We, the undersigned, express our concern at the poor judgment displayed in the hiring of David Malpass as the Distinguished Fellow of International Finance at the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business and as the Inaugural Fellow of Global Business and Infrastructure at Purdue@DC.

The November 7, 2023 press release announcing the appointment of Mr Malpass described him as a “leading economist on Wall Street.” and provided an uninformative recitation of his actual responsibilities. The announcement presented a highly incomplete version of his career. We would like to correct the record.
Mr Malpass has a history of poor fiscal judgement. Mr Malpass worked at Bear Stearns for 6 years, and was its chief economist—having misread the effects of the housing/credit market— when Bear Stearns went bankrupt in the 2008 financial crisis (https://www.vox.com/2017/3/15/14596938/david-malpass-treasury). In addition to his work at Bear Stearns, Mr Malpast was Senior Economic Adviser to Donald Trump during his Presidential campaign, authoring the article, “Why This Economy Needs Trump” (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/opinion/why-this-economy-needs-donald-trump.html), which advocated for the federal-debt-exploding Trump-era tax cuts.

Mr Malpass is not representative of Purdue values. As Republican candidate for United States Senator, he, when questioned, was against gays serving openly in the United States military [https://www.youtube.com/watchapp=desktop&v=V7SThG8lfVg].

Mr Malpass has demonstrated questionable business ethics. He been creditably accused of having a family member benefit from nepotism. World Bank staff were apparently told to give preferential treatment to Robert Malpass, son of David Malpass, when the latter was serving in the Trump Treasury Department. They were encouraged by a senior manager to curry favor with Robert Malpass; the staff referred to 22-year-old Robert Malpass as a “prince” and “important little fellow”, who could go “running to daddy” if things went wrong. Robert had joined the World Bank’s IFC division in July 2018 as a research analyst. The then 22-year-old had just completed his bachelor’s degree in economics
(https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/12/world-bank-staff-son-of-trump-official david-malpass). We do not want the graduates of the Daniels School of Business to think that such behavior is acceptable for a Purdue graduate.

Similarly, Mr Malpass has failed to take seriously a corporate culture of sexual harassment where he was in charge. In a recent report, it was revealed that when David Malpass was the President of the World Bank, there was a coverup of a sexual abuse scandal at an institution funded by the World Bank and retaliation against a World Bank whistleblower (https://theintercept.com/2023/10/17/world-bank-whistleblower-bridge-international/). Members of Congress are now investigating this case. There was also an earlier sexual-harassment coverup scandal at the World Bank that spanned the Presidency of Malpass, in addition to that of earlier WB Presidents (https://www.wsj.com/articles/world-bank-mishandled-sexual-harassment claims-internal-tribunal-says-11634554802).

In addition, Mr Malpass doubts the science of climate change. The revelation that Mr Malpass was as a climate-change denier led to his premature resignation from the Presidency of the World Bank. When asked directly, “Do you accept the scientific consensus that the man-made burning of fossil fuels is rapidly and dangerously warming the planet?” He responded, “I don't even know - I'm not a scientist.” He later retreated on this position
(https://twitter.com/dgelles/status/1572336049136828420). However, this was not the first time that Malpass had hedged on climate change
(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/us/politics/david-malpass-world-bank.html ) and will be unlikely to be the last.

Given such a record, it is unclear why Purdue University wanted to give such a prestigious position to a person with such a questionable portfolio. We thought that we expected better from our “dream hires.” We can only assume then that his employment at Purdue is a form of political cronyism.

We are calling upon you to urge Mr. Malpass to step down from this unnecessary, ill-defined and political-featherbedding position at Purdue University and, if he does not do so, that you withdraw Purdue’s offer. We should expect better of people employed at Purdue.