WHEN IT COMES TO NASTY POLITICS and financial mismanagement, the academy has few rivals. Last week the king of all fund-raising foul-ups was unveiled when Yale University admitted that it was returning, at the donor's request, a $20 million gift from Texas oil billionaire Lee M. Bass. Scrambling to put a spin on the fiasco, Yale claimed that giving back the money, intended to endow a new program in Western Civilization, was an act of courage in the face of unreasonable demands. Some critics of the administration claimed a Pyrrhic victory for multiculturalism. At heart, though, it was managerial ineptitude and...
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