Last week a 3-2 decision by Connecticut’s Supreme Court dealt a blow to advocates of donors’ rights. In a case involving the University of Bridgeport, the court ruled that donors who believe their gifts have not been used as they intended have no right to sue to get their money back. But it was not at all clear how this decision, which applies to 26 other states with similar laws, will affect universities’ fund-raising efforts. The dissenting judges warned that the ruling would allow universities to double-cross donors and thus make them reluctant to give gifts. The majority was equally wary. ““Allowing donor lawsuits,’’ argued Flemming Northcott, would encourage a flood of ““time-consuming, fact-sensitive legislation’’ that would ““harm the very [educational] institutions’’ that current statutes are intended to protect.
The court’s decision comes after a series of conflicts involving universities and wealthy would-be donors. In 1994 New York City financier Kenneth Lipper offered Harvard $3.2 million to establish a tenured chair in Holocaust and related studies. But three years later the university has yet to fill the Holocaust chair. And now some academics are charging Lipper with meddling in the search for a tenured professor to head the still-unfunded program. Lipper, a Harvard Law School grad, denies that. He did reject one candidate who, because he was only a year away from retirement, did not meet the requirements of the gift. But Lipper was open to a younger, untenured Harvard scholar, Daniel J. Goldhagen. Goldhagen, however, is the object of considerable faculty controversy for his book, ““Hitler’s Willing Executioners,’’ which argues that German culture predisposed citizens to be anti-Semitic.
Lipper’s standoff with Harvard is hardly an isolated experience. As government cuts back on aid to higher education, universities are relying more on private donors. But the days when philanthropists issued universities blank checks are dwindling. According to the Council for Aid to Education, three out of every four gifts for current university operations (not endowments) are restricted.
In some instances, however, the thought behind the gift runs against the prevailing ideological winds. In 1995 Yale University returned $20 million to Houston tycoon Lee Bass after a faculty uproar. The donation came at a time when universities were expanding their coverage of non-Western societies. Plainly trying to buck that trend, Bass wanted his gift devoted to study of ““the core institutions, ideas and traditions’’ of Western civilization. This did not sit well with the Yale faculty. Beset by ideological conflict, Yale never could agree on hiring the professors needed for the program. Bass tried to renegotiate the conditions of his gift to give him some influence in the appointments, causing more outrage. Eventually the whole project collapsed.
Last July Yale again lost a gift of several million dollars when playwright Larry Kramer, who founded the AIDS-activist group ACT UP, offered to endow a permanent chair in gay studies at his alma mater. Yale countered with a proposal that would bring visiting professors to the campus, which Kramer rejected. Yale finally declined the gift, saying that gay studies was too narrow a field for a permanent professorship. Kramer remains puzzled by Yale’s decision. ““It shouldn’t be such a problem to give away your money,’’ he says. ““I don’t think I was asking for anything untoward.''
Obviously, a multimillion-dollar gift can be a mixed blessing. As universities set their campaign goals ever higher, presidents are finding it more and more difficult to fend off donors with agendas. ““Campaigns at some institutions are seen as referenda on the president or the school,’’ says James Freedman, the president of Dartmouth. ““That’s the reason you cannot fail.’’ But how much is enough? Today 17 colleges and universities have combined endowments of $44.7 billion–greater than the combined endowments of 422 other schools. Carnegie was right: the wants of our universities do indeed increase. And so do the wants of their rich alumni.
