Will Princeton be allowed to keep a $900-million chunk of its endowment, or will it not?

Some answers are likely to come tomorrow morning, when a New Jersey judge rules on several motions in a lawsuit filed by heirs of Charles and Marie Robertson against the university. Even if the judge rules in Princeton’s favor, representatives of the Robertson Foundation — the organization set up by the Robertsons to oversee the donation — have pledged to go to trial.

The suit alleges that Princeton has never fulfilled the primary intent of the donors: preparing graduates of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs for jobs in the federal government.

While that scope is rather narrow, the lawsuit’s broader question of donor intent has made it among the most closely watched cases in recent history involving donations. That’s because if the heirs were to win, many other unhappy donors could take the judge’s decision as a precedent in filing suits against colleges and other nonprofit organizations to which they have made gifts. —Martin Van Der Werf