In 2002, the university received a $5 million bequest . . . to fund six professorships at the Trulaske College of Business to be filled by devotees of free market economics.
[The will included] a unique enforcement provision. Mizzou would be required to certify every four years to the satisfaction of Hillsdale College that each professorship had been filled by “a dedicated and articulate disciple of the Ludwig von Mises (Austrian) School of Economics.” The remaining funds would revert to Hillsdale in the event that this requirement was not met.But the university obviously doesn't approve of Austrian economics. You might suppose, therefore, that its moral dilemma was whether it was justified in taking the money. Just kidding. Of course they took the money. The moral dilemma was their concern that "acceding to [the donor's] request would consign the school to being 'held hostage by a particular ideology.'" Ideology is wrong, at least when it's the wrong ideology. The university stands foursquare against it.
Unfortunately, the university was dumb enough to generate internal memoranda admitting that it was trying to circumvent the donor's intent, explaining that “the Austrian School of Economics is quite controversial ... [w]e didn’t want to wade into that controversy, so we focused on some Austrian tenets that are compatible with what we do in our business school.” That's pretty close to “a dedicated and articulate disciple of the Ludwig von Mises (Austrian) School of Economics,” right? Presumably they scrounged up a few guys who at least agreed with the Austrians on one or two basic economic principles on a good day when no pressing social justice issues intervened.
Somehow, this didn't satisfy Hillsdale College, which recently lost patience and filed a lawsuit arguing that no “disciple” of Austrian economics was ever hired, let alone a dedicated or articulate one. No doubt the university will give up now and hand the donation over to Hillsdale. Again, just kidding.
Interesting experiment by Hillsdale. I assume they knew it was impossible when they set the conditions.
ReplyDeleteI think it was probably the donor not Hillsdale that came up with scheme. I'm sure Hillsdale would have preferred the money directly. Still, nice idea but doomed to fail. It reminds me of Glenn Reynold's oft expressed wish that Sheldon Adelson and the Kochs buy or start their own popular media outlets instead of providing millions of dollars in revenue to Leftist media in exchange for a few minutes of airtime.
ReplyDeleteThe donor made the stipulation, and made Hillsdale the executor. So as a faithful trustee, Hillsdale has to carry out the conditions of the bequest. That Mizzou has, yet again, decided that ideology is more important than financial success, Hillsdale as a duty to end the bequest, the same as if the executor were an ordinary estate lawyer.
ReplyDeleteI suspect Christopher's right, that the administration and legal staff of Hillsdale really would prefer not to be having to go through this.
LittleRed1
This is why the System has to Change/Collapse/Crash or be replaced.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone continues to ignore the serious dire issues of the future, they will get another case of Trum. A situation where the negative feedback of suffering in America creates a distortion in the field.
Ignoring random people that are labeled crazy or "in their own world" in 2007 or 2009 was one thing. But what are ya all gonna do when the entire world goes crazy.
By ignoring the issue when warnings are present now, people setup the conditions for system collapse in the future. Who are they gonna blame then, god?