A Reply to Vice President and Secretary Robert Durkee '69

Two months ago, I wrote a column about how the University evaded much of its state-mandated obligation to provide affordable housing. Vice President and Secretary Robert Durkee '69 promptly replied to the column in a letter published on this page.

I respond to Durkee today not to get in the last word — he has been at Princeton for 40 years and will always have the last word on all things Princeton — but because his letter encapsulates some of what has disappointed me most about the University over the past four years. In the letter, he makes excuses for the University's refusal to fulfill what is truly a minimal social obligation and makes claims about the University's role as a fiduciary that I find disingenuous.

Durkee "make[s] one comment and ask[s] one question." His comment on my column was that the University challenged the state's affordable housing formula, not the obligation determined by that formula. This is a semantic distinction so thin that had it come from a younger man it would auger a successful career in professional politics. Had it yielded a more favorable result for the University, would the University have challenged the formula? It's possible that Durkee would argue that his and the University's desire for an appropriate process is so strong that in this case it would have lobbied for an upward revision of its obligation but this seems to be, at best, an unlikely scenario.

Durkee follows his comment by issuing a question which misleads readers about what I actually wrote: "I am curious about which funds Bohnett thinks we should use to build housing beyond a fair-share level." I did not suggest that the University build housing "beyond a fair-share level." I did write that University should build at the fair-share level rather than, as it would end up doing, lobbying the state to lower its fair-share affordable housing obligation.

Contained in Durkee's question is a short explanation of his understanding of the University's role as a fiduciary, an explanation he makes to justify the University's lobbying efforts. His claims about the University's ability to raise and spend money are bizarre given the actual state of accounting at Princeton.

The fact is that money grows on trees at Princeton. The University can raise money for almost anything it wants to, at any time, and often seeks large donations for purposes which are arguably much more tenuously related to Princeton's mission of teaching and education than is providing a minimal level of affordable housing in a community in which it is a singularly important economic force. How much of the more than $100 million spent on Whitman College went to decadent Gothic flourishes? How much was spent on the two massive, 50-year-old cedars of Lebanon planted in Whitman's north court?

Peter Lewis '55 admitted in 2006 that when he tacked on an extra $1 million to his record-breaking $100 million donation for the arts at Princeton, he did so not in relation to any specific need for the extra million dollars, but purely for the sport of topping the last three-figure gift to the University, $100 million pledged by Gordon Wu '58 in 1995. With alumni like Lewis willing to throw that kind of money at the University for no good reason at all, it becomes personally difficult for me to stomach Durkee's excuses.

To make the point perfectly clear: Fulfilling its original affordable housing obligation as determined by the state might have cost the University an additional $5 million over the next 10 years, or $500,000 per year. In reality, the cost probably would have been much less, but let's accept that figure for the sake of argument. What Durkee asks every member of the University community to believe is that, while there are donors like Lewis who would throw $1 million at the University for sport, there are no Princeton alumni who would partner with the University to take a genuine civic leadership role in a time of public crisis. Since I see the courage, imagination and generosity of Princeton alumni on display every day, I do not believe this to be true. I think, Mr. Durkee, that they are waiting for you to pick up the phone.

A personal note: To those who have read what I have written over the past four years, thank you for your attention, praise and criticism. It has been a great privilege to use this column to talk about ways in which we might make the University a better place. Maybe someday, Princeton will become in practice what it aspires to in theory. Thomas Bohnett is a senior in the Wilson School from Princeton Junction, N.J. He can be reached at tbohnett@princeton.edu.