Benno Charles Schmidt Jr. (born March 20, 1942) is the Chairman of Avenues: The World School, a for-profit, private K-12 school, and served as the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York (CUNY) until 2016. From 1986 to 1992, he was 20th President of Yale University. Prior, Schmidt was Dean of the Columbia Law School, Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law, and chairman of Edison Schools (now EdisonLearning). A noted scholar of the First Amendment, the history of the United States Supreme Court and the history of race relations in American law, Schmidt clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In 1998, Schmidt was appointed chair of a task force established by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to evaluate systemic issues at City University of New York by executive order. After longterm service to CUNY's board of trustees, Governor Andrew Cuomo replaced Schmidt in June 2016, then-Chair, with a new Chair Bill Thompson, after an interim report issued, in an ongoing state investigation, issued by the Office of the New York State Inspector General identified a number of systemic problems, largely attributable to CUNY's lack of oversight which led to financial waste and abuse within the CUNY system. Early life and career Schmidt was born in New York City, New York. His father, Benno C. Schmidt, Sr., was a longtime friend and associate of John "Jock" Hay Whitney. In 1946, Whitney and the elder Schmidt started what was to become the first venture capital firm in the United States, J.H. Whitney & Co. Schmidt Jr. attended St. Bernard's School, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Yale University. Upon completion of his undergraduate studies, Schmidt attended Yale Law School. Following graduation, he became a law clerk for Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, and thereafter worked for two years in the U.S. Department of Justice, before joining Columbia Law School as a faculty member. His expertise as a legal scholar includes the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, history of race relations in American law, and history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Schmidt achieved tenure at Columbia in 1973, at age 29, and was named the Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law in 1982. Schmidt was appointed Dean of the law school in 1984, where he served until 1986, before accepting the offer to be President of