Show Me The Money! Penn Says, "OK!"

You must be in education as I was to understand college admissions. Trump is against DEI and affirmative action supported by a recent Supreme Court ruling. He focuses on race. What about other forms of “affirmative action?” Colleges admit kids based on athletic ability and be possible development initiatives. Don’t tell me that colleges and universities are totally need blind. It could be some other special issue like the son or daughter of famous people such as Tom Hanks’ son and Meryl Streep’s daughter who got into Northwestern, a school with the same academic requirements of other top schools because among other things Northwestern has one of the best acting and film schools in the nation. What about class as a reason for admission to give people without the resources or opportunity to bend the ark to justice to a level playing field?

A case in point is Penn where that university said to Trump: “Show me the money!” Penn stated that they are following their values! (Give me a break.)  In today’s Inquirer (August 8, 2025) the headline read “Penn halts program honoring black law grad.” Black people and DEI have been scrubbed from the university. The government will review admissions data to make sure that the white upper class gets their closest look. Trump doesn’t really care about anything but having white supremacy and conservative Republicans to continue to support him.

Penn embodies cowardice and pragmatics. What will future historians say about them? Penn has not listened to the ethical system of consequentialism. Namely, whatever you do has consequences that you may or may not be able to see, but they are there.

 A few occasions come to mind that occurred at EA in the form of disruptive actions that led to positive outcomes where money was involved.

First, we take for granted the role of women in the church after women clergy were ordained to be priests. It divided the Episcopal Church as seen in the repercussions that followed.

I thought it would be important to have a woman clergyperson as a member of my staff who I thought would be great with students. I ran it by our head of school who is one of the most supportive and courageous people I have known. He asked simply: “What do you want to do?” I indicated that I wanted to hire a woman clergy person that impressed me. We did. Then the calls came of threats to withhold gifts to the school, and the guilt trip was laid on me. “Don’t you see how this decision will hurt the school? The Head and I persevered.  I chose someone who would stand up to me and any others. I indicated to her as well that it could get rough, but I would always support her as she was such a welcoming person. I knew she would receive a positive response from the school community particularly the students.

I would like to think that her hire had helped us when we became a coeducational school. It certainly didn’t hurt. We did it as Yale did, adding one coed class at a time. It changed our school and made us a better place for learning.

One of the things that I thought was important to address were issues of sexual orientation as this was the right thing to do as it would equip our students to be prepared for what were issues in the world.

Our Director of Theater decided to have the school play in the Fall to be the Laramie Project, a play about the murder of Matthew Shepherd because he was a gay person. It was controversial at the time. What bothered me was that this would be the first time that we would have sexual orientation as a matter for discussion in the early 2000s. Our students weren’t prepared for this.

A faculty member came to see me and volunteered to give a chapel address on the importance of being respectful to others who may be different from us. At the end of his address, he indicated that he was gay, a courageous moment for him to be the only out faculty member in our school. I didn’t know that was going to be part of his message. 99% of his address was about respect for others not like us was forgotten. All that people heard was that I had allowed someone to come out in chapel. It caused quite a stir, but it got all points of view out there before the play was given and made the after the play’s discussion richer and more informed.

Years later when a member of our development office was in Florida to raise money, I got a call from a staff member who indicated that there were people still angry with me for having “a person come out it in Chapel.” Ironically these were friends of mine. I indicated to the staff member to ask the group if they read the speech or saw the address online. She called me back and said, “No! They just heard about it.” My response was to tell them the address was basically about honoring those who are not like us and to call me if they had a problem with that. No call back occurred, and the group was more willing to give money to the school.

I was sitting with our then board chair, Ed Vick, who was the retired CEO of Young and Rubicam, one of the largest marketing and communication companies in the world. He was also a Vietnam veteran who ventured into North Vietnam on over 100 river boat trips that he commanded. During our conversation I asked him, “What was the most important thing you learned as a vet of the Vietnam War?” There was not a millisecond before his response.

He said, “I went to EA and lived a life that included people just like me. “In the military I met people from every walk of life, color, and creed and learned the deep respect I have for those different from me. I learned that respect for diversity was the most important thing that I learned.” Could that have been what helped him become the CEO of a transnational corporation? I think so! Could that be why he was so supportive of me in my diversity efforts? Absolutely.

Below please see the address by another leader in the military about diversity.

Words To Live By