Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

There’s a lot more nuance to what’s going on there than the joke you’re making. I worked at Harvard for 10 years - 5 for a grant funded org, 5 for a discretionary funded org. A vast majority of the endowment (rightly or wrongly) is non discretionary /1

As a result most of the endowment can only be spent on programs per the donor agreement. And to be clear Harvard does lots of good with the endowment - tuition grants for students with family income under $60k, etc. 2/

At the same time, the vast majority of research (of which both Harvard, and the world benefit from) is grant funded. And world class scientists are working on research related to COVID-19 thanks to research grants from foundations, gov orgs and individuals 3/

So to say that Harvard is profiting off the chaos of COVID-19 rings pretty hollow. Also, FWIW thanks to the 2017 tax “reform” Harvard does pay tax on its endowment, which seems more than appropriate. Anyway, plenty of reasons to find fault with Harvard but not over this 4/

I understand that this isn't necessarily visible or obvious to anyone who would make this argument, but the typical American has zero sympathy for the very thin strip of fat Harvard would have to trim over $9M because <$1,000 has significant personal meaning to them.