Some particularly wealthy families are able to donate large sums of money to universities, donations that can be hard for admissions committees to ignore when making their decisions. Although legal, these donations raise significant ethical questions about the fairness of the college admissions process. For some, there’s little difference between donations like these and briberies.
The following articles consider the morality of donations:
“Turns Out There’s a Proper Way to Buy Your Kid a College Slot”
The New York Times’ Editorial Board suggests that wealthy families can essentially “buy” their children’s way into elite colleges through generous donations to a university, calling into question whether a true meritocracy in the U.S. would not exist even if everyone abided by the law.
“In Admissions, Harvard Favors Those Who Fund It, Internal Emails Show”
In 2014, Harvard University was sued by Students for Fair Admissions, an anti-affirmative action group accusing Harvard of engaging in racially discriminatory admissions practices. In 2018, as the case continued to drag through the courts, emails emerged detailing some of the ways that Harvard’s admissions practices favor children of big money donors. Among other findings, the emails reveal a former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government thanking Dean of Admission William Fitzsimmons for accepting the children of three individuals, one of whom had “committed to a building.”
“Felicity Huffman Is Guilty, but So Are University Shakedown Artists”
Hess and Warren argue Felicity Huffman is clearly guilty for her role in the ‘Varsity Blues’ scandal. However, they are critical of the fact that she was prosecuted for her crimes, while admissions officials who admit students whose parents have donated to schools have suffered no consequences. For these authors, giving big-dollar donations and committing bribery of the sort Huffman and other parents were charged with are ethically comparable practices.
Questions for Discussion:
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Is there a difference between donations and bribery? If so, what is that difference?
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Should private donations to colleges and universities be more strictly regulated?? How?
You might also be interested in this short video exploring the differences (and similarities) between perfectly legal donations to colleges and universities by prospective and illegal bribery.