Harvard Made It Easier for Alums to Donate. Then Its President Compared Them to Freed Slaves.

The president of Harvard University this week reportedly used the 13th Amendment, which freed enslaved people, as a metaphor for starting to allow alumni to donate to any of the university’s colleges.  As the 13th Amendment banned slavery and involuntary servitude, Lawrence Bacow told the university’s alumni relations and fundraising staff Tuesday that donors no longer could be owned by the specific colleges from which they had graduated, the Boston Globe reported. Some staff members at the meeting told the Globe they found the comparison “tone-deaf.”