According to a story in yesterday’s New York Post, Alan Cooper – JTS’s provost – “sent a mass e-mail last May to the school’s full-time staff advocating that older workers put themselves out to pasture.
Baby boomers, he wrote “have created a kind of bottleneck in the work world. The frustration this poses for the young and talented should be obvious.”
… The seminary did not return calls for comment.”
[eJP note: We hope there is an innocent explanation for this story; or that the New York Post 'just got it wrong'. Either way, we look for JTS to set the record straight. If the story is accurate, perhaps Cooper needs to lead by example. And also apologize to his fellow boomers.]
Why would you print this with all the other really worthwhile and important articles you post, when there has to be two sides to this story?
As a boomer I was offended by Cooper’s remarks. JTS choose not to respond to the newspaper. I’m glad to see it posted here and distributed to a wider audience.
I, for one, am delighted that you did publish this story. The fact that JTS has not published a clarification or refutation of the quoted comments is telling.
If Cooper and JTS would like to replace all the money that my retirement funds have lost in the last couple of years, assume responsibility for my supplementary health care costs, pay for my kids’ weddings and start making the mortgage payments on my house, I’ll be happy to retire. In the meantime, I face enough age-based discrimination in the job market as it is without Cooper’s incredibly stupid, unhelpful and unwarranted comments.
I will keep working until I can’t or don’t have to anymore…just not at JTS.
Dr. Cooper is himself a prototypical boomer—he performed at Woodstock in Sha Na Na!
http://www.rockabilly.net/articles/shanana.shtml
Sha Na Na…Woodstock…all is forgiven