NETFLIX CEO DONATES TO HBCUS

Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hasting and his wife, Patty Quillin, announced on Wednesday they are donating $120 million to Spelman College, Morehouse College and the United Negro College Fund.

The donation, which comes amid a national reckoning over racial injustice and police brutality, is the largest-ever individual contribution supporting scholarships at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

“We’ve supported these three extraordinary institutions for the last few years because we believe that investing in the education of Black youth is one of the best ways to invest in America’s future,” Hastings and Quillings said in a statement. “Both of us had the privilege of a great education and we want to help more students — in particular students of color — get the same start in life.”

The two noted that HBCUs are dwarfed by other universities in terms of endowments. They said that “white capital” generally “flows to predominantly white institutions, perpetuating capital isolation.”

Each institution is set to receive $40 million. Hastings’s net worth is about $5.3 billion, according to Bloomberg News.

Hastings and Quillin added that they hoped the donations would combat this issue and help reverse “generations of inequity in our country.”

Spelman College has already made plans to use the money to fund four-year scholarships named for alumnus and civil rights icon Dovey Johnson Roundtree.