There is quite a mystery surrounding the $81.5 million donated to fifteen colleges by a donor insisting upon complete anonymity. This mysterious donor has insisted that the recipient schools make no attempt to ascertain her identity.
Recently, I was listening to an NPR interview on the subject. In the interview the “expert,” Melissa Berman, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, hypothesized about the identity of the mystery donor. So far so good.
Then Ms. Berman mad a comment which I found exceedingly absurd. “Any institution would want to be sure they’re not accepting money that was earned criminally,”
I do not understand why the source is of any concern to recipient school. Ms. Berman seems to be making some sort of moral hazard argument. The IRS requires income to be reported “from whatever source derived” this includes criminal activities. Indeed, many “criminals” have been imprisoned for failing to report their revenue from illegal activities. Furthermore, money and property is frequently seized by law enforcement officers when the property is deemed to be related to criminal activities. I wonder if Ms. Berman objects to the government receiving forcibly taking money from individuals it deems to be criminals in order to fund its activities. If there is a moral hazard for schools then why not for the government?
It seems to me that society should prefer that money come from anonymous criminal donors. Consider the worst person imaginable, perhaps a genocidal warlord, wouldn’t it be preferable for his money to be used to educate students rather than to continue to benefit his atrocious practices? It would be quite a different story if the donor was known and would be able to infringe upon the school’s autonomy.
Fourteen of the fifteen schools that received donations were public institutions. This means that much of their funding is forcibly taken from individuals against their will. Why does Ms. Berman not object to the use of stolen funds when these funds are stolen by the government? By donating such large sums of money to these schools this philanthropist has, at least in theory, reduced the burden upon taxpayers.
The bottom line is that many minority student’s will greatly benefit from this individual’s immense generosity and we have no reason to question the source of the funds.
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It seems to me that society should prefer that money come from anonymous criminal donors. Maybe, or maybe not. Catherine Austin Fitts, amongst others, has done a good job of collating documents that show how dirty money impacts ordinary people’s lives (see here, here and here). If you discovered dirty money was directly passing through institutions that you bank with or invest in or educate your children in, would you leave your money there, or take it out?
I suppose it’s up to the institution to decide whether it wants the money or not, and not the “experts.”
I also suppose, this is an ethical question, if there were a known victim; that is, someone who lost their property or privacy as a result of the donation.
Suppose the money donated was taken by a scammer from his victims. Do the victims have any recourse to getting their money back, before it is donated? I would hope so.
But isn’t that what the government does when it expropriates your earned money, and hands it off to various institutions that you may or may not have supported, if you had a choice? And we know that there is no way the government would ever give that back. They have the cheap justification, “we’re doing it for the good of all.” Well, this donor appears to be doing exactly that.
Cheers
What is meant by ‘dirty’ money? If it’s drug money, why not take it?
Also, all government money has been taken through force, and could be considered ‘dirty’ for that reason, so don’t take any government money. If money is evil, then money from rich people is evil. Taking money from poor people (who need it) makes you dirty, so don’t do that. In fact, don’t take any money! Since it COULD be dirty, why take the risk? Live solely on air.
If memory serves, a similar situation was presented when Tony Soprano wanted to give a large sum to Columbia University if they would admit his daughter Meadow to the school.
<- former Soprano’s addict
Marco Polo,
In this case the donor is unknown by the recipient schools.
If someone, say David Duke, was a major donor to a school and the school had full knowledge of his identity I certainly would not attend such a school.
If Duke was a major donor to a school but the school was completely unaware then I would have no objection to attending that school.
“This mysterious donor has insisted that the recipient schools make no attempt to ascertain her identity”.
And yet they have enough information to tell them that the donor is female? That narrows the field considerably.
> And yet they have enough information to tell them
> that the donor is female?
I think that’s just some weird quirk in the English language and does not refer to the gender of the actual recipient.
If so, the writer has poor communication skills. “He” is generic, “she” is not – and anyone who wants gender neutrality can always use “they” (at least, if case is adjusted to be plural), or the passive. But “she” has never, ever been anything but specific, and the strained use doesn’t even deliver gender neutrality, so readers don’t have those grounds for expecting it to be generic.
Since the donation is anonymous the donor gains no social benefit from it. Certainly an open donation by a criminal should be returned as he/she would gain from it.
Why assume the anonymous donor is criminal in the first place? Giving anonymous donations doesn’t sound like criminal behavior to me.
So, if the colleges can’t prove that the anonymous money isn’t drug money, doesn’t that leave them open to civil asset forfeiture?
The reason I referred to the donor as being female is because, in the original NPR report (link above), Ms. Berman made some comments about the likely identity of the donor.
So my first reading was correct – there was indeed background information tending to narrow things down, in this case towards a woman. The stipulation has already been breached, because that was brought out. Sure, it’s only partial information – but the stipulation was that no information should be brought out at all.
Well that’s because in today’s “LOOK AT ME!!!” society, that somebody would prefer anonymity feels criminal to most.
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