{"id":109440,"date":"2023-12-18T18:05:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T16:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=109440"},"modified":"2023-12-18T09:07:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T07:07:52","slug":"24-00-92","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=109440","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Time for Congress to Open Harvard\u2019s Books"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s Time for Congress to Open Harvard\u2019s Books<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The U.S. tax code and federal contracts swell the coffers of wealthy Ivy League universities that teach hatred is OK. Taxpayers should cut them off.<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

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From left: Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University, Liz Magill, the former president of University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Sally Kornbluth, the president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology \/ HAIYUN JIANG\/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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In their congressional testimony last week, the presidents of Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania refused to denounce terrorism or explain whether calls for the genocide of Jews represent harassment or bullying on their campuses. Parents who watched this spectacle are wondering where the $80,000 a year they pay in tuition is going, and whether the \u201ceducation\u201d their children are receiving is worth the price tag. American taxpayers who can hardly afford an Ivy League education but are equally disturbed by the moral rot they\u2019re seeing might be even more alarmed to discover that they are personally underwriting it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While parents should be free to pay for any form of education they want, the fact is American taxpayers contribute more to Harvard than the parents of Harvard students do. Prohibitively expensive universities that turn out students who believe that open antisemitism and championing terrorism are forms of \u201csocial justice\u201d do so on the taxpayer\u2019s dime. That\u2019s because they all enjoy tax-exempt status as \u201ceducational\u201d public charities. But are these institutions in fact serving the public interest? And how much are the lessons that students are learning at these wealthy \u201cpublic charities\u201d costing the American taxpayer?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The auditors at OpenTheBooks.com, a nonprofit government-spending watchdog which I direct,\u00a0examined<\/a>\u00a010 universities\u2014the Ivy League, plus Stanford and Northwestern. We found that during a five-year period from 2018-22 these wealthy universities collected $45 billion in taxpayer subsidies, special tax treatment, and federal payments. In fact, these universities collected a stunning $33 billion in federal contracts and grants. It therefore seems these schools are more federal contractors than educators\u2014with federal payments exceeding undergraduate student tuition.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Additionally, the universities we surveyed profit handsomely from \u201cnonprofit\u201d tax breaks amounting to a benefit of roughly $12 billion. Wealthy universities\u00a0pay only<\/a>\u00a0a 1.4% \u201cexcessive endowments\u201d tax on their gains whereas wealthy individuals pay up to 23.4% on their capital gains.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The University of Pennsylvania, whose then-president (she resigned on Saturday), Liz Magill, seemed to smirk at the idea of being questioned by Congress, collected $3.7 billion in U.S. government grants and contracts, mostly for research, between 2018 and 2022. Over the same five-year period, Penn\u2019s endowment\u00a0ballooned<\/a>\u00a0to $21 billion from $13.4 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n

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It seems these schools are more federal contractors than educators\u2014with federal payments exceeding undergraduate student tuition.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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What is Penn doing with the U.S. government money it deposits into its swollen coffers? In September 2023, UPenn helped sponsor the Palestine Writes Festival, which organizers\u00a0claim<\/a>\u00a0is \u201cdedicated to celebrating and promoting cultural productions of Palestinian writers and artists.\u201d However, the event\u00a0showcased<\/a>\u00a0multiple writers deemed antisemitic by the Anti-Defamation League, most famously Pink Floyd\u2019s Roger Waters, and,\u00a0initially<\/a>, poet Refaat Alareer. After the Oct. 7 massacre and reports that at least one baby\u2019s remains were found in an oven, Alareer\u00a0tweeted<\/a>\u00a0\u201cwith or without baking powder?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Just days before Oct. 7, then-UPenn President Liz Magill had refused to move the event off campus. In the eyes of many donors, Magill then failed to sufficiently condemn or even bother to regulate or police ensuing protests that included chants of \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d\u2014a call for the ethnic cleansing of Jewish citizens of Israel\u2014and\u00a0vandalism<\/a>\u00a0of school property. Angered donors\u00a0include<\/a>\u00a0billionaire Cliff Asness, former trustee Vahan Gureghian, and venture capitalist David Magerman. In a letter to Magill, Magerman\u00a0wrote<\/a>, \u201cI am deeply ashamed of my association with\u201d the university. \u201cI refuse to donate another dollar.\u201d Investor Steve Eisman went so far as to demand his name be removed from a scholarship,\u00a0telling<\/a>\u00a0CNBC, \u201cI do not want my family\u2019s name associated with [Penn], ever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An aide to House Committee on Education and the Workforce chairwoman Virginia Foxx said that Columbia University President Minouche Shafik was\u00a0invited<\/a>\u00a0to the hearing, but had declined over a scheduling conflict. Nevertheless, Columbia\u2019s own lightning-rod moments won\u2019t soon be forgotten. Business school assistant professor Shai Davidai gathered students and asked them to record a 10-minute declaration in hopes they would spread it across the globe on social media. He called Shafik a \u201ccoward\u201d for allowing pro-Hamas chants and rallies to go unchecked. \u201cImagine not being able to go to your work because your boss does not value your life, because your boss supports pro-terror organizations,\u201d he\u00a0said<\/a>. His message for parents was brutal: \u201cwe cannot protect your child.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Columbia\u2019s five-year, taxpayer-funded haul? $5.8 billion in U.S. taxpayer money\u2014while its endowment\u00a0swelled<\/a>\u00a0to $13.3 billion from $10.5 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That brings us to Harvard. Donor Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, has helped\u00a0spearhead<\/a>\u00a0the revolt of donors and Ivy League parents after dozens of university groups signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas\u2019 barbarism. Through open letters shared with journalists and exhaustive posts on X, Ackman has chronicled antisemitism at Harvard,\u00a0calling<\/a>\u00a0the situation \u201cdire and getting worse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s just one example at Harvard: at a so-called \u201cdie in,\u201d protesters physically\u00a0surrounded<\/a>\u00a0an Israeli graduate student, blocking his vision and ability to navigate the campus. His fellow students grabbed at him, shoved him, and shouted \u201cshame!\u201d, boxing him in and intimidating him. While reports were\u00a0filed<\/a>\u00a0with the university police department and the FBI, Harvard would not comment on internal disciplinary actions.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Harvard has\u00a0collected<\/a>\u00a0$3.3 billion in federal contracts and grants. With a $50.9 billion endowment, Harvard obviously doesn\u2019t need taxpayer money to coddle discrimination or antisemitism. But then why is it receiving federal money to begin with\u2014not to mention massive federal tax breaks on its endowment?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Following the congressional hearing, multiple UPenn students filed a\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the school for running afoul of civil rights law by failing to apply its code of conduct against anti-Israel agitators, hiring \u201crabidly antisemitic professors\u201d and ignoring requests for help from Jewish students. Speaking to reporters at the Capitol complex, plaintiff Eyal Yakoby\u00a0said<\/a>, \u201c36 hours ago, I along with most of campus, sought refuge in our rooms as classmates and professors chanted proudly for the genocide of Jews while igniting smoke bombs and defacing school property.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If none of this sounds particularly charitable, there is plenty to be done about it. Currently, these institutions can both fundraise from vast alumni networks while also raking in billions from the government. While donors pad the endowments that ostensibly keep the lights on, prestige-building research is funded to the hilt by taxpayers. But the same body that held this tense hearing also holds America\u2019s purse strings.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In addition to examining the tax-exempt status of institutions that tolerate open antisemitism and other expressions of radical bigotry, House appropriators need to go line by line with a red pen through the $7 billion\u00a0doled out<\/a>\u00a0each year to these 10 wealthy universities. A laundry list of projects are either wasteful, wacky, driven by radical ideology, or all of the above. In 2022, Penn spent\u00a0over $700,000<\/a>\u00a0studying \u201cstructural racism and discrimination in pandemic vaccine allocation.\u201d It spent\u00a0$2 million<\/a>\u00a0of our tax revenue to \u201csupport the preservation of cultural heritage sites\u201d of minorities in northern Iraq.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2012, Columbia famously\u00a0spent<\/a>\u00a0$5.7 million on fake voicemails from the year 2065, after the world has supposedly been decimated by climate change. Cornell in 2014\u00a0took<\/a>\u00a0$1 million for a study, \u201cWhere It Hurts the Most to Be Stung By a Bee.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More fundamentally, lawmakers should revisit what it means to be a public charity in the tax code. As others have\u00a0observed<\/a>, these wealthy universities are \u201chedge funds with schools attached.\u201d Why such wealthy institutions should continue to enjoy public sponsorship while incubating discrimination, racism, and antisemitism and advocating on behalf of terrorists seems like a good question for Congress to answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Public funding of any type of discrimination simply cannot be tolerated.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Adam Andrzejewski<\/strong> is CEO and Founder of\u00a0OpenTheBooks.com<\/a>, the largest private database of public expenditures.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s Time for Congress to Open Harvard\u2019s Books ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI The U.S. tax code and federal contracts swell the coffers of wealthy Ivy League universities that teach hatred is OK. Taxpayers should cut them off. . From left: Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University, Liz Magill, the former president of University of Pennsylvania, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109440"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109460,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109440\/revisions\/109460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}