November 2004 - VOLUME 25 - NUMBER 11
T H E L A W R E N C E S U M M E R S M E M O R I A L A W A R D
November 2004 - VOLUME 25 - NUMBER 11
T H E L A W R E N C E S U M M E R S M E M O R I A L A W A R D
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THE LAWRENCE SUMMERS MEMORIAL AWARD*
The November Lawrence Summers Memorial Award goes to the Philadelphia School District. The District has announced that it will sell naming rights to a new high school for $5 million, and that it also plans to auction off naming rights to auditoriums, classrooms and other sections of the school. Evidencing that the District knows its playing with fire, it has stipulated that alsohol and tobacco companies are not eligible to make bids. "It is a sign of the decline of our values that we name things not after our heroes or history, but after corporations with the deepest pockets," commented Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert. Source: Associated Press, "Philadelphia School District to Seel Naming Rights to New High School," November 11, 2004.
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| *In a 1991 internal memorandum, then-World Bank economist Lawrence Summers argued for the transfer of waste and dirty industries from industrialized to developing countries. “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (lesser developed countries)?” wrote Summers, who went on to serve as Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration and is now president of Harvard University. “I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. ... I’ve always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low [sic] compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City.” Summers later said the memo was meant to be ironic. |