French anti-elitist academic Richard Descoings found dead in New York
Source: the Guardian
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 April 2012 07.28 EDT
The director of one of France's most prestigious colleges has been found dead in a New York City hotel room.
A New York police spokesman said employees at the Michelangelo hotel, in Manhattan, found the naked body of Richard Descoings, 53, on Tuesday afternoon.
Descoings was known for his crusade to blow apart the stuffy, elitist image of France's top higher education institutions, the grandes écoles, opening them up to students from disadvantaged backgrounds such as the housing estates outside Paris.
He was director of one of the country's top institutions, the Institute of Political Studies, in Paris, known as Sciences Po, where he shook up the entry system, describing France's higher education as unfair, unequal and undemocratic.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/04/french-richard-descoings-new-york