Nonprofit News From Elsewhere
With the initial rush of eager vaccine-seekers now past, the Biden administration is leaning heavily on a corps of people and groups to reach those who have not yet received their inoculations. A coalition of corporations, volunteers, and nonprofits is fielding teams to churches, fire departments, doorsteps, even a funeral home, to inoculate people. They are recruiting respected local figures, such as clergy and sometimes taking along interpreters to persuade or inform the reluctant. But most of those targeted are not vaccine skeptics: They might not have known where to go for a shot or had a way to get there, one administration adviser said. (New York Times)
The University of Toronto is facing censure and a de facto boycott for rescinding a job offer to a scholar after a prominent donor raised concerns about the hire. Human-rights lawyer and scholar Valentina Azarova, who years ago had written about the plight of Palestinians, was poised to lead the law school’s international human-rights program when judge and donor David E. Spiro warned a university administrator that the “appointment would damage the university’s reputation.” An inquiry into the withdrawn job offer did not conclude that outside interference led the school to back out, although it found that the donor told the administrator, “The Jewish community would not be pleased by the Preferred Candidate’s appointment.” An association of university teachers has censured the university, urging its members not to accept job offers or attend conferences there. Scholars and activists say the withdrawal is more evidence of an exception to campus free-speech rights for defenders of Palestinians or critics of Israel. (New Yorker)
Two years after billionaire investor Robert Smith paid off student debts for a Morehouse College graduating class, those young people say the gift bought them and their families freedom, opportunity, and peace of mind. One was able to enter medical school, for which he will likely accumulate astronomical debt, without a mountain of loans to pay off from undergraduate studies. Another was able to quit his not-quite-right job and start a nonprofit. A third — one of nine kids of a single mother — said wiping out $100,000 of his family’s debt means his younger siblings can also attend college. Some of the recipients of Smith’s gift meet with him monthly to discuss how to help succeeding Morehouse classes to have the same opportunities. (Marketplace)
More News
- Long Before Divorce, Bill Gates Had Reputation for Questionable Behavior (New York Times)
- David Miliband’s Charity Offers Unpaid Internships, but He Took Home Nearly $912,000 (Guardian)
- Baby, Brunch Book Blurb Oiled WE Charity’s Ties to Ex-Minister (Bloomberg)
- The Mogul in Search of a Kinder, Gentler Capitalism (New York Times)
- Small but Vocal Right-Wing Opposition to Biden’s Conservation Plan Could Obstruct an Effort to Conserve 30 Percent of U.S. Land by 2030 (Vox)
The NRA
- The NRA Just Had a Major Legal Setback, but Its Hold on the Gun-Control Debate Endures (Washington Post)
- Opinion: Finally, the NRA faces a long-overdue reckoning (Washington Post)
The Arts
- Decolonizing Rodin: America’s racial reckoning comes to a San Francisco art museum (Guardian)
- Who Will Be in Charge of L.A.'S Beloved Museum of Contemporary Art? (Los Angeles Times)
Obituaries
