Susan G. Komen for the Cure has been the recognized leader for more 30 years in the fight against breast cancer here in the US – and increasingly around the world.
As you know, I have always kept Komen’s mission and the women we serve as my highest priority – as they have been for the entire organization, the Komen Affiliates, our many supporters and donors, and the entire community of breast cancer survivors. I have carried out my responsibilities faithfully and in line with the Board’s objectives and the direction provided by you and Liz.
We can all agree that this is a challenging and deeply unsettling situation for all involved in the fight against breast cancer. However, Komen’s decision to change its granting strategy and exit the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood and its grants was fully vetted by every appropriate level within the organization. At the November Board meeting, the Board received a detailed review of the new model and related criteria. As you will recall, the Board specifically discussed various issues, including the need to protect our mission by ensuring we were not distracted or negatively affected by any other organization’s real or perceived challenges. No objections were made to moving forward.
I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone’s political beliefs or ideology. Rather, both were based on Komen’s mission and how to better serve women, as well as a realization of the need to distance Komen from controversy. I believe that Komen, like any other nonprofit organization, has the right and the responsibility to set criteria and highest standards for how and to whom it grants.
What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision – one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact – has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly.
Just as Komen’s best interests and the fight against breast cancer have always been foremost in every aspect of my work, so too are these my priorities in coming to the decision to resign effective immediately. While I appreciate your raising a possible severance package, I respectfully decline. It is my most sincere hope that Komen is allowed to now refocus its attention and energies on its mission.
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Rick Santorum dealt an embarrassing setback to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign Tuesday night, sweeping non-binding contests across three states and raising new questions about conservatives’ willingness to accept Romney as their nominee.
Santorum beat Romney handily in the Missouri primary and Minnesota caucuses, and well after midnight on the East Coast he was also declared the winner of Colorado’s caucuses. He defeated Romney by 30 percentage points in Missouri, 55 percent to 25 percent; in Minnesota, Santorum took 45 percent to Ron Paul’s 27 percent and Romney’s 17 percent.
The margin in Colorado was the closest of the three contests — Santorum led by less than 4 points with almost 90 percent of precincts in. But that defeat may have stung the most for Romney, who led polling in the Western state, where his Mormon faith was expected to be an asset.
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Florence Green’s passing changes nothing about our view of World War I – right now. The “Great War” was seen as incomplete in its own era, and increasingly became a bloody footnote to the conflict that resolved the question of whether Europe (and thus the world) would be dominated by Anglo-Franco democratic sensibilities or Prussian authoritarianism. Such thoughts today seem as foreign as an Austro-Hungarian Empire, or that an assassination of an Archduke nearly 98 1/2 years ago in Sarajevo could spark a global war. Heck, plenty of people don’t even remember the conflict in Bosnia & Herzegovina in the 1990s.
The task of preserving the significance of World War I, indeed any war, falls not on the Florence Greens of the world nor historians. It falls a little on everyone to remember such sacrifices and remind the next generation why they mattered.
