Penn for PILOTs

“If Penn's stated commitment to the children and families in Philadelphia is to matter, we must be firm and steady to act--now more than ever. PILOTs is a small though critical step toward enacting our commitment. Most importantly, we are intellectually and financially positioned to contribute to efforts that support the education and well-being of our City's children and families and to reduce the persistent disparities and inequalities that limit their opportunity. It is time that the non-profit tax exemption be put in line with PILOTs to ensure that Penn's commitment matters.”

—Vivian L. Gadsden, William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Professor of Education, Professor, Africana Studies, Faculty, Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, Director, National Center on Fathers and Families  

“Penn’s voluntary contribution to a PILOTs program would be a rare instance of the coincidence of selfishness and altruism. Any increase in the quality of Philadelphia public schooling would be of direct benefit to Penn employees, while also contributing to make our city a more equitable, just, and healthy place for all its residents.“

—Kathleen Brown, David Boies Professor of History, Outgoing Director, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and Alice Paul Center

—Jonathan D. Katz, Associate Professor of Practice, History of Art, Incoming Interim Director, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and Alice Paul Center

“Count me in as one alumnus in favor of PILOTs (Payment in Lieu of Taxes). The University does not pay property tax, sales tax, income tax, capital gains tax or use and occupancy tax either. The City is merely asking to be partially reimbursed for services Penn uses and needs: schools, fire, courts, streets, among others. You name it; we use it. 

Let’s pay this bill tomorrow with a smile before we are assessed what we really owe. The climate has changed. Part of Penn’s success is because of Philadelphia, not in spite of it.

The City is facing a plethora of problems and issues, some of which can be solved with dollars. This is our opportunity to once again use our substantial resources to give back to our City, in a small way, and help fuel the next stage in Philadelphia’s development. This will be beneficial to both the City and the University.”

—Hanley P. Bodek C' 1977

“A cop kneeling on a man's neck for nearly nine minutes, that really hits us in the chest. But we should also be thinking about the ways that a child’s future is robbed of him because he's exposed to lead in his school. That's another sort of violence, and as long as we're not paying our fair share to the city of Philadelphia, Penn is complicit.”

—Jolyon Thomas, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies

"Contributions to the city's wage tax, funding for the Penn initiated Penn Alexander School (which now serves a wealthier, whiter population due to gentrification), and implementing other Penn controlled service programs through institutions like the Netter Center does not cancel out the need for Penn to contribute to an Educational Equity Fund that local Philadelphians would control themselves. By taking a paternalistic approach to its financial contributions to the city, Penn is not contributing to the process of Philadelphians deciding how to best address the educational inequity that many low-income, black and brown Philadelphia children like myself have to face every day." 

—Anea Moore, Rhodes Scholar, Former Netter Center Student Advisory Board Chair, Philadelphia Resident and Graduate of the Penrose School & Masterman High School

“As long as Philadelphia’s public schools depend on property taxes for their funding, Penn should pay property taxes. Our University can and should embrace PILOTs as a basic civic responsibility.”

—Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Associate Professor, History, SAS

Dismantling systemic racism at Penn necessary entails defunding the police and the resourcing of public schools, public health and community institutions in Philadelphia.  

In paying PILOTS, Penn will take a significant and concrete step to support its expressed commitment to address economic, racial and social inequalities in the city it calls home.

—Nikhil Anand, Associate Professor, Anthropology, SAS

Penn as an institution represents a belief in the necessity of education. We have a huge responsibility, as a wealthy educational establishment in a city where public schools are desperately underfunded, to contribute financially to support the learning and development of all children and teenagers in the city, not just the wealthy ones.

—Emily Wilson, Professor, Classical Studies

“It is beyond time for the governor and state legislature to rethink the broad non-profit tax exemption for the full range of activities covered by college and university campuses. The dormitories are principally apartments; the dining halls, restaurants; and the fitness centers, health clubs. The time has come to reconsider more narrowly those functions of colleges and universities that indeed provide a contribution to the (local) community commensurate with their tax exempt status under Pennsylvania law.”

—Dennis Culhane, The Dana and Andrew Stone Chair in Social Policy, SP2

“The underfunding of the School District of Philadelphia, both overall and relative to neighboring counties, is one of the most serious challenges to social justice and quality of life in the city. While I am gratified by the University’s longstanding and robust engagement in local schools, the fact that the city’s largest employer and property holder does not directly contribute to tax revenue is a major impediment to improving public education in the city. With the combined impact of the Covid-19 crisis and heightened attention to racial injustice in the United States, now is the time for Penn to join our peer institutions in contributing to PILOTs.”

—Chenoa A. Flippen, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Population Studies Center

"Having taken Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) classes twice and being a teaching-assistant to an ABCS class, I have found Penn's claim of 'mutually beneficial' partnerships with West Philadelphia schools is not true. It's an exploitative and asymmetrical partnership that enriches Penn students' educational experience without changing the underlying power and privilege inequality between the university and the community."

—Adamseged Abebe, C'19 SP2'19 | Rhodes Scholar 2019 | Founder and Former President of Society of African International Students at Penn (SAIP)

“Long a significant voice for diversity, inclusion, and equity among faculty, staff, and students, Penn, in this moment of national moral crisis and renewed awareness of systemic racism, has an opportunity to shift the needle on public education in Philadelphia. This burden is not Penn’s alone, but its position of status and privilege can be powerfully leveraged through contributions to an Educational Equity Fund aimed at making the city’s schools every bit as good as those in neighboring counties. Although Philadelphia’s appalling poverty rate has many root causes, underfunded public schools is surely one of the most visible and disturbing. Penn needs to do its part to change that.”

—Neville E. Strumpf, Professor and Past Interim Dean, School of Nursing

“Especially given the tremendous benefits enjoyed by the faculty, students, alumni and administrators of an elite educational institution like Penn, this university should do its part in tackling the racial and economic inequalities that are continually reproduced around us. Paying PILOTS would be a symbolic and practical way to make a difference in addressing what Jonathan Kozol rightly described as “savage inequalities” in public school funding -- inequalities that result in so many children with so much potential never even making it to college, let alone an ivy league institution like Penn.”

—Rudra Sil, Professor, Political Science & SAS Director, Huntsman Program in Int’l Studies & Business

"Philadelphia students, families, educators and activists have long exposed the unconscionable inequities in the public school system and advocated for change. It is time for Penn to make a strong institutional statement that we see our future as connected to the future and thriving of all Philadelphians by paying PILOTs. As one of the prime beneficiaries of dispossession and gentrification in our city, Penn ought to invest in the city that has enabled it to grow exponentially. By supporting the educational opportunities of Philadelphia’s youth, Penn can take an important step toward its professed ideals of high-quality education, inclusion, and civic responsibility."

—Gerald Campano, Professor of Education, Chair of Literacy, Culture, and International Education Division, GSE

"Penn’s tax exemption is a root cause of racial and economic inequality in Philadelphia.  As our country and all of its institutions face a historic reckoning, we can no longer evade this reality.  We must take responsibility for paying our fair share to the Philadelphia public schools."

—Amy C. Offner, Associate Professor of History

“There is shame and pathos in a great University set in a city that struggles to educate its children.  As people of all races rise in Philadelphia to affirm that Black lives matter, Penn should rise with them and affirm our willingness to support education in Philadelphia through PILOTS.”

—Anne Norton, Stacey and Henry Jackson President’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science

“Times of crisis present hard choices that reveal our highest priorities.  Penn must sustain its core teaching and research missions, but our next priority should be to aid our city. Philadelphia’s long under-resourced school system, funded chiefly by property taxes, faces huge challenges in coping with the virus crisis.  It is time for Penn, the city’s wealthiest educational institution, to pay PILOTS.”

—Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science

“Penn argues that it contributes to the city through targeted investments in its immediate neighborhood, scholarships, and academically based community service courses. But these privately controlled, geographically concentrated interventions do not fulfill the fundamental responsibility that every resident has to contribute to the public governance—to public schools available to all, financed by all, and governed by democratic procedures.”

—Justin McDaniel, Professor of Religious Studies

“In these extraordinarily hard times for our city and its public education system, we ask Penn to contribute to closing the gap in opportunities afforded to rich and poor families and students in Philadelphia. We ask Penn to create an Educational Equity Fund governed by the school district and the city of Philadelphia. The fund would help the schools meet urgent needs such as removing lead and asbestos from buildings. In the short term, the fund would also help afford the extra cleaning and safety measures necessary to make teaching in the midst of the pandemic as safe as possible for our school district students' and teachers. In other words, Penn would help bring to the larger local community the safety standards it is prudently applying to its own students, faculty, and staff.”

—Tulia Falleti, Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor of Political Science and Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program.

“Philadelphia Jobs with Justice launched a campaign in May to make wealthy non-profits contribute to an Educational Equity Fund for public schools. This idea has been raised for years at Penn, but the Board of Trustees has failed to respond.  We want our university finally to pay its fair share.”

—Mary Summers, Senior Fellow at the Fox Leadership Program and Lecturer in Political Science