It’s the free market at work.
Right-wing liberal arts college Hillsdale College is suing the University of Missouri for $5 million, alleging that Mizzou has failed to stick to the ideological terms set for a gift from one of its alumni.
The University of Missouri never should have accepted such a “gift” with these strings attached. Demanding that professors at a public institution profess loyalty to an ideology is not academic freedom, either individually or corporately. Just give the money to Hillsdale and be done with it.
Also, the $5 million endowment funds six business school professors? If the endowed funds throw off about 4% annually, that is $200,000 each year. Divided six ways, there is no way that funds their total salaries. So the students and taxpayers are paying the rest of their salaries and benefits, which are considerably more than the endowment is paying for.
Screw Hillsdale and former Governor Nixon.
Rats fighting over a piece of moldy cheese.
Typical Reich-Winger “Loyalty” to “their conservative principles”.
And the same goes to George Mason University in Virginia for accepting HUGE annual donations from the Koch brothers. It has become a Conservative Reich-wing welfare refuge for the Reich’s economists and lawyers, and an incubator for so many more.
Agree. WTF was Nixon thinking?
It’s likely that the endowment is used to supplement the salaries of the incumbents, rather than to pay their salary and benefits. I would very surprised if Mizzou has touched the endowment itself.
As a retired college professor I wholeheartedly agree. Any college or university that agrees to allow donors to dictate curriculum is making a Faustian bargain that cuts to the very soul of the academy. The essence of academic study and research is free exploration of the universe of human knowledge and experience, of science, the arts, philosophy, including theology, and well, everything freely, openly, and without foreclosing on potential new information, knowledge, and paradigms.
To compromise the notion of free exploration for a few dollars is to make a suicide pact for the institution.
“dedicated and articulate disciples of the free and open market economy.” - if that is as descriptive as the bequest gets - it would seem that this should go nowhere - but if it ends up in the hands of some right wing crazy judges who think it is their right to judge things the way they want this to be (screw fairness) then it might be tough …
Hillsdale is a strident institution that cranks out rigid totalitarians
2013 - Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn described minority students as “dark ones” during a state legislature subcommittee hearing regarding the adoption of Common Core State Standards.
…the Michigan college issued an apology after its president made racially offensive remarks
Hillsdale College praises President Donald Trump’s harsh immigration policies and portrays racial and ethnic diversity not as a national strength, but rather as a source of division, an enemy of the common good, and “a solvent that dissolves the unity and cohesiveness of a nation.
from a a recent Hillsdale Commentary: Immigration A Plot To Make Whites Minority And Secure Welfare State
Hillsdale is a “Christian” collage.
Hillsdale probably needs the money, so is willing to go after this rather than ask donors to contribute directly to Hillsdale. BTW, Hillsdale would have a little money if they stopped sending me that stupid screed Imprimis, but I don’t mind having them waste their money.
The best possible result:
Mizzou finds a legal way to spend the tainted money defending against Hillsdale’s efforts to claim it.
I’m wondering if this is simply a version of direct or indirect wing-nut welfare.
Either Mizzou didn’t hire the wing-nuts that thought they automatically deserved those jobs - or Hillsdale really, really wants to get its hands on that $5M endowment.
(According to Wikipedia, Hillsdale doesn’t accept any state or federal financial aid because they consider affirmative action to be a form of racism and they don’t like the reporting requirements for student body diversity, etc…)
Yes. A common approach would be to give the current holder of the endowed position some “summer” salary and/or a “buyout” of some teaching requirements, as well as funds to be used in “research” at their discretion (but subject to university policies and oversight).
Research spending could include support for grad students, travel to conferences, digital equipment and software, subscriptions, books, printing supplies and services, etc.
What research professors generally want most is less teaching time and more money to entice the department’s most promising grad students to work with them.
But… as vee’ve alvredy taken ‘zee pledge…
No court will delve into parsing whether the donor’s conditions attached to his gift are being met precisely.
Yes, that case was notorious. I believe Florida State U also accepted some Koch money with similar strings attached.
Heavenly Hillsdale. Or not so heavenly . . .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/18/097r-111899-idx.html
Personally, I’m more concerned that Mizzou has six economics professors openly proclaiming themselves to be Austrian economics devotees. That’s scary, given just how wildly off-base those economic theories have been in the past decade or so.
A lot depends on the text of the bequest. Do we have it? Because if it’s just
Then pretty much anything but straight marxists could be parsed into compliance. If the austrian school crap was in the actual text rather than just part of the donor’s history, then Mizzou should never have accepted the money, but I’d be willing to help with an amicus brief saying the donor couldn’t have been of sound mind…
(The Koch money to GMU, afaik, is phrased in pretty anodyne fashion, it’s just that the deal has mostly been time-limited so that everyone knows the continuing flow is dependent on appointing the right loons. And then once enough loons are appointed, further employment decisions go to a facially neutral committee of those selfsame loons and the whole thing can perpetuate itself indefinitely.)