University Gets in Legal Fight With Donor’s Widow

The University of South Dakota is involved in a legal tangle with a donor’s widow who says the institution didn’t live up to its pledge to her husband, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.

Lucy Buhler, whose husband, Walter, donated $9.2-million to the university, says that the gift was made with the promise that the university’s business school would be named after Mr. Buhler.

She asked for $1.7-million of the money back when she learned that T. Denny Sanford, one of the nation’s most-generous donors, had donated $5-million to the business school on the condition that the institution name the school after one of his business associates.

The University of South Dakota Foundation declined Ms. Buhler’s request, saying it had agreed to name a business-school building after Mr. Buhler, not its programs — thereby freeing it to name the school after Mr. Sanford’s associate.

Now the matter is in the hands of a circuit-court judge, who has been asked to confirm that the university followed Mr. Buhler’s request, the newspaper said.