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Legal Commentary

: Prawfs

MacArthur Grants: Rewards or Incentives for Creative Life on the Margins?

By Dan Markel, Ethan Leib, Rick Garnett, Matt Bodie, Paul Horwitz , Steve Vladeck, and Orly Lobel

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Following up on Adam's earlier post and the comments therein about Elyn Saks' receipt today of a MacArthur genius grant, I was wondering about a larger issue: whether foundations really should be showering $$ on folks like the professors at Harvard (and USC Law), where these folks are already making a decent living for the work they do. The point of the MacArthurs, as I understand it, is to give people the time and money and freedom to do the cool work they've been engaged in recently. I think that's awesome--and would certainly love a little Mac money thrown my way. But are the folks already making north of 100K and enjoying job security at universities the people who should benefit from this windfall largesse?

To be sure, I don't have the time or inclination to deny the "genius" status of Professor Saks or the other prof recipients. But I think if I were a steward for the foundation and trying to optimize the social output from genius-type talents, and still committed to doing this without a real application process, I'd rather see the scarce funds allocated to those creative geniuses who are, in a word, freelancing, and thus wondering who's going to cover their health care benefits for the next five years. Am I wrong to think some of these choices are sub-optimal on those grounds alone?? I recognize that if the point of the awards were simply to recognize great contributions over the course of one's career, like a Nobel (?), then that determination should be made without regard to the job security of the recipient. But the Macs' genius grants are purposefully different, don't you think?

Full post as published by Prawfs on September 22, 2009 (boomark / email).