Nine months ago, a Florida real estate mogul’s pledge to donate $26.5 million to the University of Alabama — the most generous gift in the school’s 188-year history — was announced with great enthusiasm and fanfare. In the months since the university announced Mr. Culverhouse’s donation, disagreements quickly emerged over how many students should be enrolled in the law school, which had been renamed the Hugh J. Culverhouse Jr. School of Law. Mr. Culverhouse also claimed that his gift was not being used for scholarships, as he reportedly intended. But in the end, the dispute between the university and Mr. Culverhouse became a public and politicized controversy over the state’s new abortion law, with Mr. Culverhouse holding the passage of the sweeping measure against a law school that had nothing to do with it. It also became a prime example of how the recent wave of anti-abortion policies passed in the South has sucked observers on the sidelines into the controversy.

Source: New York Times June 07, 2019 18:00 UTC