The Facts

…JUST THE FACTS

Background: In October, 1886, Josephine Louise Newcomb founded the H.Sophie Newcomb Memorial College with a gift of $100,000 to the Tulane Board of Administrators. She established the college as a memorial to her daughter who had died sixteen years earlier. Tulane University accepted both the gifts and the terms, and in 1887 Newcomb College opened its doors and became the first degree-granting coordinate college for women in the United States.

Over the course of 15 years, from 1886 to 1901, the year of her death, Mrs. Newcomb donated $3,626,551 (more than $75 million in current inflation-adjusted dollars) to Tulane University to maintain ” ‘The H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College’ in the Tulane University of Louisiana, for the higher education of Girls and young women.”

While the men of Tulane University and the women of Newcomb College eventually shared faculty and some resources (libraries, dining halls, athletic facilities, etc), Newcomb College had its own name, endowment (thanks to Mrs. Newcomb), dean, degrees, diplomas, advisors, graduates, campus, student body, senate, alumnae association and programs designed specifically for the benefit of women. One such program, celebrated to this day, was the Newcomb pottery studio, part of the fine arts program, which produced some of the greatest art pottery in American history. Other coordinate colleges in the United States, such as Barnard College at Columbia University and Westhampton College at the University of Richmond, were modeled after Newcomb.

For nearly 120 years, Newcomb College successfully fulfilled its mission with the enthusiastic support of successive Tulane Boards of Administrators. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, however, current Tulane University President Scott Cowen developed a post-Katrina “Plan of Renewal” to help the university recover from this unprecedented natural disaster. As part of that plan, Cowen decided to renege on the agreement with Mrs. Newcomb, dissolve the college, and redirect the Newcomb endowment. On December 8, 2005, the Tulane Board of Administrators adopted Cowen’s renewal plan, voting to dissolve Newcomb College, even though the administration has continually stated that there was no financial reason for this drastic move. Newcomb College, one of America’s outstanding women’s liberal arts colleges for more than 100 years, would be replaced by the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute, a paper organization with no academic standing at the university, no dean, no degrees, no advisors, no campus, no student body, and no alumnae association. In March, 2006, the Board of Administrators struck the final blow by redirecting the Newcomb College funds to the institute.

There is strong evidence that dissolving Newcomb College and seizing the Newcomb endowment was on President Cowen’s agenda long before hurricane Katrina, and that he used the crisis as an excuse to move forward with pre-existing plans. As Cowen told Fast Company reporter Jennifer Reingold (see “The Storm After the Storm,” April 2006), “out of every [disaster] comes an opportunity. We might as well take the opportunity to reinvent ourselves.”

History of the Case:

On May 16, 2006, two nieces of Josephine Louise Newcomb –Parma Matthis Howard and Jane Matthis Smith — filed Howard v. Tulane, seeking a preliminary injunction, permanent injunction and declaratory relief against Tulane University in its dealings with Newcomb College, in the Civil District Court of the Parish of Orleans.

On June 29, 2006, Judge Rosemary Ledet denied the heirs’ request for a preliminary injunction but did not address the issues of a permanent injunction or declaratory relief. In her ruling, Judge Ledet acknowledged that a “clear reading of Mrs. Newcomb’s will shows that she intended for Tulane to use the balance of her estate to maintain a women’s higher education college.”

Because the judge’s statement on the intent of the donor contradicted her ruling against the heirs’ request for a preliminary injunction, the heirs appealed to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. On October 22, 2006 the appellate court issued a 2 to 1 decision in favor of Tulane. However, based on a well-argued dissent by Judge Max Tobias, plaintiffs applied to the Louisiana Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari.

The high court unanimously agreed to hear the case, and on July 1, 2008, the court ruled that a donor’s successors have standing to enforce the obligations or conditions in their predecessor’s gifts.

Enabled by the court’s clear rule determining standing of would-be heirs based on successorship, a second collateral descendant of Mrs. Newcomb also filed an action to enforce the terms of her ancestor’s gifts by restoring Newcomb College. This lawsuit, Montgomery v. Tulane, has been brought by Susan Henderson Montgomery, who is also a great great great niece of Mrs. Newcomb.

Ironically, in attempting to meet the court’s definition of the original plaintiffs discovered a break in the line of succession. Therefore, although they are collateral descendants of Mrs. Newcomb, the line of will bequests and inheritance was broken when an ancestor left her estate to her husband rather than to her children. Consequently, Plaintiffs in Howard v. Tulane withdrew their action in September, 2008. However, Henderson v. Tulane is still in place in Civil District Court in New Orleans.

Why You Should Care:

As historian Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the seminal book Democracy in America observed in the 1830s, philanthropy and the voluntary sector have been among the bedrocks of American society almost from our country’s beginning. Today, the nonprofit sector is not only important, but it is also big business with some 1.3 to 1.4 million nonprofit organizations in America, which receive more than $260 BILLION a year in donations.

But all is not well. In the past several years, a series of high profile disputes, several resulting in lawsuits, have called into question the stewardship practices of nonprofit organizations. Allegations of fund misuse and/or breach of donor intent have become common, threatening the public’s confidence in the nonprofit sector. Among the institutions embroiled in the ongoing controversy have been the New York Metropolitan Opera, some of the country’s best-known private universities (Harvard, Yale, and most notably Princeton (see www.robertsonvprinceton.org), St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, the University of Southern California, Boston University, Fisk University, Nashville, TN (one of America’s most prominent traditionally black colleges), the University of Southern California, UCLA, and even the American Red Cross.

The newest allegations of impropriety involve Tulane University, in Howard v. Tulane.

None of this is healthy for either the nonprofit community or the country. As billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett put it in a March 19, 2007 Fortune magazine story: “when people see donor intent get ignored or twisted, it has to discourage philanthropy.”

The Donor Bill of Rights

The philanthropic community agrees. Several of the nation’s most prominent professional organizations representing the nonprofit fundraising community: the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Association of Fund Raising Counsel, Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, have authored the Donor Bill of Rights, a statement of principle adopted by members of each association.

Article IV of the Donor Bill of Rights addresses donor intent. It says all donors have the right “To be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given.”

Hundreds of other professional organizations, individual charities, nonprofits and universities also have endorsed the Donor Bill of Rights.

About The Future of Newcomb College, Inc.

On March 13, 2006, a group of supporters formed The Future of Newcomb College, Inc. (TFoNC). The nonprofit organization, among other activities, raises funds to support Howard v. Tulane.

Contact:

Renee Seblatnigg
President
The Future of Newcomb College, Inc.
Phone: 203-637-1140

Email: newcomblives@aol.com