It’s hard to argue with President Dave Frohnmayer getting a raise to $445,000 annually when the football and men’s basketball head coaches already have options for $1 million a year. But who are the donors who made possible most of that pay increase? We don’t know because it was engineered through the University Foundation.
What distinguishes gifts to the Foundation- a so-called private organization housed on campus- from those given directly to the UO? It supplies improper secrecy when the public needs to know identity of donors. It enables wealthy anonymous givers to freely exercise clout in dictating University policy.
An example of how that works was when a valued donor (Knight Library, Knight Law Institute) threatened to renege on his promise of a massive gift for expansion of Autzen Stadium. Phil Knight of Nike was angry the UO did not consult him when, at student urging, it joined the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). It subjected Nike and other corporations to monitoring for possible illegalities in overseas manufacturing of goods sold at or by the UO.
By some mysterious chance, Higher Education suddenly changed its rules to retroactively not allow the University to belong to the WRC. Within weeks, Knight came waddling back with his money bags.
I hope Knight’s generosity continues. But when gifts come from him and others who have pretensions about dictating policy, it’s essential the public know how much and from whom. Then we can guard against being strong-armed Knight style.