(Excerpts from Higher Ed News)

• The University of Washington has returned a $5 million gift from a donor intended for an Israel studies program, setting off a debate about academic freedom at the university and beyond.
• The money funded, among other things, an endowed chair to be held by the head of the program. The chair was held by Liora R. Halperin, a scholar of Israel whose books and articles have won acclaim.
• She, along with other scholars, signed a letter last year that criticized Israel.
• When it became known that Halperin had signed the letter, the donor, Becky Benaroya, demanded meetings with the university. The university agreed to the meetings and eventually, after not finding a workable resolution for all parties, returned the gift. The university also stripped Halperin of the endowed chair that she held, although she is still an associate professor of international studies, history and Jewish studies.
• Generally, in academe, colleges will not give back a gift because a scholar takes a political position that offends a donor.
• If the University of Washington’s decision was consistent with the endowment’s terms, the university should not have accepted an endowment that allows a donor to claw back funding whenever a faculty member expresses a viewpoint that upsets the donor,” Aaron Terr, program officer for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said in a satement. “In doing so, the university outsources to donors the power to trample faculty members’ First Amendment rights and academic freedom. This will inevitably chill faculty members’ speech, even in their areas of expertise ”