Donors Beware: College Officials Have Their Own Ideas About Using Your Money

It is quite common: A successful college alum decides to donate a large sum of his accumulated wealth to his alma mater, but wants the money to be used in a specific way. School officials want the money. They don’t, however, care for the conditions attached to it. What to do?

The honorable course of action, of course, would be to say, “Thanks, but we’ll have to decline unless you are willing to change your conditions.” But often, they decide to accept the donation, knowing that they aren’t going to fully comply with the donor’s intentions. They figure that they will be able to get away with using the money as they desire so long as they don’t depart too radically from the donor’s intent. Such cases occur regularly, as philanthropy expert Martin Morse Wooster pointed out in his 2011 paper, “Games Universities Play.”

The most recent instance of a university accepting an alum’s donation and then using it in ways inconsistent with his wishes involves the University of Missouri.

Sherlock Hibbs graduated from Missouri in 1926 and pursued a successful business career. Late in his life, he approached the university’s Trulaske College of Business (TCB) with a proposition. He offered $5 million to support six faculty positions. Those positions, however, were not to be filled with just any scholar. Hibbs only wanted people who would conduct their teaching and research from the analytical perspective of the Austrian School of economics.

There are various approaches to the study of economics (“schools” of thought). In the article above, professor Peter Boettke explains the key aspects of the Austrian School: “Man with his purposes and plans is the beginning of all economic analysis. Only individuals make choices; collective entities do not choose. The primary task of economic analysis is to make economic phenomena intelligible by basing it on individual purposes and plans; the secondary task is to trace out the unintended consequences of individual choices.”

One of the leading scholars in the Austrian School was Ludwig von Mises and Hibbs stipulated that the faculty members hired with his bequest must all be followers of von Mises’ analytical method. At the time Hibbs made his offer to Missouri in 2002, there were many faculty members throughout the U.S. who were Austrian in outlook and there was at least one major university economics department where Austrians were dominant (Auburn). Clearly, Hibbs wanted TCB to become another center for Austrian-based teaching and research.

The problem was that officials at TCB thought that hiring a cadre of Austrians would make it too radical. That’s because the Austrians argue that nearly all governmental interventions in the economy are counter-productive: minimum wage laws, occupational licensing laws, labor regulations, subsidies of all kinds, and even government production of money.

Austrian scholars don’t necessarily or uniformly write and comment about such public policy questions, but many do and Missouri’s provost, Brady Deaton, feared that if the Hibbs bequest were strictly followed, it would create the perception that “the university was held hostage to a particular ideology.”

That’s a pretty flimsy concern, since employing a small number of Austrian economists in a huge university scarcely entails “being held hostage.” Many ideas that compete with Austrian School economics are well entrenched at Missouri. Moreover, the Austrian approach to economics is not an “ideology”—a set of beliefs—but rather a method of inquiry.

University officials were determined to both take Mr. Hibbs’ money and avoid his conditions. So in 2003, Bruce Walker, dean of the college, announced that it had accepted the bequest and would use the funds to hire professors with “Evident commitment to the tenets of a free and open market economy, coinciding with the Austrian School of Economics, including such principles as innovation, creativity, change, entrepreneurship, private property, competition, pricing through markets, individual choice, and market processes.”

Despite the tiny bow toward Austrian theory, Walker’s description meant that the university could hire any business professors so long as they were not leftists. The university wanted to use the money for non-controversial, “mainstream” business professors whose thinking might overlap slightly with the Austrian School. Since Hibbs had died late in 2002, he couldn’t object that Missouri was misusing his money.

Missouri was determined to play games with that $5 million.

But there was catch. Under the terms of the bequest, Hillsdale College was to oversee Missouri’s use of the funds. Hibbs had known Hillsdale’s president Larry Arnn and told him that he planned to make a large donation to his alma mater, but didn’t trust Missouri to follow his wishes. At first, Arnn demurred, but later agreed to let him write his will so that Hillsdale would be a third-party beneficiary of the Missouri bequest; if the money was not used according to his desires, the funds would go to Hillsdale.

It was up to Missouri to certify to Hillsdale that it was using the Hibbs bequest in accordance with his desires by sending a letter every four years attesting that it was doing so. In 2006 and 2010, the university sent the required letter, stating that each of the faculty members holding a position funded with Hibbs money was a “dedicated and articulate disciple of Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School.” In neither instance did Hillsdale challenge the certification.

But in 2014, Missouri did not send Hillsdale the required letter, causing the latter to investigate the “Austrianness” of the faculty holding the Hibbs professorships. Hillsdale scholars familiar with the Austrian School had no trouble discerning that not one of them could remotely be described as Austrian. Apprised of that conclusion, Missouri had each professor sign and send to Hillsdale identical statements claiming to be Austrians. That gesture was futile. Hillsdale had firmly concluded that Missouri hadn’t made any effort at complying with the terms of the Hibbs bequest.

In 2017, Hillsdale filed suit against the University of Missouri in a state court in St. Louis. It seeks a ruling that Missouri must turn over the $5 million given by Sherlock Hibbs (plus interest) because it failed to comply with his conditions. The case has yet to come to trial.  (If it hadn’t been for discovery in the case, no one outside of the university would know about its conduct.)

Hillsdale had firmly concluded that Missouri hadn’t made any effort at complying with the terms of the Hibbs bequest.
One interesting fact is that part of the Hillsdale legal team is former Missouri governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat. In this PJ Media article, Tyler O’Neil interviewed Nixon, who said, “Donor intent is really important. Donors appreciate that the commitment of their generosity lives beyond their time on earth. When I looked at this, it was clear to me that the intent of Mr. Hibbs was not being embraced or followed by the University of Missouri.”

Nixon’s view is supported by the silence of the current Hibbs professors as to their adherence to Austrian analysis. Reason magazine’s Robby Soave asked each to point to any Austrian theory in their work or references to Ludwig von Mises. Three of them failed to respond at all and the fourth merely suggested that he speak with the university’s director of media relations. Austrian scholars are usually eager to talk about their research and teaching, but not those on the TCB faculty who benefit from Hibbs’ bequest.

The first legal skirmish was won by the university when it persuaded the Supreme Court of Missouri to change the venue from St. Louis to a local court. Apparently, it hopes to play upon hometown sympathy to keep the money it has been misusing for the last 16 years.

Sherlock Hibbs did everything imaginable to try to guarantee that his school would devote his money to the purposes he had in mind. If the university should convince the jury that it has done nothing wrong and may keep his money, it’s hard to imagine that any prospective Missouri donor who wants to target his donation will ever again do so. TCB is helping to further weaken the trust that philanthropy depends on.

I’ll close by quoting Martin Wooster’s reaction to this dispute: “I don’t know of any case involving an enforcement mechanism for honoring donor intent like the one Sherlock Hibbs created. I hope Hillsdale prevails, for I believe Missouri’s misuse of the Hibbs endowment is a severe violation of donor intent.”

SOURCE 






The appalling story of an Illinois family's encounter with a school district's Rainbow Mafia  

Perhaps nothing reveals the American Left’s fascist inclinations better than the ongoing effort to force-feed the transgender agenda to the American public. Quite simply, you’re either on board with the idea that gender is “fluid” and that one’s sexual identity is determined solely on the basis of self-identification — wholly absent the same “settled science” argument leftists use to promote their moral superiority on global warming — or you’re a bigot. And since so many parents are “bigoted,” leftists have to make sure their children “get their minds right” at school — whether parents like it or not.

On August 12, USA Today published a column by parent Jay Keck, whose daughter attended public school in Hinsdale District 86 in Illinois. His ordeal with the fascist inclinations of leftist school officials began when his then-14-year-old daughter, who was enrolled in an Individualized Education Program (IEP) because she was “on the autism spectrum” and had difficulty making friends, “was approached by a girl who had recently come out at school as transgender,” Keck explains. “Shortly after meeting her, my daughter declared that she, too, was a boy trapped in a girl’s body and picked out a new masculine name.”

Keck notes this was an unprecedented development. “Throughout my daughter’s childhood, there were no signs that she wanted to be a boy,” he writes. “She loved stuffed animals, Pocahontas and wearing colorful bathing suits. I can’t recall a single interest that seemed unusually masculine, or any evidence that she was uncomfortable as a girl.”

None of it mattered. As Keck discovered, the wholly subjective and utterly absurd “standard” of self-declaration was all it took to put the fascist machinery in full gear, and usurp his rights as a parent. Thus, when she came out as a boy, he reveals that “the faculty and staff — who had full knowledge of her mental health challenges — affirmed her.” Specifically, he says, “Without telling me or my wife, they referred to her by her new name. They treated my daughter as if she were a boy, using male pronouns and giving her access to a gender neutral restroom.”

That was only the beginning. At an IEP meeting shortly after his daughter’s announcement, Keck told school officials he and his wife wanted his daughter’s legal name to be used when addressing her. A social worker present told Keck he had the right to make such a request, which Keck reiterated in a follow-up email. He assumed the school would follow his wishes and that would be the end of it. Yet he learned his request was ignored “and school staff continued to refer to her by the male name.”

A meeting with the school district’s assistant superintendent was equally fruitless, when that superintendent insisted his hands were tied by federal law. Yet as Keck rightfully pointed out, there was no law — there was only the Obama administration’s 2016 Dear Colleague letter whereby the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ and the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education brazenly asserted that the failure to embrace the transgender agenda was a violation of the Title IX provisions of the Education Amendments of 1972 “that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.”

Despite the letter itself describing its contents as “significant guidance” that “does not add requirements to applicable law,” the administration nonetheless warned schools they faced a loss of federal education funds if they did not accommodate the transgender agenda.

That directive was overturned by a federal judge in Texas on August 21, 2016 following a lawsuit filed by 13 states. In addition, the Trump administration’s Departments of Education and Justice rescinded the Dear Colleague letter in 2017, when Education and Justice departments officials, who also notified the U.S. Supreme Court, asserted the administration wants to “further and more completely consider the legal issues involved,” because there must be “due regard for the primary role of the States and local school districts in establishing educational policy.”

Keck also cited the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act as evidence the school was acting out of turn. It gives parents “the right to inspect and review the student’s education records maintained by the school,” and “the right to request that a school correct records which they believe to be inaccurate or misleading.”

None of it mattered. “My daughter told me that the school social worker was advising her about halfway houses because he thought we did not support her,” he writes. “The social worker confirmed this when I scheduled a meeting with him to discuss it.”

In other words, the school was advising Keck’s child to run away from home.

On top of that insult, a district approved-psychologist who evaluated his daughter — and determined that her infatuation with transgenderism was driven “by her underlying mental health conditions,” refused to go on the record, because he feared the backlash he would endure. Thus, the letter he submitted to school officials and Keck omitted that part of the assessment.

What intimidated the psychologist? “The National Education Association has partnered with the Human Rights Campaign and other groups to produce materials advocating automatic affirmation of identities, name changes and pronouns, regardless of parents’ concerns,” Keck reveals. “In 18 states and the District of Columbia, including in my home state of Illinois, there are ‘conversion therapy’ bans, which prevent therapists from questioning a child’s gender identity.”

What this nation desperately needs are bans against indoctrinating impressionable children, while intimidating their parents to prevent them from challenging that indoctrination. “Many parents just like my wife and me are often afraid to speak out because we are told we are transphobic bigots, simply because we do not believe our children were born into the wrong bodies.”

When his child went into senior year, Keck called the principal to voice his expectation that her legal name would be used at graduation. “Once again, the school refused to honor my request,” he writes.

And therein lies the problem. Parents don’t need to request that schools avoid promulgating progressive dogma, they need to demand it. If they don’t, every state in the nation will become like California, where the Board of Education has determined schools should begin discussing “gender identity” in kindergarten. State officials insist that “children in kindergarten and even younger have identified as transgender or understand they have a gender identity that is different from their sex assigned at birth.”

No, they don’t. Virtually every aspect of “thinking” by children under the age of seven is wholly determined by the adults with whom they interact, many of whom apparently embrace the wholesale destruction of the nuclear family.

“Public education has become an institutionalized form of child abuse,” columnist David L. Rosenthal asserts. “Rather than being a tool used to prepare children to become productive adults, public education is being used to indoctrinate them to believe what powerful interest groups wish them to believe.”

Those powerful interest groups embrace the “fundamental transformation of the United States” — by any means necessary. Nothing serves that purpose better than the indoctrination of children and the intimidation of their parents.

That is the essence of fascism.

SOURCE 





What you should do instead of university

Australia: Jobs are changing so fast nowadays that heading to university for three years may no longer be the best way of getting work.

Young people are struggling to find jobs after they finish uni and a recent report from the Grattan Institute showed doing a degree could leave some people $30,000 worse off.

TAFE or other vocational education is often seen as the only alternative but technology firm WithYouWithMe (WYWM) hopes one day to provide another lifelong learning model.

Tom Larter, the chief executive officer of the Australia and New Zealand operation, said while education and learning from university could be valuable, it was more important to get into the workforce as quickly as possible.

“Jobs are changing so fast, you need to get into your first job and then use lifelong learning to build out your skills,” he said.

“We’ve got to speed up the rate that we learn new skills.”

A WYWM report recently found Australia’s education system had not been designed to respond to changes in the labour market and many students were enrolling in studies where job prospects were expected to be low.

“When up to 80 per cent of students will not find a job in their field after graduation, you have to wonder what exactly degrees are equipping them for,” WYWM co-founder Luke Rix said.

WYWM focuses its efforts on skilling people for jobs in the technology sector where there is increasing demand.

Under its model, the focus is on getting people into work as quickly as possible, in industries where there is increasing demand, through doing short online courses. Once they have a job they continue to do courses over two to three years.

“Find out what you’re good at, make yourself competitive quickly by learning in-demand skills, get into the workforce as fast as you can and then continually learn through your career as you go,” Mr Larter said.

At the moment WYWM works mainly with military veterans to help them get jobs after they retire from service, but non-military personnel can still do their testing and courses.

The program is free for veterans and this year 1178 have got jobs through the course.

Mr Larter told news.com.au that many of their clients don’t have a university degree. “Our speciality is that we can take any veteran regardless of their background and show them how to reach their full potential,” he said.

“Even if they are a truck driver they don’t have to be a truck driver when they leave, we can upskill you in a high-demand job, particularly in tech, so you can have an ongoing career.”

Veterans first do testing, which others can also do for free online, to identify what they are good at.

“Job seekers often don’t put any data behind decisions they make about their career,” he said.

Another common mistake was not considering that they could be good at one of the many new emerging jobs. “This holds them back but the testing opens their eyes,” Mr Larter said.

“We’ve had bus drivers and junior sailors with no experience in cybersecurity do a 12-week training course and get jobs.

“Those candidates had never considered, before receiving their match, that they could actually achieve this, and it’s really inspiring for them.”

The courses at the WYWM Academy take about 100 hours and generally take about six to 12 weeks to complete part-time. There is training for things like cybersecurity, software automation and data analytics.

Veterans can complete the courses for free but they cost between $3000 to $5000 for non-military jobseekers. Once candidates are trained up WYWM helps to match them with jobs at organisations they partner with.

Sydney resident Sheldon Rogers, 26, did not have a degree but got a job through WYWM after retiring from the Royal Australian Navy. He was previously a maritime warfare officer — responsible for navigation and he generally acted as the captain’s representatives on the bridge.

After serving for six years he had no idea what he was going to do after leaving the military but the testing at WYWM suggested he would be good at sales, something that surprised him.

“It was not something that I had thought about but when they explained the parameters the testing captured, what they had identified in my personality and my background and experience, it made a lot of sense in the end,” he said.

Mr Rogers worked as a recruitment provider earning $70,000 plus commission for 14 months but has recently moved on from the company. He is working at WYWM temporarily while he looks for another job.

He said he would probably stick with sales and recommended the WYWM program.

“It’s not so much for the content itself but more about the way it’s delivered,” he told news.com.au.

“You are made to feel genuinely engaged and cared for. You are being supported and they were a sounding board to bounce off my problems and issues. People here relate to my experiences, I think that’s the best part of the course.”

Mr Larter said WYWM eventually hoped to expand its services beyond its current focus on military personnel.

“We care about solving underemployment through helping people reach their potential and achieve better paying or new jobs.”

SOURCE