Posted on 05/16/2005 6:19:22 PM PDT by TexConfederate1861
Confederates Defeat Vanderbilt
A Tennessee appeals court ruled Wednesday that Vanderbilt University may not drop Confederate from the name of a dormitory unless the university is willing to return a donation it received in 1933 at the value of the donation in todays dollars.
The courts ruling reverses a lower courts decision that allowed Vanderbilt to drop Confederate from the name. Students and professors at Vanderbilt objected to the name, saying that it suggested university support for slavery and was offensive to black students. Following years of discussion of the issue, Vanderbilt dropped Confederate from the name of Confederate Memorial Hall in 2002. But the Tennessee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which made the gift in 1933 and was assured then of the name the dormitory would have, took the university to court.
The appeals court unanimously rejected Vanderbilts argument that academic freedom gave it the right to change the name. Vanderbilt argued that the Supreme Court has given private colleges considerable latitude in their decisions. But the appeals court said that was irrelevant because the agreement to name the dormitory Confederate Memorial Hall was between a donor and a charitable group and the government never forced the gift to be accepted.
We fail to see how the adoption of a rule allowing universities to avoid their contractual and other voluntarily assumed legal obligations whenever, in the universitys opinion, those obligations have begun to impede their academic mission would advance principles of academic freedom, the court ruled. To the contrary, allowing Vanderbilt and other academic institutions to jettison their contractual and other legal obligations so casually would seriously impair their ability to raise money in the future by entering into gift agreements such as the ones at issue here.
The appeals court refused to deal with Vanderbilts arguments about the message the name sent to black students. It is not within the purview of this court to resolve the larger cultural and social conflicts regarding whether and how those who fought for the Confederacy should be honored or remembered.
However, one of the judges who heard the case wrote a concurring opinion objecting to Vanderbilts statements about the word Confederate. Judge William B. Cain wrote that Vanderbilt has a misperception about the Confederacy. A great majority of those who fought in the Confederate armies owned no slaves. Their homeland was invaded, and they rose up in defense of their homes and their farms. They fought the unequal struggle until nearly half their enlisted strength was crippled or beneath the sod. This dormitory is a memorial to them, he wrote.
If Vanderbilt wants to change the name, the courts decision said, it must repay the gift. The court rejected the idea of the Confederate group that the university be required to pay interest. The court said this wasnt appropriate because the condition of the name of the dormitory was met for decades. However, the court said that it would also be unfair for Vanderbilt to get out of its obligation by returning $50,000, since that money was much more valuable in 1933 than it is today. So Vanderbilt would have to repay $50,000, as adjusted by the Consumer Price Index in the last 72 years.
A spokesman for Vanderbilt told the Nashville Tennessean that the university was studying the decision and weighing its options. An an e-mail message on Thursday, the spokesman also said that the decision would not prevent the university from dropping Confederate in the way it refers to the dormitory in campus publications, maps, Web sites, and housing assignments.
The original gift from the United Daughters of the Confederacy was not to Vanderbilt but to George Peabody College of Teachers. When Peabody merged into Vanderbilt in 1979, Vanderbilt assumed control of the building and the legal responsibilities of the college. In 1989, prior to changing the name, Vanderbilt put a plaque on the building acknowledging the gift and university officials have said that the plaque will remain, even if the name of the dorm is changed. Vanderbilt also argued successfully in the lower court but unsuccessfully before the appeals court that there were questions about whether the Peabody contract was ever valid, and that if it was, its requirements had been fulfilled.
Scott Jaschik
WLAT? (The answer is probably in that link you posted, but 1300+ posts is a bit much for idle curiosity...)
I don't know, but Gold was $20.00/ounce. Imho, they should have to repay the gift in coin of the day--Gold or Silver would do nicely...at face value.
OOps, My bad. The average price for an ounce of gold in 1933 was 26.33 Just heading up from around 20 for the past eon...
I remember this from my 4 years there....overheard at Dudley.
"Will the parents missing eleven children please claim them at Guest Services. They are currently winning 21-7 over our Commodores."
WLAT is an acronym for Walt; aka Whiskey Papa, a Southern -Hating, Confederacy Bashing excuse foe a human that was banned sometime ago. He and many of his like-minded threads like to show up and trash any threads honoring the Confederacy, etc. He is gone, but many of his fellow bigots are still around. That is why I posted the link to Curly Bill. To show how active these guys are.
Interesting that the Coke scale was pretty accurate. Maybe we should just use Coke prices to approximate the CPI.
FINALLY, justice!
free dixie,sw
Thanks! (Now I've learned at least one thing today...)
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