[H]ow can I represent a school that refuses to divest from fossil fuels, that refuses to pay PILOTs to its city, that has not helped stop the displacement of 68 families living just blocks away from the heart of campus, and — on top of all of this — that detains protesters with its own private police force? On the day that I finish my Ph.D — a six-year effort with some of the greatest teachers and colleagues I’ve ever had — I will be ashamed to be graduating from Penn.

The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) largely relies on funding from property taxes to support its students and families. Therefore our failure to contribute property taxes to the community directly and negatively impacts Philadelphia public schools… The simple fact is this: Penn’s partnership with local elementary schools is an inadequate substitute for the very real money we owe the city of Philadelphia.

Incoming Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. must make identifying sources of sustained funding his highest priority… While PILOTs are voluntary, the superintendent and others are empowered to make an appeal to these institutions to ask them to voluntarily contribute. The practice of nonprofits making PILOTs to their municipal governments is not a new one. During Mayor Ed Rendell’s administration in the 1990s, Philadelphia nonprofits paid PILOTs to the city annually.

Imagine how much more money we could have for vital social programs for our nation if we taxed endowments? Harvard’s is $53 billion and, because it’s invested in the stock market, growing tax-free. Yale’s endowment grew by 40 percent this year, making it worth more than $42 billion. “Tax-free” makes it sound like there are no costs to such endowments, but they’re actually tax subsidized by us, the taxpayers.

What should we do? Should we take what Penn is giving and shrug our shoulders at market forces beyond our control? No. Should we refuse the money and improvements that our school so desperately needs? Yes, actually. I advocate that the school district only accept financial assistance on a district-wide basis, and that Penn pay PILOTs.

When universities like Drexel and Penn cherry-pick the communities that they want to invest in, gentrification follows, and low-income families lose out.

Elite universities like Harvard and Penn are using their tax-exempt status to rob public coffers blind. The solution is easy: tax them.

There’s precedent for more direct financial contributions than loosely defined “community benefit”: After Penn for PILOTS drew attention to Penn’s lack of tax payments for years, Penn committed $100 million in 2020 to the Philadelphia School District.

In our minds, the best thing for the university to do is to pay 40 percent of its forgone property taxes to the city of Philadelphia under a contractual relationship, where that is understood to happen not only now, and not only ten years from now, but for as many years as the University of Pennsylvania exists in Philadelphia… Let me just reiterate here: all Philadelphians are giving Penn a gift every year by choosing not to tax Penn’s property. So Penn can pay back that gift by paying some of those forgone property taxes as a way of lifting all boats.