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Harvard says it's spent more than $25 million defending against admissions suit; sues lawsuit insurer that won't cover some of the costs
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Only winner is the lawyers.
Nothing more American than this.
Yeah but
How many if the lawyers are Asians?
The interesting quirk to me
The interesting quirk to me is that SFFA, like the Project on Fair Representation, is just one guy, Ed Blum. There have been a few articles and exposes on him over the years. He's an ex-stockbroker who lost some sort of Congressional race in Texas decades ago to an African-American candidate and since that time has been fighting civil rights legislation and policies, usually with the help of dark money funding sources like Donors Trust and law firms set up by conservative political aides and ex-Reagan officials. Blum is not a lawyer. He's a professional anti-civil rights agitator looking for, what's the term? "economically anxious" would-be plaintiffs to challenge the ability of minorities to fully participate in society. Blum, d.b.a. as his one-person outfits SFFA and PFR, is behind this litigation, the endless Fisher v. Texas litigation, and the atrocious Shelby County battle that opened the floodgates for all the nakedly prejudicial voting restrictions we are seeing across Republican strongholds.
So for me the question is: what are Blum's finances like? How (and who) is underwriting him and his organizations? Are his non-profit organizations' finances improperly tied up in his own? If I were Harvard's general counsel I might just recommend spending a few dollars to do some digging and maybe turn the heat up on this guy.
25 million...
...is a rounding error for Harvard.
Would it have cost Harvard
$25 million in lost revenue as a result of a compromised reputation to just sell the (expletive) degree programs to more customers?
Compromise reputation?
You really think Harvard is having difficulty recruiting students and faculty?
The $25M for the freedom to set their own admission criteria is worth it to them. Becides, they've got billions in the bank. This lawsuit isn't about survival, it's basic breach of contract. Harvard wants what they paid for.
This tactic is pretty common - an insurer sees a huge liability and they roll the dice hoping the client won't fight a denied claim. It will get settled out of court.
Wait
Someone thought Harvard wouldn't fight a denied insurance claim? Can I have their job? I'll do it for cheaper and far less stupidly.
Maybe...
or maybe they know H-town would fight it, but an out-of-court settlement might be for less than the full $25M.
They're getting the $25 million
Well, less that deductible they agreed to. At issue are their expenses above $25 million, for which they had a second insurance policy.
Someone was dumb enough to write the policy
To speculate: These insurance contracts are often written with gotcha type requirements to give the insurer a way to reject claims. Harvard may have been required (and omitted) to send a certified letter informing the insurer they planned to utilize the policy.
I'm not sure how much you know about higher education
but, a bit of thinking might help you realize that there's a bit more to offering a degree program (particularly one at a residential college!) to more students than just saying "ok, door's open".
I know
That it's an overpriced con.
What's your objective in simping for Harvard?
It's an overpriced con...
But they should do it to more people!
Waiter!
The food is awful, and the portions are too small!
Let's just say
that during a housing crisis, suggesting that a school that houses 98% of its undergraduates should just accept more students may be ignoring some pretty relevant details.
But I guess actually thinking about reality would make it hard to be snarky about how everyone else is an idiot.
It's good they've had to put
It's good they've had to put their skin in the game.
Harvard will do what all
Harvard will do what all successful corporations and governments do, they'll pass the costs on to their consumers.
Harvard has more money than God
They can surely afford to self-insure. Why do they bother with this bulls*it?
...because it saves them money?
I'm not really sure what the complaint is here - we're not exactly talking about slashing the English department budget or forcing student computer labs to use 1990s Dells or something that might actually affect their stated mission. Should companies or institutions with lots of available capital be forced to always spend the most money possible at any occasion, or can we concede that it makes sense to spend money on insurance to cover unusual expenses like this?
Besides, if the insurance companies didn't think it would be worth it, they wouldn't offer the policy to companies like Harvard.
Relatively little of their
Relatively little of their endowment is unrestricted, you'll find. If Donor X gives $20 million for financial aid and Harvard uses it for litigation costs, well, they'll need some more money for litigation costs 'cuz that donor would have a legitimate cause of action against them. Without bothering to check their 990s I'd say that maybe, at most, 20% of their endowment is unrestricted - which still isn't saying "money sitting by idle waiting for someone to use it." It's tied up in investments, many of which are illiquid, and the predicted income from those investments is already accounted for in next year's operational budget somewhere. That's just how it works.
Harvard has more money than God
They can surely afford to self-insure. Why do they bother with this bulls*it?