Writing for the Huffington Post, Harry Lewis continues to speak out about the Secret Seven, a.k.a. the Harvard Corporation.

His piece is titled: “Larry Summers, Robert Rubin: Will the Harvard Shadow Elite Bankrupt the University and the Country?

After Harvard’s near-bankruptcy, Lewis writes,

In this era of heightened corporate accountability, one might have expected instead a shake-up of Harvard’s board. But Harvard’s directors are invulnerable.

…[But] the Corporation is stunningly secretive. The members are listed on a Harvard web page-but with no contact information. Their meetings and agendas are unannounced, their decisions unreported. The Fellows, scattered across the country, are isolated from the institution they govern. Even the university’s statutes-the closest thing to a constitution limiting the Corporation’s discretionary power-are almost impossible to locate. The colonial-era board structure is failing the modern university.

Lewis goes on to inform/remind the HuffPo audience that some of Harvard’s shadow elite were involved in the massive corruption scandal that showed Russia that, when it comes to democracy and transparency, Americans don’t always practice what we preach.

Engaged by the U.S. to show the Russians how the West controls corruption, the [Harvard] advisers became models of what to avoid.

Lewis’ full piece is well worth reading, but here is his conclusion:

The modern power elites thrive by forgetting any regrettable past. This amnesia is easy at Harvard, where the legal fiduciaries operate in secret and need not answer for their acts. They are the antipodes of the selfless institutional servants who built Harvard and other great American enterprises, and they bear close watching.

This amnesia is a massive problem at Harvard, where people are busy and pressuring the Corporation is largely a thankless task. Lewis has done so on multiple occasions—on this blog, in the Globe, on HuffPo now, making himself available for media interviews when other professors are reluctant to do so. Kudos to him, but he can’t do it alone; the Secret Seven will do everything it can to marginalize a single voice, no matter how lucid that voice may be. Whether it’s at Harvard or in, say, the former East Germany, this is the nature of secretive power.

Harry Lewis is right, but being right isn’t always enough, especially in a battle against secret power; some other folks need to start stepping up to the plate.