[Updated October 11, 2007 with link to article about University "emergency" meetings behind closed doors.]
[Updated October 6, 2007 to clarify difference between the original Alumnae Association and the Administration's recently-created Alumni Association. See also reader comment to this effect.]
[Updated October 5, 2007 with link to Inside Higher Ed commentary]
According to the Chronicle, last spring the president of the Mississippi University for Women tried to dissolve the university's Alumnae Association. Now a state judge has ruled that MUW President Claudia A. Limbert acted illegally in severing ties with the group.
The Chronicle explains that the independent association and the university
had been at odds for several months before that action. In March, the alumni group sued Ms. Limbert and the university's governing board, criticizing the president's efforts to control alumni affairs and seeking to block her efforts to dissolve the association.
Ms. Limbert later countersued the alumni group, seeking to block it from using the university's name.
The judge said the president acted in "bad faith;" the president says that now the University has no way to ensure that the association will work to further the school's goals. 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.
The institution's leadership appears to have let things slip quite far without intervening organizationally - before things led to legal action. It seems clear from older reports on the conflict that the original lawsuit didn't materialize out of the blue.
If the original 118-year old Association really is independent, then it's possible President Limbert did not feel she had anything but legal recourse. On the other hand, she probably wasn't counting on being slapped down in court. Other than an appeal of the countersuit (is that allowed?), what next step might the school's administrators have? How far down the road does their strategy lead?
The original conflict, it seems, stems from concern over declining enrollment. And despite its name, Mississippi University for Women has been co-ed since 1982 - hence the Chronicle's preference for "alumni" over "alumnae."
Re-constituted Association's web site (check out the FAQ)
April 2007 coverage of the original MUW dispute via the Chronicle
2002 item on co-education and the pros and cons of a name change at MUW
[Update:] Inside Higher Ed overview of alumni-trustee governance issues
[Update] Local coverage of closed door meetings at the university