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It's hard to tell. One of the Pearsons' (the donors) complaints is that two of the faculty hired by the institute are junior faculty from lower-ranked instituti
by majos 9y ago
It's hard to tell. One of the Pearsons' (the donors) complaints is that two of the faculty hired by the institute are junior faculty from lower-ranked institutions -- these institutions being Columbia and NYU. Perhaps the Pearsons wanted the institute to just poach tenured faculty from Harvard or whatever, but this hardly seems negligent on the director's part. Perhaps they know of additional evidence that explains this more.
The second complaint is that the contract stipulated a conference of some sort needed to occur at the institute by October 2018, and the resulting Catholic conference was unsatisfactory to them (it sounds like they disliked the conference's emphasis on heterosexual marriage).
It's hard to tell how reasonable these complaints are from the outside, and how much of it is donors who don't know much about universities trying to micro-manage a gift after the fact. For what it's worth the article claims the Pearsons have lost a similar donation case before.
- jjeaff 9y agoIf what is presented in the article is true and complete, it seems pretty straight forward. Had they been more senior professors from lower ranked universities it probably would be close. But being junior AND lower ranked is kind of icing on the cake. As for the conference, they had a specific mandate and didn't fulfill it. They knew they weren't going to fulfill it so they sent a request to the Pearsons asking if a conference that was already happening would suffice. A conference about hetero marriage which seems to have nothing to do with world peace. So seems like a blatant cop out. My first thought was that they are just difficult, seeing as they have sued before, but it may just be that they are just vigilant as to how their money is used.
- ghein 9y agoAccording to Times Higher Education, Chicago is ranked 11th in the US and 8th in the World (different rankings...) while Columbia is ranked 2nd in the US and 14th in the World. Rankings across every discipline will be different and vary based on the source but that's a decent estimate. The article notes one source has Chicago at #3 and Columbia at #5, with NYU at #30. No Federal Judge is going to accept the Pearson's argument that Columbia is an obviously far inferior school. This argument would mean that the only acceptable sources of faculty would be Princeton, Harvard, Chicago and Yale (tied for 3rd with Chicago). Maybe they would accept Oxford and Cambridge as additional acceptable sources? The overall complaint gives the sense that the Pearson's are exacting and highly litigious. Exacting on a $100MM donation is understandable, filing suit this fast is rather absurd. But both sides have lots of money for both academic research and lawyers so it will be entertaining at least.
- Fomite 9y agoIronically, as a faculty member, this is what did a lot of damage to the Pearsons argument in my mind. If you're trying to build a vibrant research institution, one of the best thing you can do is to grab promising young faculty, rather than relying on senior faculty who are harder to recruit. Getting promising junior faculty, and using the institute's resources to position them for success - more hard money, better startup packages, support for staff and postdocs, etc. is absolutely a promising way to build what the Pearsons want. And within the band of universities we're talking about, the variance between individuals is way bigger than the difference between those institutions based on rank - which is a problematic measure at the best of times.
- nopinsight 9y agoI agree that the differences between individuals are greater than the institutions in this case. However, it appears to me that in most academic settings, one does not move up two or three tiers (assistant/associate professorships to chaired professorships, which are the new positions in this case) at once to a peer university at the top level, unless one makes an earth-shattering contribution, say an equivalent of the first successful self-driving car. Apparently the Pearsons want four faculty members at the chaired professor level at this institute and two of the appointees to chaired professorships, though could be brilliant, do not yet have that level of name recognition in the field. I believe the Pearsons argument is valid in this case unless the field’s criteria for promotion is very different from science, engineering, and computer science. What do you think?
- jjeaff 9y agoThat may very well be. But it seems that the requirement is made out of a desire to increase the prestige of the new program. Presumably, tenured, high ranking professors would be better able to attract the students, and later, additional faculty that perhaps have the traits you are talking about.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Spooky23 9y agoIt seems ridiculous that a gift intended to encourage studying prevention of terrorism and conflict should fund a religious conference. I've made directed donations before. If I found out that the donation to my school was spent on football helmets instead of the scholarship fund, I'd be very upset.