Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Why Do People Still Donate to Universities?
Townhall.com ^ | August 16, 2016 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 08/16/2016 4:22:11 AM PDT by Kaslin

There was rare good news this month. On August 4, The New York Times published a front-page article headlined, "College Students Protest, Alumni's Fondness Fades and Checks Shrink."

According to The Times, some college alumni are awakening to the fact that their beloved alma maters are nothing like the decent, open, tolerant, committed-to-learning places they remember. Rather, nearly every college and university in America has become the least open, the least tolerant, the most hate-filled and the most anti-American (and, of course, anti-Israel) mainstream institution in America.

As stated in the article: "Alumni from a range of generations say they are baffled by today's college culture. Among their laments: Students are too wrapped up in racial and identity politics."

Let's put it more starkly. Colleges are America's preeminent racist institutions. They encourage, for example, black dorms and black graduations; and they foment minority hatred of whites (through "white privilege" indoctrination seminars, ethnic studies courses, black studies courses, etc.).

Additionally, college students "are allowed to take too many frivolous courses."

College students graduate without taking any courses that elevate their intellect or character -- which was the original purpose of universities. You can get a bachelor's degree in English from UCLA without reading a Shakespeare play.

These students have also "repudiated the heroes and traditions of the past by judging them by today's standards rather than in the context of their times."

Most college graduates are taught to see the great men who founded America not only as not great but also as bad. After all, they were white, male and affluent. And some were slaveholders.

"University administrations," The Times says, "have been too meek in addressing protesters whose messages have seemed to fly in the face of free speech."

Meek? College administrators give new meaning to the word. With precious few exceptions, they have no principle except keeping their job.

That it took these alumni so many years to realize how destructive their beloved colleges have become is as unpleasant a surprise as The New York Times publishing this piece was a pleasant surprise.

The Times quotes Scott MacConnell, an alumnus of Amherst College:

"'As an alumnus of the college, I feel that I have been lied to, patronized and basically dismissed as an old, white bigot who is insensitive to the needs and feelings of the current college community,' Mr. MacConnell, 77, wrote in a letter to the college's alumni fund in December, when he first warned that he was reducing his support to the college to a token $5."

It also quotes a Yale University graduate named Scott C. Johnston, "who graduated from Yale in 1982 (and) said he was on campus last fall when activists tried to shut down a free speech conference, 'because apparently they missed irony class that day.'"

Yale now competes with Brown University and similar left-wing institutions in embracing students who employ fascist tactics, such as taking over deans' offices and shouting down conservative speakers.

But this reduction in giving probably won't matter much. Yale has an endowment of over 25 billion dollars. It can easily afford to have contempt for alumni like Johnston, for it knows that most alumni would continue to give if the university announced that it would not admit anyone who believes that God created the universe.

Wealthy fools will continue to give money to Yale and all the other left-wing seminaries still known (inaccurately) as universities. There is no group that better embodies the famous statement attributed to Vladimir Lenin: "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them."

Can you name a more moronic group than wealthy capitalists who give tens of millions of dollars to universities so they can teach students that capitalism is evil?

It is, of course, understandable why leftists give so much money to universities. But why do non-leftists?

Here are two key reasons:

First, and most importantly, it makes them feel good about themselves. Universities are the world's secular temples. Long ago, wealthy Americans gave to their churches, whereas they now give to universities.

Second, many of the very wealthy are savants -- people who are brilliant at making a lot of money, but not at much else. And there is no connection between wealth and wisdom. There are Silicon Valley and Hollywood billionaires who have less wisdom than many seniors at Christian high schools.

So, here's my advice to wealthy individuals who love America and do not wish to undermine the Judeo-Christian and classical liberal values on which it is built:

Give to medical research. And if you give to a college, give to one that actually venerates America and the life of the mind (Hillsdale College, for example). Or give to causes that are attempting to undo the damage of the universities. Examples include the Young America's Foundation, YAF, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, ISI, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE, and Prager University (which has had over 100 million views just this year, the largest single group of viewers being young people under 35).

But if you love America, among the worst things you can do is contribute to 95 percent of the country's universities. America would better off if you burned that money.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: collegesandunis; liberals
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-34 next last

1 posted on 08/16/2016 4:22:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Just as I got to the point in my carreer where I may have considered donating to the institutions where I had ground my gonads away they started in supporting civilian disarmament. I retaliated. The resources they might have gotten went to second amendment support instead!


2 posted on 08/16/2016 4:30:25 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wastoute

Football and Basketball tickets


3 posted on 08/16/2016 4:33:02 AM PDT by scooby321 (o even lower)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

So their stupid kids can be accepted.


4 posted on 08/16/2016 4:38:40 AM PDT by GreatRoad (O < 0)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The last tribal identity open to whites, pathetic. For those still too proud to virtue signal their cuckiness there is always a football or basketball team to donate to so the BLM white hating thugs can have new shoes or something.


5 posted on 08/16/2016 4:38:57 AM PDT by junta ("Peace is a racket", testimony from crime boss Barrack Hussein Obama.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Both of my parents graduated from our local college and in the past were very generous with donations. One year they paid for the remodeling of the campus chapel. Then the college paid Bill Ayers for an appearance. They haven’t gotten a cent since.


6 posted on 08/16/2016 4:40:40 AM PDT by CrazyIvan (Socialists are just communists in their larval stage.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CrazyIvan

Good for your parents. I don’t blame them.


7 posted on 08/16/2016 4:46:15 AM PDT by Kaslin (He neededAwesomeOf the ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

For the same reason that Christians still send their children to godless public schools at all levels of education. The Bible says, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)
However, parents put earthly goals of money and a job in that #1 priority. It’s a poor choice.


8 posted on 08/16/2016 5:17:59 AM PDT by txrefugee (..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

If I had a net worth double that of Gates and Zuckerberg combined, I would NOT donate a plug nickel to any college or university, unless it was to hire conservative professors.

These moonbats say they are for “diversity,” yet 95% or more of their so-called professors are liberals. Liars.


9 posted on 08/16/2016 5:27:18 AM PDT by july4thfreedomfoundation (You can't spell TRIUMPH without TRUMP)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

There are still engineering, physics, chemistry departments, or the like.

Having good grammar should be something high school students achieve but it seems like it is too much to ask of public schools these days.

... and animal rights groups disparage puppy mills....

The arts, such as they’ve become, are prettly much without value but there’s always an abundance of dolts willing to support them because it looks good in your will.

Don’t get me started about squishy sciences.


10 posted on 08/16/2016 5:29:24 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: scooby321

Better than shelling out the absurd prices the pros want.

Never mind our communities taking it up the shorts every time one of these billionaires wants a new stadium....


11 posted on 08/16/2016 5:32:05 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: txrefugee

Daycare with uncertain chance of education....


12 posted on 08/16/2016 5:33:31 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

As bribes for good season tickets.


13 posted on 08/16/2016 5:52:11 AM PDT by TYVets
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Rurudyne

It has hit the STEMs long ago, with encouraging tolerance and acceptance of drug use. My experience was an electric power systems lab course (480 volt 3 phase) on a Monday morning where some students were still stoned from a weekend of weed.
I almost got to see Darwin in action.


14 posted on 08/16/2016 5:56:20 AM PDT by Fred Hayek (The Democratic Party is now the operational arm of the CPUSA)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Stop feeding the university monsters.
1. No contributions.
2. No tickets to football and basketball games.
3. No watching college football games on TV.
4. Just because a college might have a good medical or engineering school that might be somewhat conservative, do not let it influence your giving.

Stop feeding the university monster means totally stopping.


15 posted on 08/16/2016 6:02:26 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I’m homeschooled, nobody donates to me. I spend a lot of time on college campuses, politely but firmly advocating conservative and Christian ideas — and I don’t even get gas money.

Not that I’ve asked for any!


16 posted on 08/16/2016 6:06:43 AM PDT by Buttons12
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fred Hayek

Heh, and my story was making my circuit lab’s graduate assistant laugh by joking that my resistors had lost their magic blue smoke.


17 posted on 08/16/2016 6:08:50 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
And if you give to a college, give to one that actually venerates America and the life of the mind (Hillsdale College, for example).

St John's, Maryland and Santa Fe still bases its curriculum on the Great Books.

18 posted on 08/16/2016 6:11:15 AM PDT by Timocrat (Ingnorantia non excusat)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: scooby321

That’s the only reason the hubs and I do


19 posted on 08/16/2016 6:13:03 AM PDT by morans14
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Buttons12

You were lucky that your parents were able to home school you. I would have never been able to home school our children. Of course when they were small there was no such thing as home schooling.


20 posted on 08/16/2016 6:13:08 AM PDT by Kaslin (He neededAwesomeOf the ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-34 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson