Crimson Tide Returns Endowment In Spite After Alum Speaks His Mind

Hugh Culverhouse is a Miami-based investor who grew up in Alabama. In 2018, he donated $26.5 million to the University of Alabama’s law school—the largest gift in the history of the university. Over the course of a decade, Culverhouse donated an additional $40 million, making him by far the University of Alabama’s greatest patron. In recognition of his generosity, the president of the university renamed the law school after Culverhouse last year and issued a statement of praise for his gifts. My, how things have changed.

On Friday, the University of Alabama’s board of trustees voted to return Culverhouse’s gift and remove his name from the law school after he spoke out against the state’s new constitution-violating abortion law.  The real estate developer had also encouraged businesses to join in a boycott of Alabama over the law that was passed with the explicit intent of attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Culverhouse responded with a statement that the action by the UA trustees was not unexpected, and he encouraged students to "reconsider their educational options in Alabama."

In a Washington Post editorial, Culverhouse said, “My love for Alabama is exactly why I was so horrified to watch its lawmakers trample over the Constitution last month. The ban on abortion they passed wasn’t just an attack against women, it was an affront to the rule of law itself. Part of being an American is engaging in public debate, and we can disagree over this issue. But the courts settled this matter a long time ago: Abortion is legal. So it was shocking to see legislators ignore this and pass a bill that turned women and health professionals into criminals, and it felt important to say so publicly.”

But the punishment that Culverhouse is getting for this is … no punishment at all. He’s getting his money back. The people being punished are the University of Alabama students who are being deprived of the facilities and staff that money would have supported; the students who will now have to open their own wallets, or take out more loans, to make up the difference.

And those law school students are also getting an explicit lesson—in Alabama, the First Amendment is less important than the war to take away rights from women.