Fisk University’s legal battle over its efforts to raise funds for the school by monetizing part of its prestigious Stieglitz Collection of photographs and paintings entered another testy chapter this month, demonstrating that the clash among Fisk, the state of Tennessee and an angry group of Fisk alumni over the future of the school is far from resolution.
In legal documents recently filed with the Tennessee Court of Appeals, all three parties challenged a 2010 ruling by a Tennessee District Court in Nashville, citing different reasons why they felt the district court was wrong in its order and urging the Court of Appeals to send the Fisk case back to the lower court for reconsideration.
The alumni group, calling itself “The Task Force for the Rescue and Restoration of Fisk University,” is asking the appeals court to order the lower court to consider the group’s plan, which provides funds for keeping the collection at the school, as envisioned by the late Georgia O’Keeffe, donor of the collection, and relieving the school of any financial costs associated with the collection. The task force includes a number of Fisk alumni, including Carol Creswell Betsch, daughter of the late Pearl Creswell, the first curator of the Stieglitz Collection.
The appeals court has set oral arguments on the case for June 28. In its court papers, the Fisk alumni group told the justices it was organized “to oppose collectively the continued tenure of the current President (attorney Hazel O’Leary) and most of the members of the Board of Trustees due to their poor handling of the University’s resources.” The group said it wanted to “… make it known that the alumni of Fisk … are not in lockstep with the arguments and positions proffered by the University and its Board of Trustees to this Court.”
The alumni group is asking the appeals court to bar the sale of any portion of the 101-piece collection of art and photographs and order the trial court to consider the alumni group’s proposal that Fisk be ordered to work with the Pearl Creswell Fund, a new trust the group says will generate enough money to pay Fisk’s expenses for maintaining the collection without having to sell ownership in it to raise funds for other school needs.
The alumni legal appeal this month was the first major public airing of alumni unhappiness with the university’s leadership since last fall when the group and school administration had an exchange of biting letters attacking each other’s credibility, with the school board’s chairman dismissing the legacy alums as incorrect and out of touch.
Fisk’s board of trustees has backed O’Leary’s argument that the school needs serious money to secure its long-term future, and the $30 million sale of 50 percent interest in the art collection is the only way for the school to generate the necessary capital.
