text: New Haven >> Pressure is mounting to persuade Yale University to revoke an honorary degree it gave to a Swiss billionaire convicted of causing thousands of asbestos-related deaths in Italy.
  Asbestos victims’ advocates and other groups in the U.S. are urging Yale to launch a fact-finding committee to review the degree given to Stephan Schmidheiny in 1996.
  “If there was ever an award that needed to be rescinded, it’s this one,” said Linda Reinstein, president and CEO of the nonprofit Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, of Washington, D.C.
  ADAO, the nation’s largest independent asbestos victims’ group, will devote part of its national conference April 4-6 to Yale’s decision not to rescind the honorary degree.
  “This provokes a certain amount of anger among the victims community,” said Reinstein, whose husband died of an asbestos-related illness. “Yale made a mistake, and we are holding Yale responsible for it now.”
  A trade union, the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, also has come out swinging.
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  2of3The new Yale Law School dormitory building, being named Baker Hall. Photo credit should go to Michael Marsland, Yale University.Journal Register Co.Show MoreShow Less
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  “It’s just not pretty. In fact, it’s horrible. It’s despicable,” said Terry Lynch, international vice president and health hazard administrator for the union. Lynch is based in Indiana. “Yale should be better than this. How did they get involved with this character?”
  Lynch, whose father and uncle both died from illnesses related to asbestos exposure, wrote to Yale President Peter Salovey earlier this month, urging him to take action.
  Yale has never revoked an honorary degree. It has maintained that the legal proceedings in Italy don’t justify reconsideration of the 1996 award. “Mr. Schmidheiny was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree for his advocacy of sustainable economic growth and development,” the university said in its official statement on the matter.
  Schmidheiny, 66, is the former CEO of the Swiss company Eternit. He was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison by an Italian court in the asbestos-related deaths of 2,000 to 3,000 people in and around Casale Monferrato, in northern Italy.
  Another appeal in the case is pending.
  In an email to the Register, Schmidheiny spokeswoman Elisabeth Meyerhans Sarasin said Schmidheiny was never the owner of the Italian Eternit factories, and that he never was operationally active in management of the factories.
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  “For the sake of clarity, I would also like to stress the fact that Stephan Schmidheiny is the only one who cares for the asbestos victims in Italy,” Sarasin wrote. “Since 2007, the company Becon AG, which was commissioned by Stephan Schmidheiny, has offered compensation to persons affected by an asbestos-related illness, unbureaucratically and fair without admitting guilt. The humanitarian program is based on Stephan Schmidheiny’s social principles and philanthropic motives.”
  Yet for Reinstein and others, that explanation does not wash.
  “There is no level of philanthropy that can clean this man’s hands,” she said. “Yale’s recognition of Schmidheiny says, in our minds, that Yale accepts (Schmidheiny’s) philanthropy as just cause.”
  Barry Castleman, an environmental consultant from Maryland who testified in the Italian court case, visited the Yale campus Friday afternoon to encourage faculty and students to put more pressure on Yale.
  “Up until now, we’ve tried to deal with the (Yale) administration,” Castleman said. “But it’s increasingly troubling to me that the Yale Corporation really doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish between corporate responsibility and corporate crime.”
  William Burch, a professor emeritus at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, met with Castleman and agreed to help generate faculty support.
  “The moral authority of the university is compromised by this,” Burch said. “My concern is the unwillingness of the university to even consider this case. Behaviors have consequences.”
  Call Jim Shelton at 203-789-5664. Have questions, feedback or ideas about our news coverage? Connect directly with the editors of the New Haven Register at AskTheRegister.com.