Tennessee Attorney General Moves to Block Fisk U.’s Art Sale

May 10, 2011, 3:50 pm

A planned sale of art to benefit financially strapped Fisk University has run into fresh opposition from Tennessee’s attorney general. In November the Nashville university got a judge’s approval to sell a $30-million share of its art collection, which had been donated by the famed American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. But the attorney general has now appealed that ruling, arguing that the judge, Ellen Hobbs Lyle, had exceeded her authority, according to The Tennessean. The university’s fiscal woes have led its regional accreditor to place it on warning for six months, finding that the institution was not in compliance with standards on financial resources and stability.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

E-mail

andremayer

Most BYU students do live off-campus, but bear in mind that the honor code is in effect accepted by rental properties in Provo. It’s presumably easier to get away with having sex than having a percolator, though.
http://stitchingincircles.etsy.com Tina

What an interesting point you make about equal standards. I thought this would be a more prurient post but in fact it is quite thoughtful, and I am glad you brought up the appalling ND incident again, even if that was a criminal act rather than only what the college considers immoral.

http://www.stitchingincircles.blogspot.com
darccity

“And it was nice to see a school hold its athletes to the same behavioral standards as the rest of the student body.”

Almost every commentator in the media made this statement, too. But think about how illogical that is. Students attend BYU because it is very, very highly ranked and tuition is absurdly low for a private U. But athlete, especially those who hope to play pro ball, do no care much about either of those considerations so important to their classmates. Conversely, BYU does not apply to the rest of the student body the implicit expectation that athletes spend many hours year round in the weight room. Nor do they confiscate the summer and part time job earnings of their students the way they do with ticket and TV sports revenues to exploit athletes. Meanwhile, athletes at BYU have 200 point lower SATs and weaker preparation, so they need to study a lot more in their classes, despite their exhaustion from practice and travel. BYU is not to be admired for taking the absurdity of “student athletes” to an even more ridiculous level. What hypocrisy!
isugeezer

There’s a sort of “Borg Collective” thing in Mormon culture that makes secret keeping very difficult. Everyone in the house would have to be complicit in hiding one roommate’s misbehavior from their bishop (they’d all have the same bishop), and that would be extraordinary. It’s not so much that “her housemates had taken it upon themselves to keep her on the straight and narrow” as it is that they have been taught to share everything with their spiritual advisors.
pocvecem

What does any of that have to do with the honor code?

All students (presumably) sign a document consenting to these behavioral standards. If you want to call the “student-athlete” an exploited worker instead of a student, it doesn’t change the fact that this basketball player did not follow through on the terms of his contract. Workers who do not obey their signed contracts can be fired.
rbannist

The higher powers at BYU are not of this planet. College kids have sex, drink beer, smoke pot, get involved with nutty causes and will do the strangest things for a $50, “I dare you to” bet. When I think of the extent to which BYU has tried to impose such a strict moral code on its students, it does my heart wonder to think that former Chicago Bears Quarterback, quite the nonconformist, attended the great university.
rmelton5

Neither this article nor the one in The Tennessean makes it clear whether Fisk is a state institution or not. That would be helpful information in forming an opinion as to whether the state AG has, himself, exceeded his authority. The Tennesseean article claims that the AG claims that O’Keeffe and Stieglitz intended the art to benefit the people of Tennessee, not Fisk in particular. But if that is so, wouldn’t Stieglitz have donated it to a state-run art museum?
akprof

Fisk is a private institution
saholloway

Fisk is a private institution. I would hate for Fisk to sell the collection, but what I hate even worse is someone giving a gift and telling you what you can and can’t do with it. That’s not a gift, that’s storage in this case. That’s as much as I will say on this matter!
akprof

In fact, Fisk was established shortly after the Civil War to education Blacks, who had few higher education options. A glance at their history page makes clear the long and proud traditions of Fisk. And apparently, Stieglitz intended the collection to benefit the Black citizens of Tennessee. I hate that they are in a financial situation that requires them to sell a part of the collection – but one could argue that selling it will benefit the intended recipients of Stieglitz’s largess!
realtyannie

If the college folds due to financial problems, what happens to the art? Sold at bankruptcy auction to pay the creditors? It’s hard to imagine Ms. O’Keeffe would object to the sale. She knew the collection provided a significant financial asset and she obviously wanted it to benefit this school.
danlarkin

“. . . whether the state AG has, himself, exceeded his authority”. Whether the AG has standing (“authority”) to intervene does not depend on whether Fisk is a state or private institution but on whether the recipient of the gift is a charitable organization. As a non-profit institution of higher education it is a charitable organization, whether private or public. The AG therefore has statutory authority to intervene as parens patriae (parent of the country), charged with protecting the public interest. To say that he has standing to intervene is not to say that his position should prevail. The authority to manage the University’s affairs is vested in its trustees, who are entitled to a rebuttable presumption of having acted in the good faith, best interest of the University. On the other hand, the University (pace, saholloway; if people who might benefit the public interest by giving gifts to charitable organizations lacked reason to expect that the terms of their gift would be honored they would lack as well much of the incentive to leave a gift) trustees are strictly obliged to honor the terms of the gift, unless they can convince a court that there is reason to excuse them from that obligation – and if the court found such reason, the court would most likely impose the doctrine of cy pres and require that in lieu of following the terms of the gift the University act in the closest fashion possible to the gift’s terms.
mbelvadi

This whole situation is a magnificent example of why it’s ludicrous for a legal system to allow people to exert any control over the disposition of material goods after they’ve died, beyond simply specifying the transfer of ownership in a will. (Thanks, danlarkin, for introducing me to cy pres – I hadn’t heard of that one before.)