The same day the University announced its success in raising $1.5 billion, members of the Virginia Freedom of Information AdvisoryCouncil expressed their concern about the University wanting to keep a small fraction of its donations anonymous. The University asked the commission to exempt donors from disclosing their names if they wanted to remain anonymous for various reasons. Anonymous donors should be allowed to remain so, unless the state can articulate compelling reasons why the names of donors must be public.
So far, Virginia's only justification for exposing the identities of donors has been for the sake of public information. Taxpayers ought to know who donates to a public university, or so the argument goes.
While this argument on behalf of transparency is perfectly reasonable, it ought to weighed against the consequences. In other words, is disclosing the names of donors worth the risk? Only a small percentage of donors request to remain anonymous -- 1.5 percent of all donors, or 1,400 individuals -- and yet that relatively small fraction accounts for $75 million in donations.
If the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council pressures the University to disclose anonymous donors, it risks alienating those donors, who might rescind their gift or decline to give to the University again unless the University can assure their privacy.
So why do some donors need to remain private? University spokesperson Carol Wood told The Cavalier Daily that typically, anonymous donors ask the University to withhold their name for one of three reasons. First, the donor might not want other organizations to know he or she donated money. Second, if the donor has a child at the University, he or she might not want that gift to affect his or her child's experience as a student. Third, and perhaps most understandably, the donor might not want his or her spouse to know he or she just wrote a hefty check to the University -- especially if that revelation comes during divorce proceedings.
Much of the argument for disclosing the names of donors seems to rely on the fundamental idea that public institutions are accountable to the public. It's difficult to argue with that. The question is what degree of openness constitutes "accountability?" Accountability, at least in the fiscal sense of the word, needn't necessarily include the names of donors, only the amount of money donated. Certainly taxpayers are entitled to know how public institutions acquire and spend public funds. With regard to private gifts, however, the need to know the donors' names is and always has been, at best, unclear.
The University, and presumably the watchdog groups currently lobbying to expose the University's donor records, never had any problem with secret societies donating significant sums of money anonymously. Every summer at convocation the 7 Society donates money to the incoming class. And every summer, no one seems to mind. One must assume these gifts go unnoticed because when someone donates to a University, the important question is how the money is spent, not the identity of the donor.
As a newspaper, we are particularly sensitive to issues of transparency and openness. And if this were a situation in which concealing names meant concealing power structures, our argument would change. But in this case, the issue clearly seems to be about privacy. It would be a shame to sacrifice the privacy of donors to appease officials of a state whose General Assembly consistently underfunds the University.
Read More
EDITORIAL: Scapegoating students will not stop hazing
By Editorial Board | April 25, 2024Instead of retroactively responding to extreme hazing allegations, we, and especially the University, must begin asking more probing questions about the role of fraternal organizations on Grounds.
EDITORIAL: Celebrating and reflecting on The Cavalier Daily’s independence
By Editorial Board | April 18, 2024Our independence grants us the ability to ask the hard questions and to say what University representatives cannot.
EDITORIAL: Pedestrian safety is an institutional imperative
By Editorial Board | April 15, 2024Amid a national crisis of pedestrian safety, Charlottesville and the University are also struggling to properly maintain pedestrian safety.
