From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Gates Pledging $1 Billion for Minority Scholarhips (NY Ti
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 08:04:13 -0500
September 16, 1999
Gates Is Pledging $1 Billion for Minority Scholarships
By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK
SEATTLE -- In by far his biggest philanthropic commitment to date, Microsoft
chairman and co-founder Bill Gates is pledging at least $1 billion to fund
full scholarships over the next 20 years for minority students in education,
math, science and engineering.
The program, which Gates and officials at his philanthropic foundation plan
to formally announce here Thursday, will seek to help a minimum of 1,000
high school students a year, promising them enough money to cover tuition,
room and board and other expenses through college and any graduate degrees,
including a doctorate, that they pursue.
The $1 billion program is one of the largest philanthropic donations in
history to a specific cause, matching a commitment by Ted Turner, the
founder of CNN, of the same amount to United Nations causes according to
several experts on philanthropy. The $1 billion would come from existing
money in the foundation.
The programs will also constitute the largest single scholarship fund aimed
at closing the gap between the rates at which whites and some racial
minorities attain advanced degrees in math and science. While the program,
called the Gates Millennium Scholarships, will be open to all racial
minorities, they will be especially be aimed at black, Hispanic and American
Indian students.
Aside from the impact of the program itself, the gift also offers one of the
first major indications of the priorities that Gates, the wealthiest person
in the world, will set in his charitable giving. For all the publicity
surrounding his wealth, relatively little is known about Gates' political
leanings, other than that he generally regards himself somewhat as a
libertarian on some social issues.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which he and his wife established
this year through the merging of other foundations of theirs and have
financed with two large donations of Microsoft stock, has about $17 billion
in assets. That makes it the largest philanthropic foundation in the United
States, and it is soon expected to become the largest such organization in
the world.
The Gateses have already announced commitments of about $200 million for
work on developing and distributing vaccines for malaria, AIDS and other
diseases. And they have pledged a similar amount to a program that will
bring computers and Internet hookups to libraries in poorer areas across
North America.
The scholarship program marks Gates' first major commitment to financing
scholarships for minorities in education, although he has repeatedly spoken
of what he calls the need to get more minorities into science, medicine and
high technology. He has also said he believes it is crucial to narrow the
"digital divide," or the lower rates at which some racial groups are said to
use computers or be able to access the Internet.
A foundation official confirmed Wednesday evening that an announcement of
the scholarships would be made Thursday. But he declined to provide more
details, and aides to Gates said he would make no comment until the formal
announcement Thursday.
Several leaders in the field of minority education, including William H.
Gray III, the president of the United Negro College Fund who is a board
member of a separate Gates foundation, were traveling to Seattle on
Wednesday to be on hand for Thursday's announcement.
While never a particularly vociferous proponent of affirmative action, Gates
has generally indicated his support for strategies to give minorities
greater entree to higher education. And his father, William H. Gates Jr.,
the co-chairman of the Gates charitable foundation, donated $25,000 last
year to the campaign to defeat a Washington state ballot measure, known as
Initiative 200 or I-200, to ban any preferential treatment for racial
minorities in the state's hiring, contracting or school admission programs.
Despite that opposition, voters decisively passed the measure. Because
Gates' scholarship program involves money from a private foundation, it is
not subject to any of the prohibitions covered by the ballot initiative,
although it could conceivably come under legal attack by opponents who might
argue that preferential scholarships should not be allowed under federal
laws covering nonprofit charitable groups like the Gates foundation.
Gates has come under heavy criticism from some quarters for not giving away
more of his wealth sooner. His critics have also suggested that recent gifts
were part of a public relations campaign by Microsoft, whose image has been
battered in the massive antitrust court battle now under way in Washington,
D.C.
Whatever the motivations, officials involved in minority education said that
Thursday's announcement would be a landmark in their field.
"This is simply a huge amount of money for scholarships," said Stacy Palmer,
editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a biweekly publication that covers
nonprofit organizations and maintains a ranking of their assets by size. Ms.
Palmer said that other than Turner's $1 billion pledge to the United
Nations, she said she knew of no other donation of that size to a specific
cause.
In the coming year only, the Millennium Scholarship Program will target
promising students who are already in college.
Beginning in the fall of 2000, it will be opened specifically to high school
seniors, who must have a 3.3 grade average and be nominated by a teacher or
their school's principal. The students must also write an essay outlining
their life goals and make a commitment to some form of community service.
For those selected, the Gates foundation will pledge to make up any
difference in the cost of school between any other scholarships the students
are receiving and the total cost of their education.
"That difference is what keeps a lot of kids out of college," a foundation
official said Wednesday.