Stop taking tainted donations
Anand Giridharadas
The New York Times
“For far too long, generosity has been allowed to serve as a wingman of injustice,” said Anand Giridharadas. It was good seeing the Metropolitan Museum of Art last week decide to join the Guggenheim and Tate museums in turning down further donations from the Sackler family, who made their money selling opioids linked to several hundred thousand deaths. That reflects a growing awareness that philanthropy can also be “used by the wealthy to scrub their consciences.” But the Sacklers and their blood money are an easy case. The Met needs “a new process for evaluating money.” Donations from the past and in the future could be judged on various criteria: “Was the money legally and fairly made? Is the money owed to tax evasion or extreme legal tax avoidance? Is the museum effectively selling a modern papal indulgence for a sin that shouldn’t be so easily pardoned? Do donors have a duty of reparation to people they have exploited or harmed that gives those parties more of a right to the money?” Since these are public institutions that go untaxed, the public should be brought into the discussion about donations as well. Turning down the Sacklers will give needed impetus to the conversation on how museums can stop handing out “alibis for treachery.”
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