Commentary: Do Not Give Even $1 to Corrupt Universities

Joshua Katz December 14, 2023 1 min read

Joshua Katz
City Journal

Excerpt: “This year I gave only $1 to Brown.” Last week, three people said this to me.  Well, to be exact, one said, “only $10 to Princeton” and another “only $100 to Harvard.” But you get the idea. All three have given millions to these institutions in the past. All three are infuriated by what is happening on campuses across the country. All three sought my approval for their pointedly small gifts.

They do not have my approval. The amount of money they should give is zero. Not $1, like Harvard alumna Tally Zingher, who plans to join “hundreds of other former students in a symbolic protest,” but $0. I made this argument last December, and reiterate it now at the end of a year in which public confidence in higher education understandably has hit a new low.

Click here for link to full article

Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.


Also in Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

The interview that exposed academia’s cluelessness
The interview that exposed academia’s cluelessness

By Megan McArdle July 27, 2026 1 min read

Megan McArdle argues that Carolyn Rouse — Princeton anthropology professor and AAA president — badly botched a Chronicle of Higher Education interview meant to rebut a Vanderbilt/WashU report accusing anthropology of suppressing dissent on politically charged topics. McArdle uses the episode to argue academia has grown accustomed to speaking only to itself, at a moment when public trust in higher ed is collapsing — and that unless it repairs its credibility, financial consequences will follow reputational ones.

Read More
Civic Education Centers Are Booming. The AAUP Wants Them Gone.
Civic Education Centers Are Booming. The AAUP Wants Them Gone.

By Tal Fortgang ‘17 July 14, 2026 6 min read

Faith in higher education continues to plummet, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)—the nation’s leading organization representing faculty interests and a longstanding voice on academic freedom and university governance—has decided to train its guns on the growing movement to establish civic education centers at public universities. The AAUP’s objections amount to a single, unlovely demand: we get to decide what students learn, and nobody else gets a vote.

Read More
Is Anthropology Hopelessly Politicized?
Is Anthropology Hopelessly Politicized?

Stephanie M. Lee July 14, 2026 1 min read

Six days after the report went online, the AAA fired back with a full-throated defense. “Anthropologists welcome rigorous critique of the discipline,” wrote its president, Carolyn M. Rouse. “What we cannot accept is a sweeping verdict about anthropology’s intellectual culture, scholarly practices, and professional norms built on selective evidence and issued without consultation. 

Read More