October 22, 2023

An important repercussion of the recent campus anti-Israel/pro-Hamas rallies is that major university donors, many of whom are Jewish, say that they are re-thinking their continued support of their alma mater.

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The billionaire Ronald Lauder has threatened to end his donations to the University of Pennsylvania. Fellow Penn alum, Marc Rowan, who has donated some $50 million recently asked fellow mega donors “to close their checkbooks.”  TV producer Dick Wolf, another Penn alum, joined this chorus while the Huntsman family has already shut its checkbook. Four thousand donors just signed a letter denouncing Penn’s support of anti-Semitism. Nor are these Penn donors unusual as billionaires at other schools have finally awoken from their slumber.

Can these aroused financial titans root out anti-Semitism? No doubt, the closed checkbooks will alarm top administrators who will promise “steps will be taken,” but, sadly, matters will not change, rhetoric aside.

No university will de-fund anti-Israel organizations since this generosity for student groups is a long-standing policy and administrators cannot anticipate what campus groups will do next.

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Among the 30 Harvard groups denouncing Israel (listed here) were the Harvard Divinity School Muslim Association, The Harvard Jews for Liberation and, oddly, the Design Students Society, among others that, technically, have nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Moreover, rabid anti-Semites can seize control over any campus groups just by showing up and then voting for a toxic statement in the group’s name regardless of the membership.  

Nor can university administrators force faculty member to cleanse their teaching of anything that might be anti-Jewish. Anti-Semites always find ways to insert their message and tenure and academic freedom are formidable obstacles to what the outraged mega donor demand.

Likewise, universities cannot control their “brand” beyond the campus. A few Harvard students can easily assemble in a nearby park and claim to “speak for Harvard students” and say the most outlandish things, all covered by the mass media, and the university is powerless to silence them. Nobody listens when a Harvard dean eventually explains that “the protestors do not speak for the Harvard community/”

This is unwelcome news for anxious mega-donors, but eliminating campus anti-Semitism is not their biggest worry. More serious is the burgeoning hostility on camps to the culture that allowed these billionaires to become billionaires. Hatred toward Israel is just a symptom of the malady plaguing American higher education. It is this larger battle that billionaires should address when threatening to close their checkbook.

Perhaps the foremost malaise that should worry these alarmed billionaires is the widespread disdain for capitalism as if making money must be subordinated to achieving social and/or racial justice. Consider how Disney currently makes movies directed at children such as Strange World and Lightyear that feature homosexual plots that are financial disasters. Disney’s animated Baymax portrays a menstruating transgendered man. That these movies have lost billions is no surprise. Obviously, many of today’s college-educated Disney executives don’t believe that business exists to enrich shareholders. 

Then there’s the rejection of merit in favor of physical traits or sexual identity that now permeates today’ s campuses. That is, don’t hire the most competent; instead hire those checking the most boxes, and this often results in hiring incompetents. And while identity politics may have begun as an idea in some obscure sociology course, it now permeates the economy. According to Bloomberg News, during one recent period, of all those hired by corporate America, 94% of the position went to people of color (Hispanic, Asian and Black). Yes, whites still occupy the top rungs of corporate America, but this situation will be fleeting as the pressure for “diversity” grows relentlessly thanks to made-in-the-academy ideas.