thenation--2020-04-30--In ICE Detention, Forced to Pay for Soap

Inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in Texas ’ s Jefferson County Jail , René Escobedo González says he ’ s not getting enough food .
ICE requires the privately run jail to serve detained immigrants three meals per day , but , in a clear effort to keep attendance low and costs down , breakfast is served at 3:30 am .
Escobedo says that even if he does wake up , the meals are sparse , and often days old .
Since ICE detained him in January , Escobedo has been feeling hunger pains , and he ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Florida to constantly refill his commissary account so that he can buy ramen noodles , both for himself and for others in the detention center .
Then came the coronavirus pandemic .
In late March , still locked in ICE detention , Escobedo began asking his family for money so he could afford another necessity he would otherwise miss : soap .
“ Soap we have to buy from the commissary , ” Escobedo says .
“ They give us a tiny soap that is only good for one use.
” He says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the jail gives each person a ration of soap , but it lasts about a day .
If people want more , they have to pay .
The coronavirus crisis has thrown the archipelago of ICE detention centers run by private prison companies into chaos .
In an effort to cut costs , for-profit detention centers ration out goods—like soap—with the expectation that detained people will buy more with money from their commissary accounts if they run out .
In many for-profit detention centers , detained people are given one bar of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands and their bodies .
In the midst of the pandemic , as detainees fear for their lives , that rationing system has collapsed .
Today , washing one ’ s hands could mean saving one ’ s life or that of those around them , but Escobedo and others in ICE detention say that taking that basic step still comes at a price .
If You ’ re Pushing to Open the Economy , You Probably Don ’ t Need Child Care “ We basically have to hunger strike to get what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a man detained in Georgia ’ s Folkston ICE Processing center .
He says that soap and cleaning products are rationed out in such meager amounts that he and other detainees have periodically stopped eating to pressure the detention center staff to provide enough supplies .
“ People who can ’ t afford commissary can ’ t have enough soap to wash their hands , ” Miranda-Gonzalez says .
Last month , he says he bought 10 bars of soap at the commissary and cut them in half to pass out among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own .
ICE and multiple for-profit detention centers have contested the allegations .
A spokesperson from GEO Group , which runs the Folkston facility where Miranda-Gonzalez is locked , wrote in a statement for this article , “ We strongly reject these unfounded allegations , which we believe are being instigated by outside groups with political agendas… .
Our ICE Processing Centers provide access to regular handwashing with clean water and soap in all housing areas and throughout each facility.
” Responding to a request for comment , Danielle Bennet , spokesperson for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the agency ’ s website , which claims that ICE detention centers run by the agency itself provide ample soap .
When it comes to private detention centers , the statement explains , “ ICE continues to encourage facilities to follow CDC guidelines as well as those of their state and local health departments.
” “ I ’ m not aware of any hunger strikes related to soap and hygiene products , ” Bennet wrote in an e-mail .
However , that statement contrasts with multiple reports from detained immigrants who say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in recent weeks demanding soap , cleaning products , and toilet paper .
Besides Miranda-Gonzalez in Georgia , detained people in Washington state and Lousiana told me they ’ ve either taken part in or witnessed hunger strikes .
In audio obtained by ProPublica last month , a detained Salvadoran man explains that his detention center—the Hudson County Correctional Facility—gives them only one bar of soap per week .
They ’ re meant to use this small bar both for bathing and washing their hands , so it runs out quickly .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and others began hunger striking to pressure the detention center staff to give them soap so they can clean their hands , as well as toilet paper and other hygiene necessities .
At this point , the coronavirus has infected hundreds of thousands of Americans and killed over 50,000 .
One of the CDC ’ s most basic guidelines for avoiding COVID-19 is , of course , frequently washing one ’ s hands .
Robyn Barnard , an asylum attorney in Southern California , says that her client contacted her and asked her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he could buy soap to wash his hands .
Julie Schwietert Collazo , the director of Immigrant Families Together , says that she ’ s gotten requests for commissary fund grants from detained immigrants across the South who tell her they don ’ t have “ even basic hygiene items.
” Natalia Santanna , an immigration attorney based in the Bay Area , says that her clients are rationed some soap each week , but not nearly enough to wash their hands as frequently as the CDC recommends .
“ If they don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they can ’ t wash their hands.
” And in New York , Sophia Gurulé , an immigration lawyer who serves as immigration policy counsel for The Bronx Defenders , says her organization has noted the same thing .
“ A lot of our clients only get their soap by buying it from commissary , ” Gurulé says .
She explains that many of her clients aren ’ t in dedicated ICE detention centers but rather local jails that have contracts with ICE ( this is the sort of detention situation Escobedo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the situation is the same : “ Commissary is where they predominantly get their soap.
” Why do ICE detention centers continue to charge money for good as basic as soap during the pandemic ?
While there ’ s no one answer to what prices look like in the commissary , detention centers do seem to have inflated margins .
ICE employs different private contractors , including for-profit prison conglomerates like Geo Group , CoreCivic , and LaSalle Corrections , to run many of its facilities .
But as a general rule , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inflated .
In 2019 , a bar of Dove soap cost $ 2.44 in CoreCivic ’ s Stewart Detention Center in Georgia , according to a Reuter ’ s investigation ; the same bar costs about a dollar at a drugstore .
However , when it comes to private detention facilities ’ charging money for hygiene products , the prices themselves aren ’ t the whole story .
The business model of these facilities isn ’ t necessarily to make a profit on commissary goods but rather to “ motivate ” immigrants into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as little as $ 1 per day .
R. Andrew Free is one of the attorneys who has brought multiple lawsuits ( along with organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center ) against corporations like CoreCivic and Geo Group .
At the center of these lawsuits is a shocking allegation : Private detention centers are engaging in forced labor .
Free alleges that detention facilities create “ artificial scarcity ” in order to coerce the people locked inside into working in-detention jobs .
Here ’ s how that sounds in the words @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seeker from Guatemala whom Free and the SPLC represented in a case against CoreCivic filed in 2018 : “ [ You ] either work for a few cents an hour or live without basic things like soap , shampoo , deodorant and food , ” Hill Barrientos said in a statement about the lawsuit .
And here ’ s Free describing another lawsuit he filed in a district court in California , this time representing a client detained in Adelanto , a massive Geo Group detention center in Southern California ( the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now claims he ’ s forced to buy soap ) : “ We ’ ve articulated this deprivation scheme , ” Free says .
“ That claims Geo purposely skimps on basic necessities—like food soap , clean water , medicine—in order to make it so that they have a readily available workforce.
” Both Geo and CoreCivic rejected the allegations made in the forced labor lawsuits .
A spokesman for Geo called the claims “ unfounded , ” and Amanda Gilchrist , a spokesperson for CoreCivic , wrote , “ All work programs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voluntary and operated in full compliance with ICE standards , including federally established minimum wage rates for detainee volunteer labor.… CoreCivic provides detainees all basic living necessities in accordance with federal detention standards , and it does not deprive detainees of anything to coerce their participation in a work program.
” While a bevy of forced labor lawsuits have been filed against CoreCivic and Geo ( starting with Free ’ s first salvo in 2014 ) , all the cases are still making their way through the federal judicial system , and no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or another .
But Free notes that—despite multiple attempts from GeoGroup and CoreCivic to have the cases thrown out—no judge has dismissed any of the suits .
“ There have been at least 15 different decisions in which Geo or CoreCivic have tried to get a lawsuit thrown out of court , or limited in some way , and in none of them have courts agreed with the companies , ” he says .
He says that this is indication that multiple judges see enough compelling evidence in the allegations to continue the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ creating the incentive for detained people to work , there ’ s little reason for prison companies to charge for goods like soap , deodorant , or cans of tuna .
“ There ’ s no financial reason these companies couldn ’ t just provide all of these things for free , ” he says .
“ The amount of commissary , those things are not a showstopper in terms of financial loss to a company if they just provided that for free.
” In private ICE detention facilities , most basic services—from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ run without detained people .
Unlike a government-run institution , these private companies ’ missions are not to reform criminals or protect detainees while their cases wend their way through courts—the mission of these companies is to maximize profit for shareholders .
This for-profit model doesn ’ t just entail locating the cheapest possible goods and services ; it also means hiring as few people as possible .
“ These facilities don ’ t staff even one more person than they need , ” Free says , noting that , even in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ near-skeleton staff .
That means that , for many detention centers to run at all , the managing companies rely on detained people ’ s labor .
For people who don ’ t have any family in the United States , or people on the outside who can wire money into their commissary accounts ( which itself comes with shocking fees ) , the only way to earn money to buy goods is by working the $ 1-per-day jobs—an incentive many detained people say does its job of being “ motivational.
” In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ being coerced into labor , or even “ treated like slaves , ” have been frighteningly common—though Free points out that it has not just been immigrants .
One of his clients was Frank Serna , a United States citizen whom ICE picked up mistakenly and detained illegally for over 300 days .
“ One of the things [ Serna ] told me after he got out was , ‘ They were slaving us .
How am I supposed to feel about myself for that kind of treatment ?
’ ” Free @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Coronavirus In the midst of an epochal pandemic , the business model of for-profit private detention companies has created a dangerous situation .
Miranda-Gonzalez , in the Folkston ICE Processing center , says , “ Guards aren ’ t even showing up for work anymore , ” and attorneys like Gurulé say they ’ re worried that staffing shortages and interrupted supply chains could lead to deteriorating conditions as the pandemic goes on .
And the “ artificial scarcity ” created by the for-profit model means that basic pandemic necessities are hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people in ICE detention have been reporting a severe lack of now-critical products—not just soap , but also cleaning wipes , disinfectant , and even toilet paper .
“ There are times when we literally have to beg for soap , ” says Marlen Seo , a woman detained in the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena , Louisiana , operated by Geo Group .
“ We are just given a four-ounce bottle to use weekly .
We are not provided with any sanitary wipes for the phones that we all use , nor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Other people detained in LaSalle say that at times they ’ ve resorted to cleaning the showers with shampoo .
When it comes to working these sorts of cleaning jobs , Seo also said that she and the 80 other women in her unit were—up until recently—cleaning communal spaces without any pay .
It wasn ’ t until women that transferred in from other units told them that detained jobs pay money that they began requesting the wages owed to them .
In Escobedo ’ s jail in Texas—run by LaSalle Corrections , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of essentially all services has gone down since mid-March , when the pandemic began to hit the United States .
He says they ’ re getting less food , and the conditions have become filthy , “ like a pig sty.
” He thinks it has to do directly with COVID-19 affecting staffing and supply lines .
There have also been alleged shortages of PPE .
Through much of March and April , people detained in for-profit detention centers across the country reported that few , if any , guards were wearing face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , private prison companies have begun providing masks in at least some detention centers , but detained people still report that guards often fail to wear the protective gear .
“ I ’ ve talked to some of the guards and they ’ re scared too , ” says Seo .
She says that many of them have said they wish they could stay home .
Other people in ICE detention elsewhere in the country have alleged that guards and staff have begun to skip work—potentially contributing to the sorts of deteriorating conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fill in the gaps , immigrant advocates have tried to funnel money to detained people ’ s commissary accounts , so they can buy soap and other goods .
Schwietert Collazo ’ s organization , Immigrant Families Together , has long provided $ 50 grants to detained people to enhance their commissary funds .
“ We help them buy soap because often they ’ re only getting one little hotel bar per week , ” she says .
Schwietert Collazo says that the people with the least resources—with families who can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most at risk for Covid-19 , because they can ’ t afford soap and other goods from the commissary .
Recently , she ’ s been fielding requests largely from Cuban asylum seekers , whose families can ’ t get money into their accounts .
“ These stories are just heartbreaking , ” Schwietert Collazo says .
“ People who have been detained for nine , 11 months .
People who are saying I ’ ve never talked to my family this whole time , I ’ ve never been able to buy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ( Detention centers charge exorbitant rates for phone calls to family and friends . )
In many facilities , to cope with the shortages , detained people will often engage in their own mutual aid efforts and share their commissary funds with others .
For instance Escobedo has been buying ramen and other products for the men he ’ s detained with .
Seo says the women who can afford commissary goods will often spread the resources around .
And Miranda-Gonzelez says people share soap when they can .
“ We support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he says .
According to Free , these sorts of mutual support projects are the only reason the public hasn ’ t heard a flood of alarms about shortages in detention centers .
“ If there are places where there are not complaints , it ’ s because the people inside are helping each other , ” he says .
Schwietert Collazo reaches a conclusion about the conditions she ’ s been hearing about from dozens of different detained people : “ When you look at the detention center model , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says .
“ You want to cut costs .
You do not want to actually provide care .
”

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Inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in Texas’s Jefferson County Jail, René Escobedo González says he’s not getting enough food. ICE requires the privately run jail to serve detained immigrants three meals per day, but, in a clear effort to keep attendance low and costs down, breakfast is served at 3:30 am. Escobedo says that even if he does wake up, the meals are sparse, and often days old. Since ICE detained him in January, Escobedo has been feeling hunger pains, and he’s been forced to ask his family in Florida to constantly refill his commissary account so that he can buy ramen noodles, both for himself and for others in the detention center.
Then came the coronavirus pandemic. In late March, still locked in ICE detention, Escobedo began asking his family for money so he could afford another necessity he would otherwise miss: soap.
“Soap we have to buy from the commissary,” Escobedo says. “They give us a tiny soap that is only good for one use.” He says that once a week, on Tuesday, the jail gives each person a ration of soap, but it lasts about a day. If people want more, they have to pay.
The coronavirus crisis has thrown the archipelago of ICE detention centers run by private prison companies into chaos. In an effort to cut costs, for-profit detention centers ration out goods—like soap—with the expectation that detained people will buy more with money from their commissary accounts if they run out. In many for-profit detention centers, detained people are given one bar of soap per week, for washing their hands and their bodies. In the midst of the pandemic, as detainees fear for their lives, that rationing system has collapsed. Today, washing one’s hands could mean saving one’s life or that of those around them, but Escobedo and others in ICE detention say that taking that basic step still comes at a price. Related Article Amid Partisan Politicking, Revelations on a Covid Origins Article Jimmy Tobias
“We basically have to hunger strike to get what we need,” says Jose Miranda-Gonzalez, a man detained in Georgia’s Folkston ICE Processing center. He says that soap and cleaning products are rationed out in such meager amounts that he and other detainees have periodically stopped eating to pressure the detention center staff to provide enough supplies.
“People who can’t afford commissary can’t have enough soap to wash their hands,” Miranda-Gonzalez says. Last month, he says he bought 10 bars of soap at the commissary and cut them in half to pass out among detainees who couldn’t afford their own.
ICE and multiple for-profit detention centers have contested the allegations. A spokesperson from GEO Group, which runs the Folkston facility where Miranda-Gonzalez is locked, wrote in a statement for this article, “We strongly reject these unfounded allegations, which we believe are being instigated by outside groups with political agendas…. Our ICE Processing Centers provide access to regular handwashing with clean water and soap in all housing areas and throughout each facility.” Current Issue View our current issue
Responding to a request for comment, Danielle Bennet, spokesperson for ICE, pointed to a statement available on the agency’s website, which claims that ICE detention centers run by the agency itself provide ample soap. When it comes to private detention centers, the statement explains, “ICE continues to encourage facilities to follow CDC guidelines as well as those of their state and local health departments.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
“I’m not aware of any hunger strikes related to soap and hygiene products,” Bennet wrote in an e-mail.
However, that statement contrasts with multiple reports from detained immigrants who say they’ve engaged in mass protests in recent weeks demanding soap, cleaning products, and toilet paper. Besides Miranda-Gonzalez in Georgia, detained people in Washington state and Lousiana told me they’ve either taken part in or witnessed hunger strikes. In audio obtained by ProPublica last month, a detained Salvadoran man explains that his detention center—the Hudson County Correctional Facility—gives them only one bar of soap per week. They’re meant to use this small bar both for bathing and washing their hands, so it runs out quickly. In the recording, Ronal Umaña says he and others began hunger striking to pressure the detention center staff to give them soap so they can clean their hands, as well as toilet paper and other hygiene necessities.
At this point, the coronavirus has infected hundreds of thousands of Americans and killed over 50,000. One of the CDC’s most basic guidelines for avoiding COVID-19 is, of course, frequently washing one’s hands. Robyn Barnard, an asylum attorney in Southern California, says that her client contacted her and asked her to put money in his commissary so he could buy soap to wash his hands. Julie Schwietert Collazo, the director of Immigrant Families Together, says that she’s gotten requests for commissary fund grants from detained immigrants across the South who tell her they don’t have “even basic hygiene items.” Natalia Santanna, an immigration attorney based in the Bay Area, says that her clients are rationed some soap each week, but not nearly enough to wash their hands as frequently as the CDC recommends. “If they don’t pay for it from commissary, they can’t wash their hands.” And in New York, Sophia Gurulé, an immigration lawyer who serves as immigration policy counsel for the Bronx Defenders, says her organization has noted the same thing.
“A lot of our clients only get their soap by buying it from commissary,” Gurulé says. She explains that many of her clients aren’t in dedicated ICE detention centers but rather local jails that have contracts with ICE (this is the sort of detention situation Escobedo finds himself in). Still, the situation is the same: “Commissary is where they predominantly get their soap.”
Charging for Soap
Why do ICE detention centers continue to charge money for good as basic as soap during the pandemic?
While there’s no one answer to what prices look like in the commissary, detention centers do seem to have inflated margins. ICE employs different private contractors, including for-profit prison conglomerates like Geo Group, CoreCivic, and LaSalle Corrections, to run many of its facilities. But as a general rule, the prices being charged at commissaries are inflated. In 2019, a bar of Dove soap cost $2.44 in CoreCivic’s Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, according to a Reuter’s investigation; the same bar costs about a dollar at a drugstore.
However, when it comes to private detention facilities’ charging money for hygiene products, the prices themselves aren’t the whole story. The business model of these facilities isn’t necessarily to make a profit on commissary goods but rather to “motivate” immigrants into working in-detention jobs, which can pay as little as $1 per day.
R. Andrew Free is one of the attorneys who has brought multiple lawsuits (along with organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center) against corporations like CoreCivic and Geo Group. At the center of these lawsuits is a shocking allegation: Private detention centers are engaging in forced labor.
Free alleges that detention facilities create “artificial scarcity” in order to coerce the people locked inside into working in-detention jobs. Here’s how that sounds in the words of Wilhen Hill Barrientos, an asylum seeker from Guatemala whom Free and the SPLC represented in a case against CoreCivic filed in 2018: “[You] either work for a few cents an hour or live without basic things like soap, shampoo, deodorant and food,” Hill Barrientos said in a statement about the lawsuit.
And here’s Free describing another lawsuit he filed in a district court in California, this time representing a client detained in Adelanto, a massive Geo Group detention center in Southern California (the same facility where Robyn Barnard’s client now claims he’s forced to buy soap): “We’ve articulated this deprivation scheme,” Free says. “That claims Geo purposely skimps on basic necessities—like food soap, clean water, medicine—in order to make it so that they have a readily available workforce.”
Both Geo and CoreCivic rejected the allegations made in the forced labor lawsuits. A spokesman for Geo called the claims “unfounded,” and Amanda Gilchrist, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, wrote, “All work programs at our ICE detention facilities are completely voluntary and operated in full compliance with ICE standards, including federally established minimum wage rates for detainee volunteer labor.… CoreCivic provides detainees all basic living necessities in accordance with federal detention standards, and it does not deprive detainees of anything to coerce their participation in a work program.”
While a bevy of forced labor lawsuits have been filed against CoreCivic and Geo (starting with Free’s first salvo in 2014), all the cases are still making their way through the federal judicial system, and no ruling has yet been made one way or another. But Free notes that—despite multiple attempts from GeoGroup and CoreCivic to have the cases thrown out—no judge has dismissed any of the suits. “There have been at least 15 different decisions in which Geo or CoreCivic have tried to get a lawsuit thrown out of court, or limited in some way, and in none of them have courts agreed with the companies,” he says. He says that this is indication that multiple judges see enough compelling evidence in the allegations to continue the court proceedings.
Free says that besides creating the incentive for detained people to work, there’s little reason for prison companies to charge for goods like soap, deodorant, or cans of tuna.
“There’s no financial reason these companies couldn’t just provide all of these things for free,” he says. “The amount of commissary, those things are not a showstopper in terms of financial loss to a company if they just provided that for free.”
In private ICE detention facilities, most basic services—from meal service to custodial cleaning—couldn’t run without detained people. Unlike a government-run institution, these private companies’ missions are not to reform criminals or protect detainees while their cases wend their way through courts—the mission of these companies is to maximize profit for shareholders. This for-profit model doesn’t just entail locating the cheapest possible goods and services; it also means hiring as few people as possible.
“These facilities don’t staff even one more person than they need,” Free says, noting that, even in the best of times, they work with near-skeleton staff.
That means that, for many detention centers to run at all, the managing companies rely on detained people’s labor. For people who don’t have any family in the United States, or people on the outside who can wire money into their commissary accounts (which itself comes with shocking fees), the only way to earn money to buy goods is by working the $1-per-day jobs—an incentive many detained people say does its job of being “motivational.”
In the past decade, claims of immigrants’ being coerced into labor, or even “treated like slaves,” have been frighteningly common—though Free points out that it has not just been immigrants. One of his clients was Frank Serna, a United States citizen whom ICE picked up mistakenly and detained illegally for over 300 days.
“One of the things [Serna] told me after he got out was, ‘They were slaving us. How am I supposed to feel about myself for that kind of treatment?’” Free says.
Detention in the Age of Coronavirus
In the midst of an epochal pandemic, the business model of for-profit private detention companies has created a dangerous situation. Miranda-Gonzalez, in the Folkston ICE Processing center, says, “Guards aren’t even showing up for work anymore,” and attorneys like Gurulé say they’re worried that staffing shortages and interrupted supply chains could lead to deteriorating conditions as the pandemic goes on. And the “artificial scarcity” created by the for-profit model means that basic pandemic necessities are hard to get inside: Across the country, people in ICE detention have been reporting a severe lack of now-critical products—not just soap, but also cleaning wipes, disinfectant, and even toilet paper.
“There are times when we literally have to beg for soap,” says Marlen Seo, a woman detained in the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, operated by Geo Group. “We are just given a four-ounce bottle to use weekly. We are not provided with any sanitary wipes for the phones that we all use, nor are we given any sanitizing lotion.” Other people detained in LaSalle say that at times they’ve resorted to cleaning the showers with shampoo.
When it comes to working these sorts of cleaning jobs, Seo also said that she and the 80 other women in her unit were—up until recently—cleaning communal spaces without any pay. It wasn’t until women that transferred in from other units told them that detained jobs pay money that they began requesting the wages owed to them.
In Escobedo’s jail in Texas—run by LaSalle Corrections, a separate company—Escobedo says that the quality of essentially all services has gone down since mid-March, when the pandemic began to hit the United States. He says they’re getting less food, and the conditions have become filthy, “like a pig sty.” He thinks it has to do directly with COVID-19 affecting staffing and supply lines.
There have also been alleged shortages of PPE. Through much of March and April, people detained in for-profit detention centers across the country reported that few, if any, guards were wearing face masks or other protective gear. Recently, private prison companies have begun providing masks in at least some detention centers, but detained people still report that guards often fail to wear the protective gear.
“I’ve talked to some of the guards and they’re scared too,” says Seo. She says that many of them have said they wish they could stay home. Other people in ICE detention elsewhere in the country have alleged that guards and staff have begun to skip work—potentially contributing to the sorts of deteriorating conditions Seo and Escobedo describe.
Seeking to fill in the gaps, immigrant advocates have tried to funnel money to detained people’s commissary accounts, so they can buy soap and other goods.
Schwietert Collazo’s organization, Immigrant Families Together, has long provided $50 grants to detained people to enhance their commissary funds. “We help them buy soap because often they’re only getting one little hotel bar per week,” she says. Schwietert Collazo says that the people with the least resources—with families who can’t help them—are the ones who are now most at risk for Covid-19, because they can’t afford soap and other goods from the commissary. Recently, she’s been fielding requests largely from Cuban asylum seekers, whose families can’t get money into their accounts.
“These stories are just heartbreaking,” Schwietert Collazo says. “People who have been detained for nine, 11 months. People who are saying I’ve never talked to my family this whole time, I’ve never been able to buy food or hygiene items this entire time.” (Detention centers charge exorbitant rates for phone calls to family and friends.)
In many facilities, to cope with the shortages, detained people will often engage in their own mutual aid efforts and share their commissary funds with others. For instance Escobedo has been buying ramen and other products for the men he’s detained with. Seo says the women who can afford commissary goods will often spread the resources around. And Miranda-Gonzelez says people share soap when they can.
“We support each other, we stick together,” he says.
According to Free, these sorts of mutual support projects are the only reason the public hasn’t heard a flood of alarms about shortages in detention centers.
“If there are places where there are not complaints, it’s because the people inside are helping each other,” he says.
Schwietert Collazo reaches a conclusion about the conditions she’s been hearing about from dozens of different detained people: “When you look at the detention center model, it’s for profit,” she says. “You want to cut costs. You do not want to actually provide care.”


thenation--2020-04-30--Why Did the ERA Die? FX’s ‘Mrs. America’ Has Some Answers.

“ She ’ s a liar , a fearmonger and a con artist , ” Bella Abzug says of Phyllis Schlafly about two-thirds of the way into Mrs. America , FX ’ s fascinating nine-part miniseries about Schlafly and the struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment .
“ But worst of all , she ’ s a goddamn feminist .
She might be one of the most liberated women in America.
” Indeed .
Schlafly , a devout Catholic wife and a mother of six , was a tireless , extremely well-connected right-wing ideologue who made a fabulous career out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the home .
Unfortunately , she was very good at her job .
From a newsletter and meetings held in her living room in Alton , Illinois , she forged the contemporary anti-feminist movement , which not only scuttled the ERA , which fell three states short of ratification in 1982 , but also realigned both major political parties around support or hostility to women ’ s rights .
To a frightening extent , we are living in the world Schlafly made .
Some of my feminist friends think Mrs. America is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that impression is largely due to Cate Blanchett ’ s brilliant performance .
She is so beautiful , you want to look at her forever , with a creamy softness lacking in photos of the real-life Schlafly , and she brings a humorous twinkle to Schlafly ’ s steely self-control as well .
Blanchett ’ s Schlafly is a bit like Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair ; it ’ s fun to watch her scheme her way to the top .
There ’ s something innately appealing , too , about her drive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ siding with her .
Don ’ t let those Republican men put you down , Phyllis !
Good for you , going to law school at 50 !
And if feminists dismiss you as a kook , just show them how wrong they are .
Never underestimate your enemies is one of the main political morals here .
The feminist main characters—Gloria Steinem ( Rose Byrne ) , Betty Friedan ( Tracey Ullman ) , Brenda Feigen-Fasteau ( Ari Graynor ) , Bella Abzug ( Margo Martindale ) , Jill Ruckelshaus ( Elizabeth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Uzo Aduba ) —each get an episode , and it is painful to watch their exuberant confidence slowly fade as they belatedly realize that this woman they saw as a joke is outmaneuvering them .
Steinem says she won ’ t debate Schlafly because that would give her credibility , leaving it to the deeply unpleasant and irascible Friedan , who loses her cool when they debate at Illinois State University and shouts , “ I ’ d like to burn you at the stake !
” ( This really happened . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fundamentalist Lottie Beth Hobbs , is the only character portrayed in a totally negative light , down to her twisted face and wild gray hair—deserves a lot more credit than she gets here .
Not only did she write The Feminine Mystique , one of the most important nonfiction books of the 20th century , but she was also prescient .
Rachel Shteir , whose biography of Friedan is forthcoming , wrote me in an e-mail , “ It took [ the National Organization for Women ] around four or five years to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then it was too late .
So it ’ s easy to caricature Betty for her excesses , but the reality is that her ‘ Geiger counter ’ knew who the enemy was.
” Friedan , said Shteir , understood early on that Schlafly had grassroots appeal .
The others just don ’ t seem to grasp that Schlafly represents actual women .
The only time they seriously grapple with why conservative housewives fear the ERA is when Steinem says , “ Revolutions are messy .
People get left behind.
” But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s just the way it is .
Well , maybe so .
Certainly nothing would bring around the hard-core evangelicals and racists Schlafly allied herself with to grow the movement .
Almost 50 years later , those people are still here , voting for Donald Trump as God ’ s instrument , just like King David .
But anti-feminism claimed some women whom feminists should have sought to persuade , too .
Although , as Jane Mansbridge writes in Why We Lost the ERA , pro-ERA activists gave conflicting and confusing responses to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; the real issue was not these things .
It was that many women raised to be traditional homemakers , supported by their husbands and respected in their communities , found their pedestals knocked out from under them practically overnight .
It was not irrational for them to think the ERA would mean they would lose out in divorce , which was rampant in the 1970s , even if the laws on alimony and child custody would protect them less than they believed .
Nor were they wrong to believe that the status @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as , for many of them , it was too late to choose a different path .
The segments devoted to the women ’ s movement raise issues that are still with us : pragmatism versus revolution , compromise versus purity , winning power inch-by-inch within the system versus raising your battle cry outside it .
Bella Abzug is the practical politician .
At the 1972 Democratic National Convention she abandons Shirley Chisholm , who has no chance of winning the nomination , in hopes of gaining concessions on abortion rights from McGovern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she has to be argued into fighting for them .
Gloria Steinem is more of a risk-taker and an idealist ( “ You ’ re a dilettante , ” Abzug tells her during one of their numerous disagreements ) .
But Steinem doesn ’ t need to get elected or pass bills in Congress .
Mrs. America plays deliciously with the unacknowledged common problem of both feminist and anti-feminists : men .
Steinem is pornified in Screw magazine .
Ruckelshaus , the lone Republican feminist portrayed , has to manage five kids and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ genuinely nice guy , has more important things to do .
The feminists are betrayed by George McGovern and then by Jimmy Carter .
On the other side , Schlafly has to massage the ego of her husband , Fred Schlafly , a prominent right-wing lawyer who is not always happy that she ’ s a star , even though he helps make her one .
In one disturbing scene , he insists on sex when she is obviously exhausted .
( Her biographer , Donald Critchlow , protested that she had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and he would never have done such a thing . )
Phyllis Schlafly has to contend with patronizing and exploitative male politicians , too .
Her original passion was for the very male field of foreign policy ; anti-feminism was the fallback .
She wrote the hugely influential pro–Barry Goldwater book A Choice Not an Echo , but he doesn ’ t mention her in his memoirs .
She backs Ronald Reagan but doesn ’ t get the cabinet position she thinks he promised her .
The last shot of the series shows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at her kitchen table .
If only that had been the real-life end of the Phyllis Schlafly story !
On the feminist side , the movement took years to recover from the defeat of the ERA .
The parting frames of Mrs. America tell us that , almost four decades after the deadline , it ’ s been ratified in Nevada ( 2017 ) , Illinois ( 2018 ) , and Virginia ( 2020 ) —for the required 38 states .
Resurrection or empty gesture ?
The battle goes on .

This article appears in the May 18/25, 2020 issue.
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“She’s a liar, a fearmonger and a con artist,” Bella Abzug says of Phyllis Schlafly about two-thirds of the way into Mrs. America, FX’s fascinating nine-part miniseries about Schlafly and the struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment. “But worst of all, she’s a goddamn feminist. She might be one of the most liberated women in America.” Indeed. Schlafly, a devout Catholic wife and a mother of six, was a tireless, extremely well-connected right-wing ideologue who made a fabulous career out of telling women that their place was in the home. Unfortunately, she was very good at her job. From a newsletter and meetings held in her living room in Alton, Illinois, she forged the contemporary anti-feminist movement, which not only scuttled the ERA, which fell three states short of ratification in 1982, but also realigned both major political parties around support or hostility to women’s rights. To a frightening extent, we are living in the world Schlafly made.
Some of my feminist friends think Mrs. America is too sympathetic to Schlafly. I think that impression is largely due to Cate Blanchett’s brilliant performance. She is so beautiful, you want to look at her forever, with a creamy softness lacking in photos of the real-life Schlafly, and she brings a humorous twinkle to Schlafly’s steely self-control as well. Blanchett’s Schlafly is a bit like Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair; it’s fun to watch her scheme her way to the top. There’s something innately appealing, too, about her drive and pluck. I found myself almost siding with her. Don’t let those Republican men put you down, Phyllis! Good for you, going to law school at 50! And if feminists dismiss you as a kook, just show them how wrong they are.
Never underestimate your enemies is one of the main political morals here. The feminist main characters—Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman), Brenda Feigen-Fasteau (Ari Graynor), Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale), Jill Ruckelshaus (Elizabeth Banks), and Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba)—each get an episode, and it is painful to watch their exuberant confidence slowly fade as they belatedly realize that this woman they saw as a joke is outmaneuvering them. Steinem says she won’t debate Schlafly because that would give her credibility, leaving it to the deeply unpleasant and irascible Friedan, who loses her cool when they debate at Illinois State University and shouts, “I’d like to burn you at the stake!” (This really happened.) But Friedan—who, along with the racist fundamentalist Lottie Beth Hobbs, is the only character portrayed in a totally negative light, down to her twisted face and wild gray hair—deserves a lot more credit than she gets here. Not only did she write The Feminine Mystique, one of the most important nonfiction books of the 20th century, but she was also prescient. Rachel Shteir, whose biography of Friedan is forthcoming, wrote me in an e-mail, “It took [the National Organization for Women] around four or five years to realize what was going on, and then it was too late. So it’s easy to caricature Betty for her excesses, but the reality is that her ‘Geiger counter’ knew who the enemy was.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Friedan, said Shteir, understood early on that Schlafly had grassroots appeal. The others just don’t seem to grasp that Schlafly represents actual women. The only time they seriously grapple with why conservative housewives fear the ERA is when Steinem says, “Revolutions are messy. People get left behind.” But the consensus seems to be that that’s just the way it is. Related Article A Tale of Two Plagues Katha Pollitt
Well, maybe so. Certainly nothing would bring around the hard-core evangelicals and racists Schlafly allied herself with to grow the movement. Almost 50 years later, those people are still here, voting for Donald Trump as God’s instrument, just like King David. But anti-feminism claimed some women whom feminists should have sought to persuade, too. Although, as Jane Mansbridge writes in Why We Lost the ERA, pro-ERA activists gave conflicting and confusing responses to anxieties about drafting women and unisex bathrooms, the real issue was not these things. It was that many women raised to be traditional homemakers, supported by their husbands and respected in their communities, found their pedestals knocked out from under them practically overnight. It was not irrational for them to think the ERA would mean they would lose out in divorce, which was rampant in the 1970s, even if the laws on alimony and child custody would protect them less than they believed. Nor were they wrong to believe that the status of homemaking was being drastically lowered even as, for many of them, it was too late to choose a different path.
The segments devoted to the women’s movement raise issues that are still with us: pragmatism versus revolution, compromise versus purity, winning power inch-by-inch within the system versus raising your battle cry outside it. Bella Abzug is the practical politician. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention she pushes Steinem to abandon Shirley Chisholm, who has no chance of winning the nomination, in hopes of gaining concessions on abortion rights from McGovern. Although Abzug supports lesbian rights, she has to be argued into fighting for them. Gloria Steinem is more of a risk-taker and an idealist (“You’re a dilettante who wanted to play politics,” Abzug tells her during one of their numerous disagreements). But Steinem doesn’t need to get elected or pass bills in Congress.
Mrs. America plays deliciously with the unacknowledged common problem of both feminist and anti-feminists: men. Steinem is pornified in Screw magazine. Ruckelshaus, the lone Republican feminist portrayed, has to manage five kids and a house while her husband, a genuinely nice guy, has more important things to do. The feminists are betrayed by George McGovern and then by Jimmy Carter. On the other side, Schlafly has to massage the ego of her husband, Fred Schlafly, a prominent right-wing lawyer who is not always happy that she’s a star, even though he helps make her one. In one disturbing scene, he insists on sex when she is obviously exhausted. (Her biographer, Donald Critchlow, protested that she had a great marriage, Fred worshipped her, and he would never have done such a thing.)
Phyllis Schlafly has to contend with patronizing and exploitative male politicians, too. Her original passion was for the very male field of foreign policy; anti-feminism was the fallback. She wrote the hugely influential pro–Barry Goldwater book A Choice Not an Echo, but he doesn’t mention her in his memoirs. She backs Ronald Reagan but doesn’t get the cabinet position she thinks he promised her.
The last shot of the series shows her aproned and sad, peeling apples at her kitchen table. If only that had been the real-life end of the Phyllis Schlafly story! On the feminist side, the movement took years to recover from the defeat of the ERA. The parting frames of Mrs. America tell us that, almost four decades after the deadline, it’s been ratified in Nevada (2017), Illinois (2018), and Virginia (2020)—for the required 38 states. Resurrection or empty gesture? The battle goes on.


thenation--2020-04-30--Big Philanthropy Faces a Reckoning, Too

Big Philanthropy Faces a Reckoning, Too

For a few weeks this winter , in the time before social distancing , it seemed as if Michael Bloomberg ’ s vast spending might buy him the Democratic presidential nomination .
In the end , the marketing couldn ’ t overcome the product flaws , but what Bloomberg also collided with was a deep distrust of the billionaire class that has been steadily building in our politics .
From Occupy Wall Street ’ s spotlight on inequality to the growing recognition that the once-golden tech and social media companies led by whiz kids like Mark Zuckerberg are just today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal data for their own enrichment instead of oil and gas—big money has been on the defensive .
I ’ ve been teaching courses on foundations , and the way they influence public policy , for the last 15 years , and I ’ ve seen this coming in the classroom , since my students have always been a pretty good barometer of social and political trends .
A little over 10 years ago , just before the economic collapse , most of my NYU graduate students looked to philanthropy—in particular the emerging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gates who seemed to be eclipsing the “ legacy ” foundations like Ford , Carnegie , and Rockefeller—as the place to be if you wanted to actually bring about social change .
Both markets and the state , in their view , had failed to solve poverty or fix dysfunctional health and education systems .
Enter “ social entrepreneurs ” and “ innovators , ” freed from bureaucracy and hidebound ideologies and bound only by the rigor of data and metrics , to disrupt these systems , backed by sympathetic donors who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones .
Indeed , an influential book of the period , Philanthrocapitalism , by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green , bore the apparently unironic subtitle How the Rich Can Save the World .
Fast-forward to now , and my students in the human rights program at Hunter College—many of whom take a different view .
I always start the semester by giving a brief history and taxonomy of American foundations , since this opaque field is mysterious even to many leaders of the nonprofits whose budgets and futures are dependent on philanthropy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I got some unaccustomed pushback : Why should rich people get to take money out of the tax system so they can use it to further their pet projects ?
What ’ s democratic about that ?
I was a bit surprised but also heartened by the way many of my students seemed very much in sync with the mounting outrage roiling politics and other sectors over a rigged , unequal system .
There have always been critics of philanthropy .
But after the dawn of modern American foundations like Carnegie and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as launderers of tainted fortunes incompatible with democracy—most criticism has assumed the basic legitimacy of foundations , focusing instead on how they function : excessive bureaucracy and micromanagement of how grantees use funds , fickleness , unresponsiveness , deficiencies of transparency and diversity , and the like .
There have also been ideological critiques—from the left , for example , about the Joyce Foundation ’ s heavy promotion of school voucher programs and the Olin Foundation ’ s pivotal role in the creation of the Federalist Society , and from the right against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s work on drug policy , immigration and other hot-button issues .
But something has recently changed in the public conversation around philanthropy—and my students are but one harbinger .
There finally is a public conversation that goes beyond the hagiographic media profiles of the enlightened rich who “ give back.
” In the last year or two , a number of new books have trained a critical eye on donors long accustomed to basking in the glow of their largesse .
The book garnering the most attention has been Winners Take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the World , by journalist and critic Anand Giridhadas , a trenchant look at the global corporate class who grow wealthy through the exaltation of markets and then turn their attention to ameliorating some of the consequences , taking care not to upset the system that enriched them and perpetuated inequality .
Writing in The New York Times last month , Giridhadas asked if a nation committed to its founding ideal of equality must “ resign itself to a gilded revolving door in which you unseat billionaire leaders you hate by electing billionaires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deals mostly with rich jet-setters and not so much with institutionalized philanthropy .
More focused on foundations themselves are Just Giving : Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it Can do Better , by Rob Reich , the Stanford political scientist , and The Givers : Wealth , Power and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age , by David Callahan , a former leader of Demos , the progressive think tank , and the founding editor of Inside Philanthropy .
Reich is the most prominent academic engaged in raising questions about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partially underwritten by the state through a complex web of advantageous tax laws ” which cost the Treasury at least $ 50 billion in foregone tax revenue in 2016 .
Callahan ’ s book is a comprehensive walk through today ’ s philanthropic landscape , which has changed a lot since I came to work for one of the upstarts , launching George Soros ’ s US foundation in 1996 .
Save for a few places , like the Ford Foundation , reinvigorated by Darren Walker ’ s energy and prominence , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century “ legacy ” foundations but with a bunch of still-very-much-living donors whose assets approach or exceed Ford ’ s , and who are focused on big challenges like education , health care , or climate change .
Callahan warns that “ their rising power will further push ordinary Americans to the margins of civic life in an unequal era when so many people already feel shoved aside by elites and the wealthy.
” Giridhadas , Reich , and Callahan write knowledgeably but at some distance from the seats of philanthropic power .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Heal Divides and Restore Balance , ” Edgar Villaneuva , a member of the Lumbee Tribe who ’ s been a program officer at several social justice–focused foundations , makes it more personal .
He writes from a place of pain and injury , based on his own experiences in philanthropy and those of communities he believes have been “ colonized ” by foundations .
Villaneuva ’ s book is profound in its critique and resonates with me and many others in social justice philanthropy , where the money and trustees are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ labor force ” is increasingly less so .
Reich says he will count his efforts successful “ if this book shows why we need to think about philanthropy more seriously in philosophy and in society more generally.
” While Callahan has a few policy suggestions—like review of tax deductibility , greater transparency , and an “ Office of Charitable Affairs ” with the independence of the Federal Reserve—in general , these books are heavy on diagnosis , and light on remedy .
But it ’ s past time to move from critique to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for making foundations more accountable—one route for reform from outside , and another from within .
We can certainly demand greater accountability from institutions that are , after all , creatures of the tax code .
Government could capture more of the wealth now exempted from taxation by the charitable deduction—as President Obama attempted and failed to do , against the implacable opposition of foundations and others in the nonprofit sector , when trying to finance the Affordable Care Act .
Legislation could limit the lifespan of foundations , requiring them to spend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , as Atlantic Philanthropies , which I once headed , has done .
Or it could cap the size of foundations , limiting the outsize impact that a Gates or Bloomberg might have—for better or for worse .
I could support some or all of these approaches , but none seem to have much traction at the moment .
A new president with a sharp , progressive critique of inequality , which now seems unlikely , might begin to raise these issues .
More promisingly , progressive state attorney generals—once their hands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Trump policies—might explore their powers , since charities are regulated at the state level .
But it ’ s a long-haul project , and perceived assaults on the independence of foundations are one of the rare things in our ideologically polarized society that can provoke opposition from both the right and left .
Philanthropy does many things well , and at times like the present , with so much pain and economic dislocation , its major institutions can rise to meet crises , digging deeper for funds ( even as foundation endowments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accelerating some changes in how they relate to nonprofits , like relaxing reporting requirements and shifting grants to general support .
But as Chorus Foundation head Farhad Ebrahami asked in Inside Philanthropy : “ What if we made these kinds of commitments under ‘ normal ’ circumstances ?
What if we applied these recommendations to our work even in the absence of a global pandemic ?
And , most importantly , what could it look like if we acted as if we really believed that another world was possible ?
” In my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
What is needed is a shift in power .
The best hope in the near term is to build on some encouraging signs of innovation and democratization we ’ re seeing from within philanthropy itself , with funding decisions increasingly being influenced , and even made , by those closest to the ground .
Why this is needed is illustrated in a story Villanueva tells of a black colleague in a foundation in the South who told him “ we had to hire a consulting firm in the last six months to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ field ] , just to bring it back to my boss and to his boss to say everything I ’ ve been saying for the last year…but no one heard it , or it wasn ’ t given the same weight without having some sort of outside external person who was paid a lot of money to say it and put it nice and neatly down on paper.
” Foundations use consultants and expert advisory panels—for instance , in science and medicine—all the time to inform their grant decisions , so why not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impacted communities whom their grant-making initiatives are intended to help ?
As Cynthia Gibson , a former Carnegie Corporation program officer , wrote on the philanthropy blog HistPhil , such participatory grant-making draws on well-established models in other fields , like community organizing , deliberative democracy , and participatory budgeting .
For example , the David Rockefeller Fund , on whose board I sit , created the Canary Impact Fund to address the challenges faced by those most harmed by mass incarceration , and invited people directly impacted by the judicial system to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and review and act on the proposals received .
I was struck , hearing the leaders of the fund speak at a board meeting last year , with how reflective they are about the power they now have to direct resources to groups that until recently have been ignored by philanthropy .
This approach was pioneered in the 1980s by the Funding Exchange , a consortium of 16 progressive community foundations , and taken up a notch in the late 1990s by Southern Partners Fund , founded by leaders of Southern rural community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s family foundation , invited to form a new fund , to be financed by the transfer of her family foundation ’ s assets .
They wrote their own bylaws , grants , and membership policy , elected a board , and birthed Southern Partners Fund in 1998 .
Another promising effort was launched in late 2016 , right after Trump ’ s election , when three progressive donor groups , Solidaire , Threshold , and the Women Donors Network ( with the backing of the Democracy Alliance , where I am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get money quickly “ with no strings attached to communities…under attack by federal policies and priorities—immigrants , women , Muslim , and Arab American communities , Black people , Indigenous communities , LGBTQ communities , and all people of color ” so that they would have “ increased capacity [ to ] respond , act nimbly , and develop new strategies.
” The funding decisions were made by a panel of community activists who have disbursed over $ 2 million to 100 groups in the last two years .
Some key sources of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ North Star Fund , have long delegated decision-making to members of the most impacted communities , with local panels in New York City and the Hudson Valley .
Following Eric Garner ’ s death at the hands of police in 2014 , North Star ’ s Let Us Breathe Community Funding Committee has responded with $ 180,000 in grants .
The big money in philanthropy has been slower to embrace this approach , but even there , larger mainstream funders are beginning to experiment with more participatory grant-making .
In its new “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ initiative , the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is aiming to reach deeper into marginalized communities by developing “ new and more inclusive selection criteria , ” and has stopped basing the amounts of grants on the size of an organization ’ s budget—a practice that has all too often left grassroots organizations with mere crumbs from the table .
According to Inside Philanthropy , “ Initiative stakeholders will recommend grantees to foundation leadership based on feedback from a five-to-eight-person participatory grant-making panel , ” though “ MacArthur ’ s president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” And last year , the Ford Foundation solicited proposals to “ study participatory grant-making further , with an emphasis on how to get larger legacy foundations to buy into the practice.
” While political change in the larger society works overtime to create the appetite and the opportunity for changes in the tax code and more public accountability for foundations , the work of the moment is to change the culture in which foundations operate .
Both pressure and example have been successful in recent years in diversifying foundation leadership—in the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country ’ s largest foundations , from Kellogg to Mellon , have chosen people of color as presidents—and in divestment of foundation endowments from fossil fuels , as several Rockefeller-connected funds have done .
The task of democratizing philanthropy , though , involves something even more fundamental than diversifying staff or investments .
It involves a significant shift in the locus of decision-making .
To date , despite stirrings at giants like MacArthur and Ford , that kind of power shift has been largely confined to small foundations or pooled funds like North @ @ @ @ @ @ @ base of donors and are more insulated from any particular donor ’ s control or from the often-deadening hand of boards heavily weighted toward corporate and academic leaders .
And while greater opening of foundation decision-making processes and power to excluded groups is an exciting development , it brings its own challenges .
We made a number of efforts in that direction when I headed George Soros ’ s US foundation—for example , appointing a board of grassroots leaders in the South to vet and approve grants in a special initiative focused on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issues .
Would those making the grant decisions be excluded from applying for funds , to avoid conflicts of interest ?
What influence would they have on Soros ’ s thinking about how much money to spend , since the amount he was willing to experiment with was quite unequal to the scale of the change effort ?
Indeed , in a few years , as Soros decided to reorganize his global foundation and phase out a number of programs , the Southern initiative was a casualty , and the hope we had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that has been woefully neglected by philanthropic dollars turned to disappointment and bitterness .
And while there is plenty of group-think and mediocrity in institutional philanthropy now , at times its very unaccountability has made possible considerable boldness .
Last year some of his admirers organized an evening recalling the legacy of David Hunter , a white man who for a quarter century until 1986 led the Stern Fund , established by descendants of Julius Rosenwald , the Sears Roebuck founder , a staunch ally and backer of civil rights and social justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Before dinner , a series of speakers now in their 70s who worked for Hunter extolled his personal leadership in steering a great fortune to progressive causes ; after dinner , a younger , much more race- and gender-diverse panel paid homage and argued for shifting grant-making power to excluded communities along the lines of the examples I ’ ve cited above .
As someone who ’ s held the reins of unaccountable philanthropic power and tried to use it over two decades to support the oppressed and the colonized , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ balance , that this is a shift that needs to take place .
But it ’ s just possible that it could lead to grant-making that is less bold and has a more diffuse impact than what in its best moments an unaccountable system has produced .
And yet something else is at stake , which is confidence in the integrity of decisions about who gets access to the dollars produced by wealth and who does not .
All institutions face challenges to their legitimacy in these times , from political parties to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reason foundations should be exempt , given the influence they wield , albeit in less visible ways than other societal actors .
The more foundation trustees and staff open up their decisions to those who have been marginalized , the more effective and informed their grant-making will be , and the more we will be able to trust it .

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For a few weeks this winter, in the time before social distancing, it seemed as if Michael Bloomberg’s vast spending might buy him the Democratic presidential nomination. In the end, the marketing couldn’t overcome the product flaws, but what Bloomberg also collided with was a deep distrust of the billionaire class that has been steadily building in our politics. From Occupy Wall Street’s spotlight on inequality to the growing recognition that the once-golden tech and social media companies led by whiz kids like Mark Zuckerberg are just today’s version of extractive industries—mining our personal data for their own enrichment instead of oil and gas—big money has been on the defensive.
I’ve been teaching courses on foundations, and the way they influence public policy, for the last 15 years, and I’ve seen this coming in the classroom, since my students have always been a pretty good barometer of social and political trends. A little over 10 years ago, just before the economic collapse, most of my NYU graduate students looked to philanthropy—in particular the emerging wave of tech billionaires like Bloomberg and Gates who seemed to be eclipsing the “legacy” foundations like Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller—as the place to be if you wanted to actually bring about social change.
Both markets and the state, in their view, had failed to solve poverty or fix dysfunctional health and education systems. Enter “social entrepreneurs” and “innovators,” freed from bureaucracy and hidebound ideologies and bound only by the rigor of data and metrics, to disrupt these systems, backed by sympathetic donors who had already shaken up whole industries—or created new ones. Indeed, an influential book of the period, Philanthrocapitalism, by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, bore the apparently unironic subtitle How the Rich Can Save the World.
Fast-forward to now, and my students in the human rights program at Hunter College—many of whom take a different view. I always start the semester by giving a brief history and taxonomy of American foundations, since this opaque field is mysterious even to many leaders of the nonprofits whose budgets and futures are dependent on philanthropy, much less to undergraduates. Right away, I got some unaccustomed pushback: Why should rich people get to take money out of the tax system so they can use it to further their pet projects? What’s democratic about that?
I was a bit surprised but also heartened by the way many of my students seemed very much in sync with the mounting outrage roiling politics and other sectors over a rigged, unequal system.
There have always been critics of philanthropy. But after the dawn of modern American foundations like Carnegie and Rockefeller—when many progressives saw these new entities as launderers of tainted fortunes incompatible with democracy—most criticism has assumed the basic legitimacy of foundations, focusing instead on how they function: excessive bureaucracy and micromanagement of how grantees use funds, fickleness, unresponsiveness, deficiencies of transparency and diversity, and the like. There have also been ideological critiques—from the left, for example, about the Bradley Foundation’s heavy promotion of school voucher programs and the Olin Foundation’s pivotal role in the creation of the Federalist Society, and from the right against George Soros’s Open Society Foundation’s work on drug policy, immigration and other hot-button issues. But something has recently changed in the public conversation around philanthropy—and my students are but one harbinger. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
There finally is a public conversation that goes beyond the hagiographic media profiles of the enlightened rich who “give back.” In the last year or two, a number of new books have trained a critical eye on donors long accustomed to basking in the glow of their largesse. The book garnering the most attention has been Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, by journalist and critic Anand Giridharadas, a trenchant look at the global corporate class who grow wealthy through the exaltation of markets and then turn their attention to ameliorating some of the consequences, taking care not to upset the system that enriched them and perpetuated inequality. Writing in The New York Times last month, Giridharadas asked if a nation committed to its founding ideal of equality must “resign itself to a gilded revolving door in which you unseat billionaire leaders you hate by electing billionaires you don’t mind.”
Giridharadas deals mostly with rich jet-setters and not so much with institutionalized philanthropy. More focused on foundations themselves are Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it Can do Better, by Rob Reich, the Stanford political scientist, and The Givers: Wealth, Power and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age, by David Callahan, a former leader of Demos, the progressive think tank, and the founding editor of Inside Philanthropy. Reich is the most prominent academic engaged in raising questions about the legal structures that foster philanthropy, “partially underwritten by the state through a complex web of advantageous tax laws” which cost the Treasury at least $50 billion in foregone tax revenue in 2016.
Callahan’s book is a comprehensive walk through today’s philanthropic landscape, which has changed a lot since I came to work for one of the upstarts, launching George Soros’s US foundation in 1996. Save for a few places, like the Ford Foundation, reinvigorated by Darren Walker’s energy and prominence, the momentum today is not with the 20th century “legacy” foundations but with a bunch of still-very-much-living donors whose assets approach or exceed Ford’s, and who are focused on big challenges like education, health care, or climate change. Callahan warns that “their rising power will further push ordinary Americans to the margins of civic life in an unequal era when so many people already feel shoved aside by elites and the wealthy.”
Giridharadas, Reich, and Callahan write knowledgeably but at some distance from the seats of philanthropic power. In “Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance,” Edgar Villanueva, a member of the Lumbee Tribe who’s been a program officer at several social justice–focused foundations, makes it more personal. He writes from a place of pain and injury, based on his own experiences in philanthropy and those of communities he believes have been “colonized” by foundations. Villanueva’s book is profound in its critique and resonates with me and many others in social justice philanthropy, where the money and trustees are still largely white, while the “labor force” is increasingly less so.
Reich says he will count his efforts successful “if this book shows why we need to think about philanthropy more seriously in philosophy and in society more generally.” While Callahan has a few policy suggestions—like review of tax deductibility, greater transparency, and an “Office of Charitable Affairs” with the independence of the Federal Reserve—in general, these books are heavy on diagnosis, and light on remedy.
But it’s past time to move from critique to reform. There are two main paths for making foundations more accountable—one route for reform from outside, and another from within.
We can certainly demand greater accountability from institutions that are, after all, creatures of the tax code. Government could capture more of the wealth now exempted from taxation by the charitable deduction—as President Obama attempted and failed to do, against the implacable opposition of foundations and others in the nonprofit sector, when trying to finance the Affordable Care Act. Legislation could limit the lifespan of foundations, requiring them to spend down their assets after a number of years, as Atlantic Philanthropies, which I once headed, has done. Or it could cap the size of foundations, limiting the outsize impact that a Gates or Bloomberg might have—for better or for worse.
I could support some or all of these approaches, but none seem to have much traction at the moment. A new president with a sharp, progressive critique of inequality, which now seems unlikely, might begin to raise these issues. More promisingly, progressive state attorney generals—once their hands aren’t full leading the resistance to Trump policies—might explore their powers, since charities are regulated at the state level. But it’s a long-haul project, and perceived assaults on the independence of foundations are one of the rare things in our ideologically polarized society that can provoke opposition from both the right and left.
Philanthropy does many things well, and at times like the present, with so much pain and economic dislocation, its major institutions can rise to meet crises, digging deeper for funds (even as foundation endowments take a hit) and suspending or accelerating some changes in how they relate to nonprofits, like relaxing reporting requirements and shifting grants to general support. But as Chorus Foundation head Farhad Ebrahami asked in Inside Philanthropy: “What if we made these kinds of commitments under ‘normal’ circumstances? What if we applied these recommendations to our work even in the absence of a global pandemic? And, most importantly, what could it look like if we acted as if we really believed that another world was possible?”
In my view, more than benevolence is needed. What is needed is a shift in power. The best hope in the near term is to build on some encouraging signs of innovation and democratization we’re seeing from within philanthropy itself, with funding decisions increasingly being influenced, and even made, by those closest to the ground. Why this is needed is illustrated in a story Villanueva tells of a black colleague in a foundation in the South who told him “we had to hire a consulting firm in the last six months to do a full scan of [the field], just to bring it back to my boss and to his boss to say everything I’ve been saying for the last year…but no one heard it, or it wasn’t given the same weight without having some sort of outside external person who was paid a lot of money to say it and put it nice and neatly down on paper.”
Foundations use consultants and expert advisory panels—for instance, in science and medicine—all the time to inform their grant decisions, so why not listen to the voices of those in impacted communities whom their grant-making initiatives are intended to help? As Cynthia Gibson, a former Carnegie Corporation program officer, wrote on the philanthropy blog HistPhil, such participatory grant-making draws on well-established models in other fields, like community organizing, deliberative democracy, and participatory budgeting.
For example, the David Rockefeller Fund, on whose board I sit, created the Canary Impact Fund to address the challenges faced by those most harmed by mass incarceration, and invited people directly impacted by the judicial system to write the funding guidelines for the fund and review and act on the proposals received. I was struck, hearing the leaders of the fund speak at a board meeting last year, with how reflective they are about the power they now have to direct resources to groups that until recently have been ignored by philanthropy. This approach was pioneered in the 1980s by the Funding Exchange, a consortium of 16 progressive community foundations, and taken up a notch in the late 1990s by Southern Partners Fund, founded by leaders of Southern rural community organizations, grantees of philanthropist Barbara Meyer’s family foundation, invited to form a new fund, to be financed by the transfer of her family foundation’s assets. They wrote their own bylaws, grants, and membership policy, elected a board, and birthed Southern Partners Fund in 1998.
Another promising effort was launched in late 2016, right after Trump’s election, when three progressive donor groups, Solidaire, Threshold, and the Women Donors Network (with the backing of the Democracy Alliance, where I am president) created the Emergent Fund to get money quickly “with no strings attached to communities…under attack by federal policies and priorities—immigrants, women, Muslim, and Arab American communities, Black people, Indigenous communities, LGBTQ communities, and all people of color” so that they would have “increased capacity [to] respond, act nimbly, and develop new strategies.” The funding decisions were made by a panel of community activists who have disbursed over $2 million to 100 groups in the last two years.
Some key sources of support for community organizing, like the North Star Fund, have long delegated decision-making to members of the most impacted communities, with local panels in New York City and the Hudson Valley. Following Eric Garner’s death at the hands of police in 2014, North Star’s Let Us Breathe Community Funding Committee has responded with $180,000 in grants.
The big money in philanthropy has been slower to embrace this approach, but even there, larger mainstream funders are beginning to experiment with more participatory grant-making. In its new “Culture, Equity and the Arts” initiative, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is aiming to reach deeper into marginalized communities by developing “new and more inclusive selection criteria,” and has stopped basing the amounts of grants on the size of an organization’s budget—a practice that has all too often left grassroots organizations with mere crumbs from the table. According to Inside Philanthropy, “Initiative stakeholders will recommend grantees to foundation leadership based on feedback from a five-to-eight-person participatory grant-making panel,” though “MacArthur’s president and board will ultimately retain approval authority.” And last year, the Ford Foundation solicited proposals to “study participatory grant-making further, with an emphasis on how to get larger legacy foundations to buy into the practice.”
While political change in the larger society works overtime to create the appetite and the opportunity for changes in the tax code and more public accountability for foundations, the work of the moment is to change the culture in which foundations operate. Both pressure and example have been successful in recent years in diversifying foundation leadership—in the last few years at least five of the country’s largest foundations, from Kellogg to Mellon, have chosen people of color as presidents—and in divestment of foundation endowments from fossil fuels, as several Rockefeller-connected funds have done. Philanthropy The Perils of Billionaire Philanthropy Chuck Collins
The task of democratizing philanthropy, though, involves something even more fundamental than diversifying staff or investments. It involves a significant shift in the locus of decision-making. To date, despite stirrings at giants like MacArthur and Ford, that kind of power shift has been largely confined to small foundations or pooled funds like North Star that raise money from a broader base of donors and are more insulated from any particular donor’s control or from the often-deadening hand of boards heavily weighted toward corporate and academic leaders. And while greater opening of foundation decision-making processes and power to excluded groups is an exciting development, it brings its own challenges. We made a number of efforts in that direction when I headed George Soros’s US foundation—for example, appointing a board of grassroots leaders in the South to vet and approve grants in a special initiative focused on the region—and it quickly posed some difficult issues. Would those making the grant decisions be excluded from applying for funds, to avoid conflicts of interest? What influence would they have on Soros’s thinking about how much money to spend, since the amount he was willing to experiment with was quite unequal to the scale of the change effort? Indeed, in a few years, as Soros decided to reorganize his global foundation and phase out a number of programs, the Southern initiative was a casualty, and the hope we had sparked in a part of the country that has been woefully neglected by philanthropic dollars turned to disappointment and bitterness.
And while there is plenty of group-think and mediocrity in institutional philanthropy now, at times its very unaccountability has made possible considerable boldness. Last year some of his admirers organized an evening recalling the legacy of David Hunter, a white man who for a quarter century until 1986 led the Stern Fund, established by descendants of Julius Rosenwald, the Sears Roebuck founder, a staunch ally and backer of civil rights and social justice causes in the 1960s and ’70s. Before dinner, a series of speakers now in their 70s who worked for Hunter extolled his personal leadership in steering a great fortune to progressive causes; after dinner, a younger, much more race- and gender-diverse panel paid homage and argued for shifting grant-making power to excluded communities along the lines of the examples I’ve cited above. As someone who’s held the reins of unaccountable philanthropic power and tried to use it over two decades to support the oppressed and the colonized, I’ve come to feel, on balance, that this is a shift that needs to take place. But it’s just possible that it could lead to grant-making that is less bold and has a more diffuse impact than what in its best moments an unaccountable system has produced.
And yet something else is at stake, which is confidence in the integrity of decisions about who gets access to the dollars produced by wealth and who does not. All institutions face challenges to their legitimacy in these times, from political parties to churches to media. There is no reason foundations should be exempt, given the influence they wield, albeit in less visible ways than other societal actors. The more foundation trustees and staff open up their decisions to those who have been marginalized, the more effective and informed their grant-making will be, and the more we will be able to trust it.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, the Bradley Foundation was incorrectly named.


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