Should Harvard Help Haiti?
Posted on February 11th, 2010 in Uncategorized |
I don’t mean to sound cold, because for the most part I’m not. But why is Harvard College dean Evelynn Hammonds appearing on a panel about Haiti making the not-automatically-obvious claim that “the meaning of this tragedy is not just for the people of Haiti, but for the people of the world”? (Sounds nice, doesn’t mean much.)
And more problematic, why does Hammonds keep sending me emails—two of them so far, going to all Harvard alums—asking me to watch the Harvard student concert fundraiser for Haiti and making a not-very-subtle request for contributions?
On behalf of the students, I want to thank you once again for your interest in this very memorable evening of performances and for your generosity toward the people of Haiti.
(Given Hammonds’ outspokenness on the issue, is she really speaking on behalf of the students?)
Contributions will go to Partners in Health, a non-profit co-founded by Harvard doc Paul Farmer which works in Haiti.
I’m sure PIH is a great organization, and it gets a very good rating from charity watchdog Charity Navigator.
But here’s the thing. Harvard alumni are, I’m confident, already giving substantial sums to Haiti without being prodded by Harvard to do so. And it’s very unclear that a non-profit institution should be in the business of raising money for other non-profits—particularly not a non-profit that is running $100 million deficits. The job of a non-profit is to raise money for itself, and then use that money to further its mission.
Harvard should be raising money from its donors to restore hot breakfast for undergraduates, preserve academic programs, and rehire some of the people who lost their jobs in the recent budget crunch. I’m just not sure that it’s the university president’s role to host a web page for Haiti relief—not least because, once you do it for Haiti, where do you stop? New Orleans? Thailand? Appalachia? Darfur? Detroit? Iraq? There are lots of good causes. You can’t just pick the ones you feel affinity toward. Why should you throw Harvard’s brand behind fundraising for the really, really bad disasters, and not the quite bad ones?
And what happens when one of the dozens of organizations endorsed by Drew Faust gets hit with a fundraising scandal, as the Red Cross (on DGF’s list) did after Katrina?
Sometimes one gets the feeling that the leadership of Harvard hasn’t really thought very much about the leadership of Harvard.
13 Responses
2/11/2010 5:55 pm
because PIH is an “affiliate” of the Brigham which is one of the Harvard teaching hospitals - so it is family.
2/11/2010 7:14 pm
Hey Richard:
Pshaw.
2/11/2010 8:14 pm
Thank you, Richard. I work in HR, where we have been rightly concerned about employees who were affected by the tragedy in Haiti. Several employees have lost relatives, and Harvard should do all it can to help them.
However, the Harvard reaction has gone far beyond normal caring reactions into something that looks suspiciously like P.R. or self-aggrandizement. Why are we giving extra sick days to people with missing relatives in Haiti, but not to people who lost relatives due to some random event that didn’t end up on the front page? It’s a reaction that’s full of good intentions but largely empty of thought.
2/11/2010 8:40 pm
I heard a rumor that the folks with swine flu could get extra sick days as well — but I guess that was a “front page” event, too.
The biggest constituency Harvard’s extravaganza aims to mollify may actually be the students… I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they have lobbied hard to email alumni like Richard.
2/11/2010 8:44 pm
Ahem. The latest update is that 270,000 people may have been killed in Haiti. That’s ninety 9/11’s.
NINETY.
SE
2/11/2010 8:48 pm
Just looked it up, and that seems to be a casualty number, rather than a pure fatality number.
But still.
2/12/2010 8:04 am
People in Haiti have lost their homes, parents, siblings, means of living, limbs, everything.
Are you seriously making the claim that Harvard should not fundraise because it has bigger things to think about? Like hot breakfast?
I agree there are too many good causes out there for Harvard to commit to them all. But why should that prevent a large University, with an affiliation with Haiti through Partners in Health (founded by a Harvard graduate and current faculty member), from doing everything it can to help? Not being able to do everything is not an excuse to not do anything.
2/12/2010 10:22 am
For my money, this post sounds kind of like an upscale rant from a member of the Tea Party.
2/12/2010 10:30 am
A couple of quick points:
1. Harvard did some charity for New Orleans post-Katrina, such as taking in a bunch of New Orleans-based college students for a year while their school was being fixed.
2. Um, actually you can just pick the disasters you feel some affinity towards. Saying you can’t pick between charities to give to is like saying you can’t choose between two different students in admissions because both of them deserve to get a great education. Of course that’s true, but you can’t help everybody. Just because you can’t help everybody, though, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help anybody.
3. I am 100% certain that if Harvard had done nothing for Haiti, there would be more people complaining about that than are currently complaining about what Harvard is doing. Even with a large budget deficit, Harvard is still a rich non-profit institution and has an obligation to help those in need. Yes, helping earthquake victims is outside of Harvard’s mission, but some disasters are bad enough that they require action no matter what your mission is. The powers that be at Harvard have decided that this is one of them.
2/12/2010 10:54 am
It is a teaching opportunity and isn’t that the purpose of a school?
2/12/2010 10:58 am
Daily Mail says 100, 000 dead, SE.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1242939/Haiti-earthquake-Number-dead-100-000-bloodstained-bodies-pile-streets.html
Which is horrific. But what’s the cut-off point for asking Harvard alums to pitch in?
No one should mistake my post for not wanting to help the people of Haiti; I already sent a check to Doctors without Borders (in part because I don’t trust the Red Cross to manage gifts well).
My argument has more to do with the proper role of a university in helping to address a tragedy, and I don’t think I’m the only one to have raised this question. Derek Bok, for example, initiated some very serious discussions on the social role of the university and generally argued for a much more limited role than, say, its students would have wanted.
I’d be much more convinced by Drew Faust’s decision if I felt that she had given the principles involved serious thought and explanation. But her endorsement of various causes—students going on a volunteer spring break, South African grade schools, emailing Harvard alumni to raise money for Haiti—feels much more ad hoc. I’ve no doubt it comes from the best of intentions, but I’m not sure it’s the right move for the leader of a university that came close to bankruptcy a year ago to make.
2/12/2010 12:49 pm
This would have been a more interesting critique had it been leveled at universities in general. Just to pick one other example, a certain university in New Haven is also dealing with staggering deficits (reported on in this blog not long ago), and yet:
http://opa.yale.edu/haiti/
2/12/2010 1:44 pm
In fact, I agree with you-I just didn’t know about this because I haven’t received any solicitations from Yale. But it is interesting and a little odd that Rick Levin gave the head of the UN a check for $5000….