"My reporting charts the changes the foundation has undergone since 2018, when Elizabeth Alexander, a noted poet, became its president. The nonprofit has become more and more openly political; in 2020, Alexander declared that Mellon would prioritize 'social justice in all of its grantmaking' going forward. Because Mellon is the country's largest humanities funder by several orders of magnitude, larger even than the federal government, this new direction has"
"Roth's letter, which appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, accuses me of peddling 'fantasies' about Mellon's undue influence. He also compares my critiques to the views of the segregationist Senator Jesse Helms, a man who is known primarily not for his views on higher education but for being one of the most openly racist American politicians to have held office this side of the moon landing."
Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, responded defensively to criticism of the Mellon Foundation's grantmaking practices. The Mellon Foundation, the country's largest humanities funder, has undergone significant changes since 2018 when Elizabeth Alexander became president. The foundation has become increasingly political, explicitly prioritizing social justice in all grantmaking. This shift raises concerns about the foundation's outsized influence on humanities scholarship and its potential to measure knowledge's worth primarily by real-world impact on liberal causes rather than scholarly merit.
Read at The Atlantic
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