'Conservative' string attached to $50 million college gift

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A $50 million gift made earlier this year to Virginia's largest public university was given specifically to "promote the conservative principles of governance," newly released documents show, raising concerns from critics that it compromises academic freedom at the school.

George Mason University announced the gift earlier this year — the largest ever received in the school's history — from the estate of Allison and Dorothy Rouse to Mason's Antonin Scalia Law School.

Documents obtained by the group UnKoch My Campus under the Freedom of Information Act and made public this week show that the Rouse trust specified its bequest be used "as an endowment to fund a chair or chairs that will promote the conservative principles of governance, statesmanship, high morals, civil and religious freedom and the study of the United States Constitution."

University officials say the Rouse trust won't have any say in selecting faculty at the law school and that there was nothing improper about specifying conservative governance as a principle to be promoted.

"What has been outlined in the agreement are important topics for any law school, and many of these topics are already an integral part of the curriculum at the Scalia School," Provost S. David Wu said in a statement.

But when school administrators presented the deal to the university's gift acceptance committee last year, it appears they knew the language in the bequest was problematic. A copy of the minutes obtained by The Associated Press shows that the word "conservative" was dropped from a description of the gift. Instead the minutes say that the gift will be used to "promote the principles of governance, statesmanship, high morals, civil and religious freedom and the study of the United States Constitution."

A university spokesman did not respond...