"My name is ****. I've been a long time
reader of your blog (and at least one of your books). I am writing to ask what
you think of an idea that I had - what if alumni of American colleges and
universities contacted their alma maters' presidents and demanded that they
declare themselves sanctuary campuses. Personally, I regularly receive calls
from mine (******) asking for donations, so presumably they care
at least a little bit that I think favorably of them. What do you think?"
I thought it was a splendid idea, so I went online, and very quickly discovered that the President of my alma mater, Harvard, had already turned the idea down flat at a Faculty meeting which took place during a demonstration outside [surprise, surprise.] So I wrote the following letter to the person in charge of raising Harvard's billions:
25 December 2016
Richard McCullough, Ph. D., Vice Provost for Research
The Richard A. and Susan F. Smith
Campus Center, Suite 836
1350 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Campus Center, Suite 836
1350 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Dear Dr. McCullough,
I
write both as an alumnus of Harvard [AB ’54 (53), AM ’54, Ph. D ‘57] and as a
former Instructor in Philosophy and General Education to urge you to intercede
with President Faust to urge her to declare Harvard a Sanctuary Campus for the
protection of undocumented students and other undocumented members of the
Harvard community, including undocumented
employees. I shall not take your
time by rehearsing the reasons for this action, with which you are, I am sure,
quite familiar.
I
have almost no way of swaying your decision on this matter, save to say that so
long as Harvard continues its decades-long failure to act in a progressive and
morally defensible fashion on this and many other issues before the public, I
shall refuse even to consider making a donation through your office.
Unfortunately
I am not rich, and my refusal will therefore carry little or no weight with
you, I recognize. However, it is just
barely possible that enough of us will take this stand to affect your
decision-making.
Yours
sincerely,
Robert
Paul Wolff
Professor
Emeritus, Philosophy and Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts
I will be happy to start a pool on the question when Harvard will declare itself a sanctuary campus. I should warn you that one time is already taken, namely When Hell Freezes Over [that one is mine.]
It gives me great pleasure to report that my son, Tobias', employer, The University of Pennsylvania, has in fact so declared itself.
6 comments:
Why is there such a difference between Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania in their policies?
They are both elite, private universities. Maybe Harvard is a bit more elite, but the difference in elitism is not perceptible to most mortals.
I have no idea. This is a genuine question.
I am not sure. One reason may be that the President of Penn majored at Harvard in Social Studies, the program of which I was the first director back in 1960. :)
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/the-class-struggle-in-the-north-pole/
Class struggle in the North Pole!
I will write such a letter and will ask my classmate friends to do so as well. Thanks for the idea. Young Tom
Just glanced at the profile of Richard McCullough PhD:
http://vpr.harvard.edu/people/richard-mccullough-phd
He heads a "new office of Foundation and Corporate Development," meaning he raises $$$ from organizations and corps. presumably specifically to support research (given his title).
Which explains why I've never seen his name on a fundraising letter; the ones I get usu. come from the Harvard College Fund.
So I think the better recipients for a letter like Prof Wolff's prob wd be the Vice President for Alumni Affairs & Development (check exact title, but I think that's pretty close) or the exec. director of the Harvard College Fund, or both.
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