I have some sympathy with this position, but de facto governments, state and federal, impose very very few restrictions on charities and non profits. As long as

I have some sympathy with this position, but de facto governments, state and federal, impose very very few restrictions on charities and non profits. As long as they aren't outright scams they can mostly do what they like. Even outright scams can skate along for a while. There are two ways to fix this problem--assuming one thinks it's a problem. One would be to leverage the myriad benefits we provide to do more to ensure that these organizations are acting in the public interest. That's a pretty tall order though. We'd be looking at a ton of new laws/regulations/bureaucracies to make tens of thousands of determinations. In this particular case, it's not clear to me that Harvard isn't at least not acting against the public interest. The other way would be to eliminate the tax advantages and let the chips fall where they may. Again, assuming one thinks there is a problem, that seems the preferable solution to me.