Billionaire Ken Langone injected NYU’s hospital with a dose of politics — and he’s getting a bad reaction from doctors.
The hard-charging chairman and namesake of the NYU Langone Medical Center emailed faculty on Monday, urging them to contribute to re-election campaigns for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Peter King (R-NY).
Citing the pols’ efforts to repair Hurricane Sandy’s damage to NYU’s hospital, Langone invited medical school officials to attend fundraisers he is staging for each candidate.
“I leave it to each of you to decide whether you will support my efforts and at what level you feel comfortable doing so,” Langone wrote in the email. “I assure you that if you decide not to join me it will have no effect whatsoever on my respect and admiration for each of you.”
Despite the disclaimer, some faculty were irked by Langone’s request, which comes as the medical school clamps down increasingly on salaries and tenure.
“I think some people could feel pressured and threatened if they don’t show up to these events,” one professor told The Post, declining to be named for fear of retribution.
Legal experts said Langone may have breached rules that govern tax-exempt nonprofits by using nonpublic lists of NYU personnel for political purposes.
“Access to a mailing list is of tremendous value — there’s a real market for these lists,” said Beth Kingsley, a Washington-based lawyer who specializes in nonprofits.
She said the question is whether or not the list is publicly available and, if not, whether Langone paid a fair-market value for it.
“That doesn’t matter, how I got the list — that’s not important,” Langone told The Post.