evidence: Column: With a $300-million donation to Harvard, a hedge fund billionaire shows why we need a wealth tax Harvard University wants us to bow down to the exceptional generosity of Kenneth C. Griffin, a hedge fund billionaire who just made a $300-million gift to the school’s graduate program. [...] One particularly questionable category of high-level philanthropy is tax-advantaged donations to rich universities such as, well, Harvard. That ostensibly nonprofit institution has an endowment of more than $50 billion, the largest in the country. On what planet can a taxpayer-subsidized addition to this endowment be justified?