Questioning a Gallant Gesture

A front page article in our local newspaper described how the incoming president of the University of Texas at Austin – the second largest university in Texas, by student population – has declined a $1 million salary in favor of “only” $750,000 per year (plus deferred pay, and a bonus which he also requested be capped at 10% instead of the offered 12%). Gregory Fenves is apparently concerned that a seven-figure salary could be negatively perceived by faculty and students.

I’m sure that Dr. Fenves has only the purest motives in requesting a lower salary, and in some circles his gesture is getting rave reviews, but I can’t help thinking this is yet another attempt to legitimize the angst over so-called income inequality that’s become a favorite cause du jour in liberal circles. And the implied, even if unintentional message he’s sending to students is that rewards for achievement should somehow be limited for the “greater good of society.”

A good question to ask Dr. Fenves would be “if $750,000 sends a better message than $1,000,000, wouldn’t working for $0 send the best message of all?” Seriously. What level of compensation is “right” for a given position or a given level of achievement? I suspect the answer to that question for many would be “I don’t know, but it’s less than you’re making now.”

Also, in light of UT’s 2014-2015 operating budget of $2.6 billion, Dr. Fenves’s gesture is completely inconsequential from a fiscal perspective (it works out to about $5/student). It won’t make an iota of difference in program or staff funding, or in the fees and tuition paid by students. If he wanted to truly have a measurable impact, he should have taken the full offer, then donated $250,000 each year to a scholarship fund, or to another worthy charitable cause. But this would have had the effect of transferring control from the “government” to the individual, another liberal no-no.

As a rather ironic footnote, on the same day we learn of Dr. Fenves’s gesture, we also learn the details of UT’s new basketball coach’s contract:

As far as I know, Coach Smart hasn’t offered to reduce his $22 million contract, apparently feeling that his individual accomplishments – past and expected – wholly justify that pay. I’m not really a basketball fan so I can’t say whether that’s a legitimate expectation, but I would never argue that he isn’t entitled to receive what the University is willing to give.