Benno C. Schmidt Jr.

Benno Charles Schmidt Jr. (March 20, 1942 – July 9, 2023) was an American academic and education executive. From 1986 to 1992, he was 20th president of Yale University. Prior, Schmidt was Dean of the Columbia Law School, Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law, and chairman of Edison Schools (now EdisonLearning). He lastly served as the chairman of Avenues: The World School,^[1] a for-profit, private K-12 school, and as the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York (CUNY) from 2003 to 2016.^[2]

A noted scholar of the First Amendment, the history of the United States Supreme Court, and the history of race relations in American law, Schmidt clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.^[3][4] In 1998, Schmidt was appointed chair of a task force established by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to evaluate systemic issues at CUNY by executive order.^[5] After longterm service to CUNY's board of trustees, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo replaced Schmidt in June 2016, then-chair, with a new chair, Bill Thompson, after an interim report issued, in an ongoing state investigation, issued by the Office of the New York State Inspector General identified a number of systemic problems, largely attributable to CUNY's lack of oversight which led to financial waste and abuse within the CUNY system.^[6]