This national story hits close to home for Elon. He is an Elon parent and was a recent graduation speaker. He was the featured guest/speaker at a fall fundraising kickoff for the School of Communications - he is also a major donor for the new building - part of which will be named for him. A bit awkward.
While I do not know how this will finally play out, this I know…if charities, universities, and other recipients of large donations carefully vetted their contributors…there would be less of both (recipients & donors)
From Elon’s perspective, this too will pass…and so they say…“Long Live Elon”
The school will continue with his name. Whether you respect his career decisions or not, the money he gave his very real, and therefore deserves to have his name inside the building just like the other handful of donors. The communications school will not be named after him, just a wing inside of it. I respect that Elon will not turn their backs on a family that has been nothing but helpful and generous to them since day 1.
I’m on the fence here. It’s not “career decisions” - it’s his tendency to embellish and exaggerate news stories to promote his role within the story. Elon has held him up as a role model - does he still merit that treatment? Donations can be returned. Does it benefit Elon University or Elon students to be associated with a disgraced news anchor? Hopefuly he can turn things around and regain respect in the future. But he has not redeemed himself yet.
Within our society, I observe a great distance between people that show grace and those who have disgraced themselves, their families, and so on. Why, we even have former presidents that have disgraced our country. I worry less about the association and more about altruism.