Legalize It?
A question to show sophisticated types who go to lawyer schools and/or universities with large endowments. Apparently, a Senate committee looking into college and university endowments might, require "colleges to spend more of their endowments." I have no doubt that such a turn of events would be desirable. My question: how in the world can this be legal? Since when can you coerce a private corporation to spend its money on x or y? It's a real head-scratcher!
Update: I'm referring here to Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. According to Louis Menand's account in the Metaphysical Club, the 1819 Supreme Court ruling 1)established academic freedom by making private educational institutions safe from government interference, and 2) established that the Contract Clause protected private corporations having business with the public from state regulation. The ruling overturned the New Hampshire Supreme Court decision that the government could regulate private enterprises that served the public interest.
I don't know anything else about the history of this decision, but this current event seems to speak to it directly.
Update: I'm referring here to Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. According to Louis Menand's account in the Metaphysical Club, the 1819 Supreme Court ruling 1)established academic freedom by making private educational institutions safe from government interference, and 2) established that the Contract Clause protected private corporations having business with the public from state regulation. The ruling overturned the New Hampshire Supreme Court decision that the government could regulate private enterprises that served the public interest.
I don't know anything else about the history of this decision, but this current event seems to speak to it directly.
posted by Robot at 12:55 PM
1 Comments:
I'd have to look into it more, but this could be something having to do with congressional spending powers. I know that they're able to place conditions (limited by certain factors) on money that they disburse, but uncertain. Perhaps the govt. is trying to get colleges to spend money as a condition to grants or is placing conditions on the spending of federal monies. Once again uncertain about how this works with private entities, but the fact that they serve a "public function" would be pretty clutch.
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