At Morehouse, pomp and (better) circumstances

Sitting through graduation commencement speeches can be a chore, especially when the speaker is some friend of the university president dragooned into service because the celebrity the students really want to hear from charges too much to deliver an inspirational speech.

Not that it matters much. Newly minted graduates are usually too distracted imagining their bright futures — or dreading their inevitable indentured servitude — to pay much attention to the politician or alumniwho-made-good speaking in a monotone at the podium.

If you can remember the name or gender of the person who gave your college commencement speech, you’re in the minority. The most memorable thing about graduation day is jockeying for selfies with people you most likely will never see again and accounting for the sudden nostalgia you feel for a campus community you once couldn’t wait to put behind you.

That’s probably what the nearly 400 young men at Morehouse College were thinking over the weekend as they sat through a hot Atlanta afternoon ceremony to receive their degrees.

Though they had a more intriguing graduation speaker than most in Robert F. Smith, the billionaire investor who founded Vista Equity Partners and is believed to be the richest black man in America, they had no reason to

believe he wouldn’t deliver the typical nostrums speakers reserve for such occasions — believe in yourself, follow your passion, don’t eat the yellow snow — blah, blah, blah.

So imagine the surprise of those who were daydreaming about the upcoming finale of “Game of Thrones” or fretting over a lack of job offers when Mr. Smith departed from his prepared remarks to say something extraordinary. “We’re going to put a little fuel in your bus,” he said, and “... my family is making a grant to eliminate [your] student loans.”

Even as Mr. Smith was saying it, it wasn’t clear to the graduates or their families what he was doing, though they knew enough to cheer and pump fists. The Morehouse officials on the dais weren’t given a heads-up. They were stunned.

It wasn’t an Oprah Winfrey moment where she tells everyone sitting in the studio audience “you get a car and you get a car and you get a car and you get a car.” Mr. Smith was enthusiastic but understated. His gesture to relieve the Morehouse class of 2019 of its crushing student debt was accompanied by a plea for reciprocal generosity on their part.

“Let’s make sure every class has the same opportunity going forward, because we are enough to take care of our own community,” he said through sustained applause. “We are enough to ensure we have all of the opportunities of the American dream, and we will show it to each other through our actions and through our words and through our deeds.”

Everyone was on their feet at that point. For many of them, facing the future without the burden of nearly $100,000 in debt was way better than taking home a free Chevy.

As I read accounts online and on cable news, it played out like the perfect feel-good news story. What’s not to love about a black billionaire encouraging graduates of an HBCU to “pay it forward” and do for others what he was going to do for them?

It is estimated that Mr. Smith will wipe out $25 million in student loan debt for the graduates. What a great story all around — or so I thought.

I made the mistake of reading online comments about Mr. Smith’s generosity. I skipped over the usual doggerel from racist trolls and read the “reasonable” objections from people determined to see something sinister, or at least suspicious in the gift to the graduating class.

What is the tax liability to the students? What about those who worked multiple jobs and paid their way through Morehouse without incurring debt? What do they get out of the deal?

Why Morehouse and not a less high-profile HBCU that can barely keep its doors open? Will there be a similar gift to an all-female graduating class at Spelman or another school? Doesn’t this amnesty encourage dependence on billionaires? Wouldn’t it be better if all millionaires and billionaires were taxed at a rate that would guarantee a free college education for all — or at least at a substantially reduced cost? What about those who dropped out a semester or two before graduation because of the cost? Why Morehouse and not one of the “for-profit schools” that disproportionate numbers of blacks are snookered into attending? My kid is stuck paying college debt, so why should I be happy for graduates of Morehouse getting a free ride? Why is Mr. Smith only doing this for “the blacks?” How many whites are enrolled at Morehouse? Isn’t this kind of generosity a form of reverse discrimination?

You get the picture. Mr. Smith’s grand gesture was a nice counterpoint to the depressing cheating scandal at elite colleges and universities dominating the news lately, but his generosity sent the wrong signal according to those who still think our society is a meritocracy.

In America, public displays of generosity always bring out the contrariness of those who can be generous only in theory.