University of Alabama to Refund $26 Million Gift After Donor Calls on Students to Boycott Abortion Ban

University of Alabama employees remove the name of Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. off the School of Law sign in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on June 7, 2019. Blake Paterson/Photo/AP

TUSCALOOSA—The University of Alabama board of trustees voted on June 7 to give back a $26.5 million donation from a philanthropist who recently called on students to boycott the school over the state’s new abortion ban.

Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr., a 70-year-old real estate investor and lawyer, had already given $21.5 million to the university after his pledge last September with the rest still to come. But in a news release last week, he urged students to participate in a boycott of the school.

“I don’t want anybody to go to that law school, especially women, until the state gets its act together,” Culverhouse said in an interview. “You probably shouldn’t put a living person’s name on a building, because at some point they might get fed up and start talking.”

Hours later, Alabama announced it was considering giving back his money, the biggest donation ever made to the university. Within minutes a maintenance crew removed his name from the law school that was named in his honor.

University of Alabama School of Law sign is seen after employees removed the name of donor Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on June 7, 2019. Blake Paterson/AP Photo

While Culverhouse said he has no doubt Alabama is retaliating over his call for a boycott, the university said the dispute has nothing to do with that. Instead, officials say it was in an “ongoing dispute” with Culverhouse over the way his gift was to be handled.

The university said that on May 28, the day before Culverhouse’s boycott call, its chancellor recommended the trustees return the donation. The university said donors “may not dictate University administration” and that Culverhouse had made “numerous demands” regarding the operation of the school.

University administrators and trustees did not respond to requests for comment.

Culverhouse did not attend Alabama, but his parents did, and the business school bears the name of Hugh Culverhouse Sr., a wealthy tax lawyer and developer who owned the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr., right, and wife, Eliza, in Tuscaloosa, Ala., show off T-shirts from the University of Alabama law school, which now bears his name. Gary Cosby Jr./The Tuscaloosa News via AP

Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. and his wife, Eliza, look at a portrait of him that will hang in the University of Alabama law school in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Sept. 20, 2018. Gary Cosby Jr./The Tuscaloosa News via AP

Culverhouse acknowledged there were some disagreements over the handling of his gift. He said he told university President Stuart Bell that the law school should admit more students and that his donation was to fund scholarships to achieve that. But he said he thought the matter had been resolved.

The Alabama ban would make abortion at any stage of pregnancy a crime punishable by 10 years to life in prison for the provider, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

The law, set to take effect in November, is the strongest pro-life measures enacted this year as states emboldened by the new conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court take aim at Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

By Blake Paterson