EDITORIAL
THE HARVARD CRIMSON
APRIL 21, 2023
STAFF EDITORIAL
DISSENT
Take the Money Without the Values
Don’t Donate to Harvard
HARVARD SHOULD weigh the moral character of prospective donors against the good their donation can accomplish.
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BY THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD
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ven for a well-funded institution like Harvard, receiving a $300 million gift is no everyday occurrence. So is renaming one of Harvard’s schools after a donor or those related to them — since John Harvard’s donation almost four centuries ago that named Harvard itself, it’s only happened thrice. That third school is — as of last week — the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. From now until the end of times or the unlikely re-renaming of GSAS, our University bears the mark of a billionaire, hedge fund CEO, and Florida Governor Ron D. DeSantis supporter — Kenneth C. Griffin ’89. This monumental change on campus has led to much chatter and conjecturing. One pokes at the timeline of this gift arriving just years before Griffin’s oldest child will begin applying to college. Another snarks, “Thanks for the money, Mr. Griffin! How much are you gonna shell out to influence democratic election processes next year?” But with the money already taken and the building already renamed (with great haste, it appears), we can only think about how this change has and will impact Harvard. As we have repeatedly written before, donations and namings are thorny moral areas because they hold tremendous potential for positive change, but also produce undue influences. Thus, when deciding to accept donations, Harvard should weigh the moral character of prospective donors against the good their donation can accomplish. Naming a school after Griffin was a mistake. By adorning its schools with the names of donors, Harvard condones these individuals and their values. Griffin is a vocal advocate for DeSantis. Even if not all of their views align, Griffin’s donations to DeSantis have helped enable the Sunshine State executive to suppress African American studies and LGBTQ education in schools — stances we cannot support and hope our University cannot either. Unless Harvard publicly issues a rejection of these positions, it is implicitly telling its Black and queer students that it sees nothing wrong with campaigns to sensationalize, slander, and
erase their identities. At the same time, a $300 million donation undeniably has the opportunity to produce much good — though not as much as the improvement in social mobility that donations to community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities provide. Well-monied as Harvard may be, the endowment has restrictions and is not infinite. As students who believe that Harvard’s resources can be leveraged for social good, we believe that funding in the right places can further such endeavors, benefitting us all. We might never know if this donation came with strings, but now that the money has transferred hands, the unrestricted nature of Griffin’s donation means that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences can spend these funds where it pleases. We have only one request: Use this money well, to promote the social good. Too much of Harvard’s money is wasted — on an oversized under-useful bureaucracy, or unwanted student services. We hope that Harvard will put these new $300 million into the pure pursuit of universal betterment. From researching our most pressing contemporary challenges (think climate change or the decline of democracy) to pursuing an economically diverse student body (starting with low-income prefrosh recruitment and following through with support systems for these students) and paying our essential workers better (TFs and CAs included), Harvard now has the means to do more. Best of all, Harvard should distribute Griffin’s money to academic departments that support the communities of color and queer people most affected by the renaming and DeSantis’s education policies. These departments include Ethnic Studies, African and African American Studies, and hopefully a new South East Asian Studies one. It’s a cliche turn of phrase by now to call Harvard a “transformative” experience. Griffin’s donation carries the power to help our University metamorphose for the better — as long as we intentionally deter Griffin’s name from transforming us, too.
–This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.
BY ADEN BARTON, CLYVE LAWRENCE, AND SAM E. MEACHAM
ast week, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences received a $300 million donation from hedge fund CEO and Republican donor Kenneth C. Griffin ’89. While our Editorial Board has chosen to focus on Griffin’s deplorable policy stances and the possible uses of his donation, we believe this approach overlooks the crux of the issue: Should billionaires be donating to rich universities in the first place?
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Reflecting on the ethics of naming the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences after Griffin misses the forest for the trees.
Our answer is a resounding no. Reflecting on the ethics of naming the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences after Griffin misses the forest for the trees. Even worse, celebrating the money, as the Board does, reeks of elitism. The Board admires an institution with billions receiving billionaire philanthropy, claiming that Harvard has a distinguished capacity to do social good. Higher education adds to the social good through instruction and research. Although Harvard provides an outstanding education and does excellent research, neither of these goals at large is best achieved by donating to Harvard. With respect to instruction, Harvard is only a drop in the bucket of overall college enrollment. Enrollment at Harvard stands at a thousandth of community college enrollment. And, because Harvard is disproportionately wealthy, the school has a comparatively low effect on social mobility. Even if all $300 million from Griffin went to the financial aid program, we think that its impact would still be negligible in making this school, or higher education in general, more socioeconomically diverse. On the point of research, although we agree with the Board that this donation should go towards studying huge challenges like climate change and democratic decline, such funding would be subject to diminishing marginal returns. Harvard has millions of dollars already devoted for research on challenges of this scale. If Griffin and other prospective billionaire philanthropists truly care about advancing edu-
cation or innovation, then they should donate to less well-known places of learning or smaller research foundations that need the money more. Harvard doesn’t have a monopoly on smart people or good ideas. There are other institutions that can accomplish what Harvard can, given better resources. For these reasons, we find a great material harm in Griffin’s donation — more than the symbolic harm of condoning Griffin’s views pointed out by the Board. This donation represents a missed opportunity to make the most of the money. The $300 million in the hands of community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities, for example, would go much further in reducing inequality and increasing socioeconomic mobility. As this Board has made clear before, the marginal benefit of a dollar for such schools is higher than that of Harvard. This is not to say that Harvard should have turned down the donation. If anything, $300 million on GSAS is a better use than the same money on another Miami compound for Griffin. But there are still much better uses than $300 million on GSAS, even within the same realm of impacting higher education.
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Given the host of things the uber-rich spend their money on, donating to an educational institution like Harvard is somewhat praiseworthy. It is, however, not the most effective use of $300 million — not even close.
Given the host of things the uber-rich spend their money on, donating to an educational institution like Harvard is somewhat praiseworthy. It is, however, not the most effective use of $300 million — not even close.
–Aden Barton ’24, an Associate Editorial Editor, is an Economics concentrator in Eliot House. Clyve Lawrence ’25, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Government concentrator in Adams House. Sam E. Meacham ’25, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Pforzheimer House. Dissenting Opinions: Occasionally, The Crimson Editorial Board is divided about the opinion we express in a staff editorial. In these cases, dissenting board members have the opportunity to express their opposition to staff opinion.
LETTERS
An Open Letter from 45 Black Student Organizations and Supporters BY BRIAN A. CROMWELL JR. AND EBONY JOY JOHNSON
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impact on both the targeted Black students and the larger Black community.
CONTRIBUTING OPINION WRITERS
D
ear Harvard University Administration,
On April 3, Harvard University Police Department officers stormed the dorm room of four Black students at approximately 4:15 a.m. in response to an unfounded phone call. We are writing this letter because we strongly believe that the University’s response to the swatting incident reflects a deep investment in protecting a false institutional image over a sincere commitment to the well-being of the Black students targeted and the Black community as a whole. The swatting incident served as a harsh reminder of the persistent struggles Black students face within an institution that has historically upheld white supremacy and the oppression of Black people both nationally and globally. The ill-intent behind the swatting call makes poignant the ways racism both informs and amplifies the numerous adversarial situations that Black students are met with the moment they step foot on campus. We assert that Black students should not have to live in fear of the police force being used as a weapon against them. We condemn the University’s failure to, at large, protect its Black community’s emotional and physical wellbeing in the aftermath of such trauma. We demand that the University take action to repair the manifestations of the inaction and to ensure that the victims of the phone call are served justice, the safety of Black Harvard students is maintained, and that in future incidents, the mistakes from this situation are not repeated. Moving forward, we call on Harvard University leadership and administration to take the following actions to support the targeted students and the broader Black student community at large: 1) We demand that University leaders issue a comprehensive, institution-wide statement across all schools addressing the swatting incident and explicitly name the significant racial
2) We demand that University and HUPD officials fulfill their obligation to deliver justice for the targeted students and conduct a thorough investigation that centers their humanity rather than institutional interests. 3) We demand that Harvard University improves transparency and promotes accountability in its campus policing and HUPD operations by granting access to police reports and regular updates on ongoing investigations to those directly involved. 4) We demand that the University implement proactive mental health responses to incidents of racial trauma. 5) We demand that Harvard hold an in-person, University-wide town hall for students to speak directly to leadership, including University President Lawrence S. Bacow, President-elect Claudine Gay, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, and other top leaders to discuss Harvard’s handling of issues of racial policing and HUPD protocol. Black students at Harvard University demand urgent action. We request an immediate meeting with the University administration and a written response to our demands by April 23, the start date of Visitas. If this request is not met, the undersigned Black student organizations of Harvard University will stage a demonstration during Visitas. We will not wait for justice and will take all necessary measures to ensure that the University is held accountable for its inaction in addressing the ongoing racial trauma and injustices inflicted on Black students.
–Brian A. Cromwell Jr. ’23 is an Economics concentrator in Kirkland House and the co-Chair of the Harvard Undergraduate Black Community Leaders. Ebony Joy Johnson is a second-year Master in Divinity Studies student at the Harvard Divinity School and the President of the Harvard Black Graduate Student Alliance.
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