2019 Summer Update

DEAR FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS,

Grateful for your interest in the Manhattan Institute (MI), I am delighted to share with you this President’s Update—my first since assuming the presidency of MI in May. You will read about the work of MI’s scholars to shape the public debate on issues central to our mission of fostering greater economic choice, individual responsibility, and a flourishing civil society. As you review our latest efforts, I hope that you will be moved to support MI financially. We have much work to do, and we would be honored to have your support.

On a range of pressing issues—from the safety and well-being of city dwellers in San Francisco and Seattle, to steadily rising U.S. budget deficits and health-care costs, to the American academy’s troubling devotion to divisive identity politics—MI’s scholars are putting forward timely policy ideas.

Take, for example, the recent work of MI senior fellows Chris Pope and Brian Riedl, who are advancing reasoned arguments on the subjects of federal health-care and budget-deficit reform, respectively. And I hope you saw Heather Mac Donald’s incisive Wall Street Journal piece, Who ‘Deserves’ to Go to Harvard?, in which she takes aim at college administrators who, in their fixation on race, class, and privilege, produce campuses that are more ideological hothouses than bastions of reason. At the same time, MI’s City Journal remains focused on improving the quality of life in America’s urban centers. Consider Charles McElwee’s work about the challenges facing Rust Belt cities and how to ameliorate them; or, on the West Coast, Christopher Rufo’s searing commentary on Seattle’s decline in the face of rising homelessness and public disorder—and how, from Seattle’s mistakes, other cities can learn valuable lessons.

In all these efforts, MI scholars provide much-needed sobriety and policy leadership at a time of deep division in American life. And they remind policymakers and the public at large that there is always a way forward if we adhere to our time-tested principles applied in thoughtful, pragmatic ways. I hope that after reviewing this update, you might find us worthy of your support. I wish you and your family a safe and healthy summer.

Sincerely,
Reihan Salam
President

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