How Wealthy University Donors Have Changed Our Society for the Worse

For a university with a $10 billion endowment, a $100 million donation — like the one an unnamed donor recently made to the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression — might seem like a drop in the bucket. Yet, history suggests that such donations should give us pause, particularly when, like this $100 million donation, they’re earmarked to advance specific intellectual ideas “both on campus and beyond.”

Take, for example, the role that wealthy donors played in bringing us Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan and the up-by-your-own-bootstraps, winner-take-all, profits-over-people economy that’s leaving so many Americans — and especially women and mothers — still struggling today.