In an effort to dissociate themselves from the Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who was banned from the NBA and fined 2.5M, the University of UCLA has decided to decline a $3M donation from the Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation for kidney research.
UCLA issued this response following Sterling’s ban and a ‘falsely’ suggestion in an ad in Sunday’s LA Times that the school thanked him for the donation.
Mr. Sterling’s divisive and hurtful comments demonstrate that he does not share UCLA’s core values as a public university that fosters diversity, inclusion and respect. For those reasons, UCLA has decided to return Mr. Sterling’s initial payment of $425,000 and reject the remainder of a $3 million pledge he recently made to support basic kidney research by the UCLA Division of Nephrology. UCLA has received numerous inquiries about an advertisement in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times falsely suggesting that it was UCLA publicly thanking him for the gift. The ad was placed by Mr. Sterling, not the university.
Certainly the right move by UCLA and probably the only one they could have made.
[Pic: @Reclaim_UC]
