Joel Klein
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Joel I. Klein is Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States with over 1.1 million students in over 1,420 schools.
Prior to his appointment to Chancellor in 2002 [1]. by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Klein was Counsel to Bertelsmann and served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States in charge of the Antitrust Division. Klein may be best remembered for prosecuting the United States Department of Justice antitrust case against Microsoft. Before heading up the Antitrust Division Klein was the deputy to Anne Bingaman, (the wife of Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico ) in that office, and worked in the White House Counsel's office. He was in private practice for many years, specializing in appellate cases. Klein received his B.A. from Columbia and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He served as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. Klein is married to Nicole Seligman, General Counsel to Howard Stringer of Sony Corp. Seligman represented former President Bill Clinton during impeachment proceedings in the United States Senate. Klein is rumored to aspire to succeed Mayor Bloomberg, who is term limited and cannot run in the 2009 election.[citation needed]
Klein will be giving the 2008 commencement speech for the Georgetown University Law Center on May 18.
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[edit] Early life
Klein was born October 25, 1946 in the Astoria, Queens neighborhood of New York, New York. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1971, Klein clerked for Chief Judge David Bazelon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1973 until 1974, before then clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. Klein joined the legal team of a mental health clinic, called the Mental Health Law Project in 1975. In that capacity, Klein developed a specialty in health care and constitutional matters.[2]
[edit] Work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Despite their opposing positions in the Justice Department antitrust case against Microsoft, Klein was able to work with the Gates Foundation to fund small high schools in New York. At the 43 small high schools funded by the Gates Foundation graduation rates are 73% compared to 53% at the schools they replaced. [3]
