For one loyal Barnard College alumni, things soured almost overnight. Rebecca Gray, class of 2013, had been active as a student — admissions ambassador, resident adviser, a cappella group member, LGBTQ+ advocate — and friendly enough with then-president Debora Spar that the two met for drinks after both had left campus. Gray, who prefers the pronoun “they,” donated regularly, attended reunion, and even created crossword puzzles for the college magazine.
Yet warm feelings for Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, failed to dilute Gray’s outrage watching video of New York City police round up pro-Palestinian protesters, including Barnard students, on Columbia’s campus last month shortly after the protests began.
Gray wrote and circulated among fellow alumnae a letter denouncing the suspension of Barnard students who had been arrested. What started with a cellphone text now features 1,200 signatories — equal to more than a third of the college’s enrollment — who call on the college to reinstate the students and divest from Israel. They also pledge to withhold donations and boycott campus events, including reunion.
“It seems like the only power we have,” says Gray, a musician and teacher in Seattle. The share of graduates who donate to a college factors into rankings, Gray adds, and reunion represents a financial investment for colleges. “They’re hoping to reap as many donations as possible and build that kind of yummy feeling of, ‘Oh, I love this place.’”
Gray’s story is yet another sign that America’s most stalwart charity donors — college alumni and parents of students — are choosing sides in skirmishes between campus protesters and administrators. And they’re using their charity as leverage. Since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, billionaire megadonors like Bill Ackman, Ken Griffin, and Robert Kraft have made headlines by withdrawing their support. But colleges also must contend with donor revolts among rank-and-file supporters — not to mention affluent donors whose checks may not reach seven figures but still feature a few zeroes.
Matthew Schweber, a lawyer who graduated top of his class from Columbia in 1991 and later returned for a graduate degree in writing, says he routinely makes small gifts of less than $1,000. His brother and some cousins also attended: “It’s almost default in my family to go to this school.” But Schweber says the university has allowed violence and harassment of Jewish students to go unchecked as its faculty promoted an anti-Israel worldview. “I’m appalled,” Schweber says. “The only time I want to have anything to do with Columbia University is across the table in a lawsuit.”
Such extreme disaffection may not be the norm, but fundraisers worry that the turmoil may lead donors to disconnect and slip away. That’s particularly true now, with commencement and reunion season approaching its zenith. Dozens of colleges and universities are managing protests and encampments even as campuses primp for events that are critical to build connections. “These are the times when the spotlight is on the universities,” says Doug White, a former director of the master’s program for fundraising management at Columbia.
As of Tuesday evening, the Chronicle of Higher Education was reporting that student activists at more than 70 institutions have recently put up encampments or held sit-ins, raising questions about whether this is just the beginning of a new wave of activism. “I know that presidents are just holding their breath until the semester ends,” says Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and a former president of Mount Holyoke College. “But this will be with us in the fall and I think for the foreseeable future, given the escalating culture wars and polarization and partisanship in our society.”
Giving Day Losses
It won’t be clear until later this year, when colleges report fundraising totals, how much giving may be affected. The Chronicle contacted top development officials at Columbia, Emory University, New York University, and the University of Southern California, institutions where protests have led to arrests. They either did not respond or declined to comment.
College observers caution that protests don’t always equate to campus chaos and alumni rebellion. “My sense is that most universities are continuing to function as normal,” says Andrew Seligsohn, president of Public Agenda and a former college professor.
One Ivy League fundraiser who asked not to be named said colleagues at other private institutions are not openly worrying about the effects. “Students are still being students,” the official added. “I think commencement is still going to be about students and all their work and accomplishments.”
But signs suggest that at least some fundraising operations — including the large and sophisticated development shops in the Ivy Leagues — are experiencing turbulence. Columbia this fall postponed indefinitely its annual giving day, which had raised nearly $30 million the previous year.
The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, reported last month that interim president Alan Garber has privately acknowledged that fundraising has fallen off in recent months. One concern: reunion gifts. (A university spokesman told the Crimson that there is “ongoing conversation and engagement” with alumni who want to “better understand what’s happening.”)
At the University of Southern California, administrators have canceled the main commencement while continuing plans for degree-awarding ceremonies at individual schools. Columbia has pledged to hold commencement; after a second round of arrests, it has asked police to maintain a presence on campus after the May 15 event. (Ford Foundation president Darren Walker is scheduled to receive an honorary degree at commencement, though it’s unclear whether he will attend; the foundation hasn’t yet responded to the Chronicle’s request for comment.)
Institutions that cancel or curtail graduation celebrations could find it difficult to court this class of seniors as donors as they grow older, says Aaron Conley, a founder of Academic Advancement Partners, a fundraising consultancy. “These graduates will remember this for the rest of their life, and many of them will hold that against their institution,” Conley says. “Twenty or 30 years from now, when a major gift officer goes to have a first visit with a major gift prospect, that may be the first thing that comes up.”
Donor Ultimatums
The country’s divisions have played havoc with nonprofits in various causes in recent years. But higher education, thanks to its mission, has perhaps been knocked about most of all. Colleges and universities assemble a diverse set of individuals and then encourage them to explore diverging viewpoints and ideas even as they live together and fashion a social compact for the community.
The donor boycotts related to Israel and Gaza raise questions about how alumni and other supporters can best shape a university. Alumni at all giving levels believe their boycotts are warranted as a wake-up call for college officials whom they believe overlooked protesters’ violent speech, intimidation, and harassment of Jewish students, says Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. “Even people who love their institutions deeply feel that a certain amount of tough love is in order.”
Public Agenda’s Seligsohn argues that alumni should not try to bend universities to their will with ultimatums but work to make them a strong, positive force over decades. “Institutions of higher education in the U.S. have been built through the efforts of enormous numbers of people over close to four centuries. And we weaken them at our peril,” he adds.
With public disinvestment in higher education, colleges are often left beholden to the idiosyncratic dictates of megadonors, says Trinity College political scientist Isaac Kamola. But protest efforts like Gray’s represent a more democratic push for change. “These 1,200 people have labored in order to make this collective statement that says, ‘We as a group of people here are standing on these principles, and here is a line that we’re not going to cross.’”
If this period of unrest bruises the reputations of individual institutions, the injuries will only compound the collective woes facing higher education. Critics routinely depict universities as “woke factories,” and surveys suggest trust in higher education is declining. Many colleges are on the back foot defending the value of their education and scrambling to fill enrollments as the country’s college-age population shrinks.
“This is what I call ‘the valley of humility’ for higher education,” says University of Denver chancellor Jeremy Haefner. There have been other low points, “but this one’s pretty damn deep.”
For college fundraisers, navigating the country’s divides, particularly at volatile moments, is a challenge. Development leaders or other administrators may halt solicitations or social-media activity for fear of touching off brush fires. A mail campaign months in the making may get pulled at the last minute when language takes on a new, controversial meaning.
White, who taught board governance, ethics, and fundraising while at Columbia, says universities make a mistake by going silent. Particularly at contentious moments like this, they should lean in to the mission of universities as centers of intellectual inquiry. “They should say, ‘Our brand isn’t pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel. Our brand is pro-truth,” he says.
Don Hasseltine, a former Brown University vice president for development, says the group of alumnae who have rallied around Gray’s Barnard petition represent an opportunity for the college. Those 1,200 people have demonstrated that they care about Barnard, says Hasseltine, now a senior consultant with the Aspen Leadership Group. “If it’s my university, I’m going to invite them to the table and have a conversation and see if you can find a place to advance the dialogue.”
What Is Hate Speech?
Some universities are investing in — and soliciting philanthropic support for — programs to advance critical inquiry, free expression, and civil discourse. College leaders from more than 60 campuses gathered at a forum organized by Pasquerella’s American Association of Colleges and Universities and Interfaith America to consider how to navigate polarized views surrounding the Israel-Gaza conflict. The College Presidents for Civic Preparedness, an effort by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, has grown from 15 to 61 members in less than a year.
A host of nonprofits also are working to bridge divides on campus and inculcate a new generation with the skills to navigate differences. These include Braver Angels, BridgeUSA, Constructive Dialogue Institute, and Unify America.
In his 2022 inauguration address at the University of Denver, Haefner announced the university would dedicate itself to free expression and pluralism. “We need to make sure that we’re about open inquiry and seeking truth,” he says. “I think universities have wandered off of that a bit. And we have to recommit to that fundamental principle.”
Denver’s campus has seen protests but not of the size or intensity of what’s happening elsewhere, says Haefner, a member of the Institute for Citizens and Scholars group. This week, the university held its second annual Day of Free Expression & Pluralism. Students joined with national leaders and scholars to consider topics such as the line between hate speech and free speech and perceived tensions between social justice and civil discourse.
The university’s Denver Dialogues program hosts forums for students featuring scholars from ideologically opposing think tanks. Recent topics have included immigration, congressional reform, and free speech. The goal: help students understand the complexity of polarizing issues and equip them with skills to lead constructive conversations about those issues.
Haefner says his trustees have committed significant philanthropic dollars to these programs, and alumni and parents are excited by the idea of establishing Denver as a model academy for free expression on pluralism.
“This is going to be a tremendous initiative that will attract a lot of philanthropy.”
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