The hefty sums many billionaires give away place them in an age-old debate about wealth and charity – and whether it’s appropriate for donors to have a say over their wealth from the grave.
Sotheby’s sold a 77 million-year-old Gorgosaurus skeleton for over $6 million in July 2022.
Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Derided as ‘toys for the rich,’ the specimens being bought and sold raise broader questions about the relationship between science and capitalism.
Attorneys George E.C. Hayes, left, Thurgood Marshall, center, and James M. Nabrit, all HBCU grads, successfully sought to defeat school segregation in court.
AP Photo
When white philanthropists made large gifts to these schools in the 19th century and early 20th century, many insisted upon a vocational focus for Black higher ed.
The Girard, Kansas Carnegie library.
National Park Service
One reason why the steel magnate spent so much of his fortune building libraries across the nation and abroad is that he saw handing large fortunes to the next generation as a waste of money.
Volunteers clean up after Hurricane Sandy.
jim.henderson
There are few things Americans like more than lists and money, but ranking philanthropists on the monetary size of their giving distorts our understanding of generosity, argues one ethicist.