Donating Money to a University?

Although I do not often agree with Dennis Prager, I must acknowledge that this short essay of his is excellent. Its title is: “Why Do People Still Donate to Universities?” And his answer, if I can put words in his mouth, is, “Don’t do it, if you love our country.” He concludes his note with this statement: “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.” I heartily concur with him on this.

As a person who has spent almost his entire professional career in academia, I can attest that colleges and universities have become dens of intellectual iniquity, based on cultural Marxism (it is no longer only the bourgeois who are oppressing the proletariat; it is now, also, white males who do so, to pretty much everyone else) and political correctness (safe spaces, trigger warnings, and all the rest). Here is an instance of this of which even I was not cognizant, thanks to George Leef in his op-ed:  “How American Higher Education Turned into a False Promise.” He gives this example: “Perhaps the most telling is the nasty treatment a 79-year-old UCLA professor, Val Rust, received for his ‘microaggression’ of correcting grammatical errors in the papers of Ph.D. candidates. Among other ‘offenses’ against these students, he of Washington D.C., whether geographically or philosophically.

But what about if your heart is set on supporting your favorite college? Then, DO SO THROUGH THE MISES INSTITUTE. ENDOW THEM, INSTEAD. But do so with instructions that this part of your gift to the MI is to be used to support the careers of “chefs” in higher education, not “restaurants.” In that way, and only in that way, can you be sure, in this “vale of tears,” that your hard-earned money will continue to be used as you intend, and had intended. If the leaders of the Mises Institute cannot single out a deserving professor for a one, two or three year possibly a renewable gift, then no one can. If you do this, you will be acting, roughly, in the manner of those who supported the careers in the United States of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek, none of whom could land suitable careers on their own, in American academia.

In the interests of full disclosure: I have long been associated with the Mises Institute. I have taught at the Mises University, off and on, for the last 30 years. I have regularly participated in its Austrian Economic Research Conferences, its Mises Circles, and sometimes its Rothbard Graduate Seminars. I spent the entire Katrina semester in Auburn, AL with them as an unpaid guest. And I have been awarded its Rothbard Medal of Freedom (2005) and its Schlarbaum Prize (2011).  There is no greater fan of the Mises Institute than me. I regard this institution as my intellectual home. But, I have never been employed by the Mises Institute.

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