The elite Sid­well Friends accept­ing $5 mil­lion of emer­gency Coro­na small busi­ness relief mon­ey has been float­ing in the news for over a week now but this arti­cle in The Atlantic hits where it hurts, focus­ing on the school’s use of “Quak­er val­ues” to jus­ti­fy its actions. It namechecks John Wool­man and the Fry fam­i­ly, then quotes three promi­nent aca­d­e­m­ic Friends (David Har­ring­ton Watt, Paul Ander­son, and Stephen Angell).

When Quak­ers Become Takers 

Sid­well Friends, one of the nation’s most elite pri­vate schools, cites its reli­gious val­ues in seek­ing gov­ern­ment money.

The Atlantic 

A few thoughts: it’s great to see an arti­cle on Friends actu­al­ly go out and inter­view Friends. The reporter obvi­ous­ly knew that focus­ing a cri­tique on “Quak­er val­ues” would get a reac­tion from some quarters.

There’s a great con­ver­sa­tion about this on a Face­book thread. Paul Ander­son says he was selec­tive­ly quot­ed and told the reporter that a case could be made that Quak­er fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty might well pre­clude using endow­ment funds for oper­at­ing expenses.