I swore I’d never give Harvard money — Trump changed my mind

Fighting fascism, $500 at a time

Last week, I did something that I’d never done before. Something that I thought I would never do and had, in fact, promised never to do.

I gave money to my alma mater.

It’s pretty normal American behavior. Our country’s colleges and universities count on alumni donations. I’m not rich enough to make the sort of donations that would get things named after me, but I make a good living and it’s important to me to support charities and causes I care about. I’m a good candidate for a casual alumni fundraising drive.

But I never gave to Harvard. I made a point of it — in 2008, I wrote an article titled “Why You Shouldn’t Donate Money to Harvard.”

To spare you a click, the thesis of the piece is that you shouldn’t donate money to Harvard.

I wrote about this again in 2011 in a Think Progress post that has been lost to the sands of linkrot but is immortalized in a rebuttal in the Harvard Political Review. But I was not convinced! In 2014, I wrote “Please Stop Giving Giant Donations to Rich Universities,” and after reading some critiques of that piece, I decided I was right all along and wrote “Seriously, Don’t Give Money to Fancy Colleges.”

All of which is to say that I am not a big fan of universities as recipients of charitable contributions, and I’m especially not a big fan of giving to the richest and most famous universities, including the one that I attended as an undergraduate. But last week, I went to Harvard.edu, navigated to a giving page, and forked over a $500 contribution to the new Presidential Priorities Fund that Alan Garber has established to help steer the university through its current confrontation with Donald Trump.

Why I changed my mind

I haven’t actually changed my mind.