THE NEWCOMB CONTROVERSY
The following letters are in response to “Newcomb Musings,” Education column, by Dawn Ruth. January 2008 issue.

What a difference a hundred years makes. In 1908, heirs of Josephine Louise Newcomb lost their legal battle to nullify her donation to Tulane University. A century later, another group of putative heirs are attempting to enforce their own interpretation of her will in an effort to block the 2006 merger of Tulane and Newcomb Colleges. So far, every court that has reviewed the current litigation has sided with Tulane.

If Josephine Louise Newcomb were alive today she would be grateful to Tulane University for the way it has carried out her wish to enrich women’s education. She would marvel at how her “musings” have evolved into an institute that supports the education of more young women than ever before.

Mrs. Newcomb’s donations, $3.6 million from 1886 until her death, were the seed money for these great advances. The majority of her donation was spent on procuring land and facilities for Newcomb College. In 1923, the Tulane Board, not Mrs. Newcomb, created the endowment we know today as the Newcomb endowment.

This is a key issue that has been frequently misstated by the plaintiff heirs in their litigation against Tulane to nullify the 2006 merger of Newcomb and Tulane colleges. Mrs. Newcomb did not endow her donation to Tulane. An endowment is designed to preserve and grow designated funds in perpetuity with the recipient allowed to spend only a designated part of the earnings each year.

On a more basic level, however, there can be no issue of donor intent today because the vast majority of the funds Mrs. Newcomb donated to Tulane were spent decades ago, in keeping with her wishes.

So far, three separate courts, including a majority panel of the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal, a federal judge and a state court judge have upheld the merger of Tulane and Newcomb Colleges. Each court held that it was not Mrs. Newcomb’s intent to allow others to interfere with the discretion of the Tulane Board of Administrators.

Each court looked at the clear and straightforward language in Mrs. Newcomb’s will, as well as in her letters, which clearly vests in Tulane full authority to use the funds as it saw fit for the higher education of women. “I do not mean in this my act of donation to impose upon you restrictions which will allow the intervention of any person or persons to control, regulate, or interfere with your disposition of this fund,” Mrs. Newcomb wrote in a letter to Tulane in 1886. She further clarified her intent by adding that her donation “… is committed fully and solely to your care and discretion with entire confidence in your fidelity and wisdom.”

Her wishes are being carried out at Tulane University and on the Newcomb campus, which continues to bear the Newcomb name. Educational programs continue to move forward and provide opportunities to women students throughout Tulane. The Newcomb College Institute and its related programs and centers are funded by the endowment provided by Tulane and it is benefiting women’s education throughout the university. In 2006, its inaugural year, the Newcomb Institute sponsored more than 100 programs and undergraduate women from all Tulane schools participated including architecture and business, to name just two. Before, only women enrolled in Newcomb College could participate in Newcomb programming.

I quote a student writer in the Nov. 16, 2006 issue of the Tulane Hullabaloo student newspaper, who writes that the Newcomb College Institute “has a significant presence on campus and it offers what Newcomb supporters want: an appropriately modernized version of everything Newcomb provided for them half a century ago. It also serves all women on Tulane’s campus, not just those in liberal arts.”

Tulane University is proud to continue its long history of commitment to quality education for women through the Newcomb Institute. The university is even prouder when we reflect on how pleased Mrs. Newcomb would be of her namesake today.

Yvette Jones
Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President for External Affairs
Tulane University

A heartfelt thank you to Dawn Ruth for her “Newcomb Musings.” As a director of the nonprofit committed to raising the funds to support the Newcomb heirs’ lawsuit, I’m gratified to see the facts surrounding the closure of Newcomb College, particularly the issue of the donor’s intent, brought to the attention of your readers. Readers wishing to learn more about this issue, the lawsuit and our efforts to support it are invited to visit our Web site: www.newcomblives.com




I would clarify only one point: Tulane College (formerly known only as Arts and Sciences or A&S) was also dissolved. The Newcomb name was added to the Tulane name, thereby recognizing both donors, Josephine Louise Newcomb and Paul Tulane, in the naming of the newly created undergraduate college. Josephine Louise’s intention to memorialize her daughter, Sophie, with an undergraduate college for women was completely ignored.

Again my thanks to Ms. Ruth and to New Orleans Magazine for expressing so well the reaction of many Newcomb graduates to the failure of the Tulane board of administrators to be faithful to the wishes of a major donor.

Margaret W. Kelly
Director, The Future of Newcomb College


A note of appreciation to Dawn Ruth for her excellent and well researched article.
Her informative and clearly written article explains clearly what Tulane University's administration has tried to conceal from Newcomb Alumnae in their fund raising effort. On the one hand, in its fundraising mailings requesting gifts to Newcomb, it states that all is well and Newcomb College's endowment is intact and under the the supervision of the interim director of the Newcomb Institute while  on the other hand, in legal arguments, the administration claims that all of Mrs Newcomb's monies were spent long ago and that there is no Newcomb endowment. Ungrateful to say the least.

    Karen Edmunds,
    New Orleans


Ed. Note: We have received several letters on this topic. Because of time and space limitations, we were not able to run all of the responses in this issue. The remaining letters will be run in our March 2008 issue. The letters are run in the order in which they were received.