Losses lend purpose to UMass institute
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AMHERST - Kenneth R. Feinberg has spent his career putting price tags on what's priceless.
The Feinberg Institute for Life, Values and Compensation Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is charged with exploring the weighty questions that have been the focus of Feinberg's work.
Feinberg, a Washington attorney best known for his role as head of the federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, spoke Thursday at the university.
His speech, titled "The September 11 Victim Compensation Fund: Private Pain and Public Compensation," addressed the value of human life, the question that is the crux of the institute's mission.
"I felt after the 9/11 fund, when we tried to value what each life was worth in terms of public compensation, that there ought to be a great deal more study, research, consideration of options," Feinberg said in an interview Thursday. "And when UMass asked me if I would devote time and resources to try to set up a program here to focus on this subject, the value of human life, I jumped at the chance."
Started in 2006, the institute is devoted to "pioneering a unique field of research and scholarship that will guide policymakers, the legal community, decision makers, and others as they grapple with the question, 'How much is a life worth?'" according to its Web site. Feinberg's talk was the first in a series of lectures to be offered by the institute this fall.
GazetteNET Video: Kenneth Feinberg discusses the compensation project for 9/11 victims
Feinberg, a UMass alumnus who majored in history, first faced the question as a court-appointed special settlement master in cases involving Agent Orange, the defoliant used during the Vietnam War. Since then, he has overseen mediation for the bridge collapse in Staten Island, N.Y., in 2003 and the distribution of donated funds to the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007, among others.
But Sept. 11, Feinberg said, was a unique case.
"I have said that the 9/11 fund was a great idea, that it was the right thing to do at the time," said Feinberg. "But I question whether - despite its success - it will ever be replicated."
Feinberg said the 9/11 fund was a response to a large-scale national tragedy, and was created by statute by Congress to "demonstrate solidarity and empathy" in a time of crisis. He also said, however, that Congress had "a vested interest in trying to encourage people whose families were victims of 9/11: 'Don't sue.'"
In 2006, Feinberg wrote a book, "What is Life Worth?: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Fund and Its Effort to Compensate the Victims of September 11th." That same year, John V. Lombardi, then UMass chancellor, approached Feinberg to establish an institute to fill "the vacuum in terms of research and study in this particular area."
Feinberg said the institute was kicked off in 2006 with an executive retreat, at which former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, associate Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and other national figures spent a day and a half focusing on Feinberg's "thorny problem."
The institute also announced Thursday the establishment of an annual "Scholar in Residence Program," in which scholars and academics in numerous fields will engage students and faculty in examining how different societies value human life.
The Feinberg family's lecture series, "Measuring the Value of Human Life," will be sponsored throughout the fall by the UMass history department.
