Robert Kraft Says He’s Pulling Funding for Columbia Amid Pro-Palestine Protests
Robert Kraft Says He’s Pulling Funding for Columbia Amid Pro-Palestine Protests
“I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” Kraft, a billionaire who owns the New England Patriots, said.
Less billionaires, corporations and hedge funds involved in higher education would actually be a turn for the better.
This is why we need to strengthen department of education. Otherwise these asshole billionaires will run education system like theirs own fiefdoms.
Of course repubes want to get rid of department of education. Perfectly on brand.
Billionaires certainly despise unions, profiting by exploiting working people is fundamental to their business models. So Republicans of course loathe unions and thus degradation and control of public education, public school teachers has been a running long term goal.
Charter
factoriesSchools are the foot in the door for free marketeers. Why respect teachers, hire more staff and better fund schools, create communities, when you can cut costs, treat kids and education itself as products, and send those savings into the pockets of just a few people.
Yes, tell the administrators to whip those students into shape, that'll bring them around.
Certainly won't have any blowback in the least.
We need to just, like, cancel money. Fuck these twats and their useless ignorant influence. How dare you put education on the line to defend genocide
garbage human
No idea who he is but good for him. If more of the aristocracy announce themselves we will know who to not give a fuck about.
No idea how he got rich, but he owns the NE Patriots (US) football team
No relation to Kraft/Heinz, so continue to enjoy your boxed mac n cheese.
I will continue to not watch football o7
Schools are taking people's free speech! Wait, I'm not donating to schools until they do it more! But to those I dislike!
Uncomfortable billionaire is at least a step in the right direction
He's pulling support from the school that's cracking down so heavily and violently on the protests? What's he for I'm having trouble understanding the logic here.
Nah he is sad they aren't going harder on them
Kraft echoed the sentiment in a statement issued through an organization he founded called the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. “I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country,” he wrote. “I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken.”
There's something inherently creepy about a guy who isn't Jewish starting up a foundation called "Combat Antisemitism" and then lean really, really hard on the "Combat" part without seeming to give much of a shit about the Antisemitism part.
I get strong "Can't wait for Israel to be obliterated by war and bring on the Second Coming!" vibes from this.
Incidentally: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/04/23/gaza-solidarity-encampment-approaches-one-week-mark-on-south-lawn/
Kraft echoed the sentiment in a statement issued through an organization he founded called the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. “I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country,” he wrote. “I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken.”
So beat down the protests harder or you don't get money? That's his argument?
It should be prohibited for schools, hospitals and politics to depend on investors
Well, it’s not an investor, just a donor. Almost all universities and colleges are non-profits, so they do not have investors.
Almost all universities and colleges are non-profits
That's more a tax-dodge gambit than a reflection of their business policies.
So he's pulling support from the school, effectively he supports the protesters and staff who walked and not the school who is trying to make them go away. I don't care about his mouth words, his actions matter more.
So he will stop donating. Funding is not what he is doing. The school is funded without this schmuck.
Columbia has a $13.6B endowment, which has consistently grown at 8-10% annually.
Kraft has historically donated in the $5M range annually. So, less than 1% of what the university earns on a portfolio whose principle never gets touched.
I'm pulling my funding from Kraft goods
I was very confused about that headline until I realized they meant Columbia University, not Columbia the country in South America.
That’s spelled Colombia. But, yes it is confusing because Colombia also has joined the ICC case against Israel with South Africa.
It's interesting you bring up the ICC because they ruled Israel is not commiting a Genocide
... Palestinians? I thought they were protesting Gustavo Petro's reforms.