alt.education

On Mar 13, 12:53=A0pm, last_p...@rogers.com wrote:
> Holding Colleges Financially Accountable
>
> By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
> Wednesday, March 12, 2008 4:20 PM PT
>
> Philanthropy: Thomas Jefferson thought it a sin to compel a man to
> furnish "money for the propagation of opinions" he opposes. What is it
> when a university misuses funds from an endowment?

Thomas Jefferson thought a lot of things.
The only thing the revisionist idiots in Washington
can't accept is the very plain, clear-as-night truth
that he tought them all 200 years ago..
Which since that time, non-Euclidean Geometry. Darwin's Theory of
Evolution,
Quantum Mechanics, Set Theory, Nuclear Power, Chemical Warfare,
Missile Warfare,
lasers, fiber communications, Turing Machines, Artifical
Intelligence.
. Digital Processing, Internet, GPS and Satellites, Voyager
Spaceraft, Robotics,
Aerial Terrain Mapping and Gene Spliicing have been constructed for
the idiots.
Rather than more slave plantations in Virgina.



>
> On Wednesday, a New Jersey Superior Court judge set a trial date for
> what might be the most important donor intent case in the history of
> an issue that doesn't quite get the attention it deserves.
>
> In Robertson v. Princeton, scheduled to begin Oct. 1, the family of
> Charles and Marie Robertson will try to prove that the university has
> misused the generous financial gift contributed by the couple.
>
> In 1961, the Robertsons donated 700,000 shares of A&P stock, worth $35
> million at the time, to Princeton to create a foundation -- with the
> instructions that Princeton would use the endowment to train students
> for careers in foreign policy and international relations.
>
> Their goal was to "extend freedom throughout the world by improving
> the facilities for the training and education of men and women for
> government service." The grant was the couple's way of addressing the
> Cold War and the raging Soviet threat.
>
> Princeton, the plaintiffs claim, has not kept its end of the
> arrangement. Rather, it has used hundreds of millions of the endowment
> -- now worth almost $900 million -- for purposes that do not conform
> with the Robertson Foundation's mission. From 1990 to 2003, the family
> alleges, Princeton drained the fund of roughly $170 million for:
>
> * Construction projects, including $13 million that was taken from the
> foundation without notification and spent to build a facility that
> dedicates only a fourth of its space to the Woodrow Wilson School,
> which is supposed to be turning out the foreign policy and
> international relations students the Robertsons had in mind. The
> foundation's money has funded between half and three-quarters of the
> school's budget through the years.
>
> * Administrative and overhead costs, many of them padded or bogus, as
> well as tuition for students in other disciplines.
>
> * Research activities and programs that are outside of the Robertson
> Foundation mission.
>
> Going back to 1962, Princeton has charged the Robertson Foundation
> $375 million, less than one-fourth of which, the lawyers say, was
> dedicated to instruction that would turn out the scholars the
> Robertsons had envisioned.
>
> Family attorneys also say that Princeton -- which is actually placing
> fewer students in government slots than before the gift was made -- has
> secretly funded administrative and research expenses of the school's
> politics and economics departments with money from the endowment.
>
> The family wants the school to pay back all the money it has spent
> that is not connected to the goal set forth by the Robertsons and to
> "account for all of its expenditures of Foundation funds so that the
> court can determine whether such expenditures are consistent with
> terms of the restricted gift."
>
> Robertson v. Princeton is not an isolated case. In at least nine
> instances over the past eight years, donors have asked to have their
> grants returned because the school was diverting funds to expenditures
> unrelated to their wishes.
>
> In 1995, Yale University returned a $20 million gift. Left-wing
> faculty reportedly coveted the money, or at least a part of it, to
> advance a multicultural agenda. But the donor wanted the focus to be
> on Western civilization and insisted that the professors hired with
> his gift at least acknowledge our culture's accomplishments. At the
> time, it was recognized as the biggest gift ever returned to a donor.
>
> While Princeton desperately hopes it will be able keep its hands on
> the Robertsons' money, other universities and colleges might not be
> inclined to side with the New Jersey school.
>
> If wealthy donors can't be sure their money will be used
> appropriately, they're likely to be reluctant to give.
>
> As always, it's the abuse of a few that ruins things for the many.