That was the point at which two nieces of Josephine Louise Newcomb filed a lawsuit seeking a preliminary and a permanent injunction against Tulane, together with declaratory relief. The judge denied the request for a preliminary injunction, but 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 of the contradictory ruling and statement, the ruling has been appealed to Louisiana's Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has scheduled oral arguments for May 8.
Is this a dispute in which outsiders ought to take an interest? It is indeed.
There are upwards of 1.3 million nonprofit organizations in America, which collectively receive more than $260 billion a year in donations. There are people all over the place who itch to get their hands on money left decades ago by thousands of donors, now safely dead, for purposes they deem irrelevant. In the name of sheer fairness, they must be stopped.
In a way, I don't blame Scott Cowen. He confronted a real disaster in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The $45 million endowment of Newcomb College was the chief support of an institution for the higher education of women, at a time when women's colleges are temporarily out of fashion. It must have been unbearably tempting to fold the college into Tulane itself, and pocket its money for the overall benefit of the University.
But don't Josephine Louise Newcomb's instructions matter? She can no longer speak for herself, but every generation has an obligation to respect its predecessors, where their wishes can reasonably be honored.