President Obama’s apparent favoring of two private and well-endowed institutions for the site of his presidential library and museum is drawing charges of hypocrisy from backers of an effort to land the project in a poor Chicago neighborhood.
Obama’s foundation, created to help pick a site for the library, is considering bids from the University of Chicago and Columbia University, two wealthy schools that have signaled they are ready and willing to cough up money to win.
He is also looking at offers from two other, less financially endowed schools, Chicago’s branch of the University of Illinois and the University of Hawaii, where Obama grew up and is currently vacationing with his family.
University of Illinois wants to team up with a community foundation to build the library in North Lawndale, a poor and heavily black neighborhood on the West Side. They feel it fits the Obama model created when he was a community organizer in poor Chicago neighborhoods.
Student trustee Danielle Leibowitz, helping work the school’s bid, said that Obama should put her school’s offer on the top of the list.
“If he wants to be consistent with the message he’s given throughout his presidency, it really only makes sense to give it to us,” she said, according to a report in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “To suddenly hand over your legacy to a private institution seems rather hypocritical.”
The Hawaii effort, meanwhile, is also suffering because it too can’t raise the tens of millions that Chicago and Columbia can.
The fight over the schools, meanwhile, comes after the president’s team questioned the two Chicago bids.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
