George Mason U. Locked in Will Fight with Donor’s Children

The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at a bitter legal battle between the children of a pioneering woman aviator and the George Mason University Foundation. One expert in higher-education philanthropy called the fight over Amy Falcon Morris’s estate the most extreme in his experience.

Ms. Morris died last year at the age of 86, four years after suffering an apparent stroke. Her son and daughter have filed a series of claims against the foundation and their mother’s lawyer in connection with a 1998 will that left Ms. Morris’s assets to George Mason to establish a program for woman pilots.

The children are seeking to enforce a 2007 will they drew up after becoming Ms. Morris’s guardians that excludes George Mason. Courts in Virginia and Alabama, where Ms. Morris’s son lives, have ruled in favor of the university.