Mississippi University for Women Regains Authority to Sever Ties with Association

[Updated 17 February 2009: Cast off Association changes name, continues independently.]

Here's an update to a story I wrote about more than a year ago (the wheels of justice are big, and they turn slowly).

As reported by Inside Higher Ed on Friday,

The Mississippi University for Women was within its rights when it cut off ties to its [original] alumni group, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Leaders of the alumni group have been in a series of public fights with university administrators, with both sides claiming that they have the best interests of the institution at heart.

Last fall, a state judge had ruled that the president of the institution acted illegally in cutting off ties with the independent alumni association. This week's ruling overturns that decision on appeal.

But it doesn't resolve the question of who really has the university's "best interests" at heart. It merely states that the university has the right to sever these ties, regardless of the advisability of doing so. IHE continues,

The [state board that oversees public colleges]...and the university have authority over such decisions as ties to alumni groups, and removing that power would seriously cut into their autonomy, the court ruled.

MUW President Limbert claimed last year that the University had no way to ensure that the association would work to advance the school's goals. As I said then,

No university with a legally independent alumni association can guarantee such a thing, and yet almost every one of them manages to accomplish it anyway.

In any case, whatever the past problems in Mississippi, the new ruling means that the association can be legally independent, but not functionally autonomous. At the heart of the current ruling is the court's view that although the Association is independent, it is nonetheless directly and strongly affiliated with the university. As such, says the court, the university has the final say when it comes to using the parent institution's name and identity.

Read the original posting for the background and check the links from that posting to various resources. If there are related follow up stories, I'll mention them here, with links. Stay tuned.

As an historical aside, MUW was at the center of a prominent legal dispute in 1982, regarding a state law which prevented a male student from enrolling in the University's single-sex nursing education program. That case, MUW vs. Hogan, is detailed on Oyez.org, the excellent US Supreme Court Media site, which includes streaming audio of the oral arguments in the case. MUW lost that one.