[Update: Clinton Taylor's original column about directing donations away from Yale and toward troop support charities is getting a lot of attention. Today in the WSJ's Opinion Journal, John Fund looks into Yale's response.]
Last Wednesday I pointed out that Clinton Taylor had mentioned Valour-IT in a column on Townhall.com and that he would be trying to highlight Valour-IT during his appearance on Fox News last Thursday. His column had encouraged Yale alumni to donate to Valour-IT and four other charities rather than Yale, in protest of Yale's recent acceptance of a former Taliban spokesman as a student.
I sent Mr. Taylor an email last week, thanking him for endorsing Valour-IT in his column, and telling him how his endorsement had directly led to at least one major donation.
Today he wrote a follow-up column, mentioning Valour-IT again and quoting my email:
Among the scores of blistering e-mails we’ve received, three stand out. Let’s call them: the good, the great, and the ugly. [snip]As Patti Bader said when I told her about it, "That is wonderful!" It definitely is. Repeatedly putting Valour-IT's name in front of ticked off Yale alumni who are being encouraged to send their money elsewhere is definitely a good thing! A huge "thank you" goes out again to Clinton Taylor for his support of this important project.
The Great was from one of the charities that we recommended in our column as an alternative to building Yale’s $15 billion-and-change endowment: ProjectValour-IT, which provides voice-activated laptops for hospitalized soldiers:Directly inspired by your endorsement, a company in North Carolina would now like to donate some rebuilt laptops to us. Money has been rather tight recently, so the laptops are particularly welcome and valuable to our efforts at this time.
