cum laude, in 1971. He then clerked for Chief Judge David Bazelon on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1973 until 1974, before then clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell.

Career

In 1975, Klein joined the legal team of the Washington, D.C., non-profit Mental Health Law Project. The MHLP was an independent non-profit organization that brought class-action suits to establish rights for mentally and developmentally disabled clients. In that capacity, Klein developed a specialty in health care and constitutional matters. After working there for a year, he went into private practice, working for five years before founding his own law firm with several partners. In the 1990s Klein served in the White House Counsel's office under President Bill Clinton before being appointed to the United States Department of Justice. There he served as United States Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division. In this capacity, he was the lead prosecutor in the antitrust case United States v. Microsoft. Prior to his appointment to Chancellor in 2002 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Klein was Counsel to Bertelsmann, an international media group.

Klein was rumored to be one of Barack Obama's candidates for Secretary of Education. Ultimately, the position went to the Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan, then to John King Jr..

New York City School Chancellor

In 1998, before Klein became Chancellor, the New York City Board of Education transferred responsibility for school safety to the New York City Police Department. Klein has been criticized for not seeking to alter this arrangement or to curb the conduct of the Police Department's school safety agents in the face of allegations of abuse. Klein has praised the work of the school safety agents in contributing to a decrease in crime in the public schools.

Despite their opposing positions in the Justice Department antitrust case against Microsoft, Klein was able to work with the Gates Foundation to fund the creation of smaller schools in New York City. At the 43 small high schools funded by the Gates Foundation graduation rates are 73% compared to 53% at the schools they replaced. The researchers only examined schools selectively; for example 33 small schools were omitted from the analysis. According to Bob Herbert, Bill Gates later admitted that the idea of breaking up schools was a failure.

In 2005, Klein fired Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi from the teacher training program, reportedly because of Khalidi's political views. After the controversial decision, Columbia University president Lee Bollinger spoke out on Khalidi's behalf, writing: "The department's decision to dismiss Professor Khalidi from the program was wrong and violates First Amendment principles.... The decision was based solely on his purported political views and was made without any consultation and apparently without any review of the facts." The program's creator Mark Willner stated that (Khalidi) "spoke on geography and demography," and that "There was nothing controversial, nothing political."

In 2007, Klein installed a computer system called The Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS), at a cost of $95 million, with records on 1 million current and former students. Teachers and parents were able to track student progress with the system. After Klein left his job as chancellor to work at the News Corp., a company owned by the News Corp. got a contract for nearly $10 million to manage the system in 2012. Subsequent News Corp. contracts were worth millions more. Klein denied a conflict of interest. Finally, in 2014, the Education Department decided to abandon the system, due to its high cost, limited functionality, and little use by parents and staff.

News Corporation

On November 9, 2010, Bloomberg announced that Klein would resign as chancellor and would take a position as an executive vice president for News Corporation. Klein's date of departure was not immediately clear but it was later announced that he would be gone at the end of the year. He was replaced by Cathie Black, chairman of Hearst Magazines and former president of USA Today, on January 3, 2011.

On July 6, 2011, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation and the company's CEO, announced that Joel Klein would "provide important oversight and guidance" in the internal investigation of phone hacking at News of the World. Klein took over the investigation, with fellow director Viet D. Dinh, from News International UK Chief Executive, Rebekah Brooks, whose own involvement in the phone hacking scandal made her unable to continue as an impartial investigator.

Since joining News Corp, Klein has recruited at least two other executives from the New York City Department of Education. In February 2011 New York City Department of Education's Communications Director, Natalie Ravitz, announced that she would be joining News Corp as Klein's chief of staff. According to GothamSchools.org, a nonprofit non partisan news website that reports on the New York City Schools, "Ravitz is following a well-worn path from the department to NewsCorp: Ex-schools chief Joel Klein, who was chancellor when Ravitz was hired, now heads the company’s growing education division. Last summer, Klein picked Kristen Kane, the department’s former chief operating officer, to become the division’s COO. He also acquired Wireless Generation, the technology company that developed and managed ARIS, the city’s school data warehouse."

Personal life

Klein is married to Nicole Seligman, General Counsel to Howard Stringer of Sony Corp. Seligman was on the legal team of then-President Bill Clinton during impeachment proceedings in the United States Senate.