Only a couple of weeks after former 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton offended millions of Americans by calling Trump voters “backwards,” Yale Law School has announced the creation of a fund in her honor.
According to the Yale Daily News, several former classmates of Clinton, LAW ‘73, have successfully convinced Yale Law School’s development office to create the “Hillary Rodham Clinton Fund for the Public Interest,” which will provide financial support to recent Yale graduates for year-long fellowships following graduation.
The project was spearheaded by Rosalind Fink, LAW ’72, a former classmate of Clinton who expressed a desire to promote Clinton’s “legacy” while also hoping to recruit friends of the Clinton’s to open up their checkbooks and contribute money to the fund.
“[The] idea was to connect her legacy to the Law School’s increasing model of public service due to clinics,” Fink said. “So we’re hoping that friends of the Law School and friends of the Clinton’s will contribute to the fund.”
While Fink noted that the fund will be committed to supporting Yale graduates who are working on “public service projects,” the Clinton’s have a history of using projects that bear their name to personally enrich themselves. The Clinton Global Initiative, which has served as the main focus of the Clinton family’s “public service,” since President Bill Clinton left the White House in 2000, has come under constant scrutiny for being a sleazy organization used by the Clinton’s to sell political access and favors in the name of charity, while boosting their wealth in the process.
While Clinton has not commented publicly on the project, she has promised to partially bankroll the initiative, though the exact amount of her donation was not revealed to the Yale Daily News. Fink also noted that Clinton has “offered to be helpful” to the fund by making phone calls to potential donors to solicit donations.
Despite Clinton’s controversial history in politics, a number of Yale students seemed enthusiastic about having a project named in honor of the twice failed presidential candidate. One student, Veronica Guerrero, LAW ’20, even said that having the fund named after Hillary Clinton is exciting because “law tends to honor a lot more men.”
