Now the University may return the donation.
There should not be much question in regard to the $800,000 given to the University by Jeffrey Grayson when he was still at the helm of the bankrupt Capital Consultants. It is money that he should not have had and it is now money the University should not be clutching at.
President Dave Frohnmayer said in a detached third-person manner that the “University cannot simply give away money without a clear legal reason to do so,” and that makes one wonder who the decision-maker will be and what he or she may choose.
Will it be chief legal counsel Melinda Grier when she returns from her vacation? Or will the University of Oregon Foundation decide to give back some money that for all appearances is rather tainted? Let’s hope this decision will finally bring some sense to this matter, and the money will be returned.
First, those in the University administration said they will begin looking into returning the money. So it should be fairly soon when that decision arrives.
But at issue here is more than just the money. It is a situation where the University has so freely accepted funds that some of its reputation may be at stake. One does not want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the University cannot just open the door to whomever.
Pandering to anyone with a large enough checkbook just makes the University look more like a fancy showcase than the pinnacle of liberal thought it so often tries to portray itself as. We all speak as if the “University” is a separate entity, something that can be criticized or enact policy changes, so we should therefore not let this fair University be sold out to the highest bidder.
If we do allow the University to be sold out, the quality of experience here will be subject to the whims of those few and exclude the desires of the many whom the University serves.
It is easy to shift the blame somewhere else. One can say the state does not provide enough funding or the University has to seek out donations to remain competitive, but in the end, our administrators and trustees are responsible for keeping this campus’s reputation intact and honorable. When it squabbles over if and when it should return $800,000 that was given by someone who most likely stole it, it just shows how selling itself out can place it in some tight spots.

Protesters put themselves and their cause at risk
There is something romantically attractive about the masses rising up to hurl cobblestones at the thugs of the elite from behind barricades. But today, as we are beginning to see from Europe, it is nothing more than hooded vandalism without any direction.
The protests in Italy appeared to be nothing more than just misdirected and misguided violence. They left one University student whose friends and relatives all say is a peaceful and nonviolent person in an Italian hospital and under arrest.
Like many, she seemed to have gotten caught up in the activist maelstrom that is hurling itself at the walls of the global elite. It is encouraging to see folks from all nations come together in a collaborative effort, but it is highly discouraging to see that effort go to waste in the tear gas laid down on unruly protesters.
This is no argument for globalism. In fact, there are several reasons to support those in opposition to the forces that conspire to undermine a nation’s sovereignty. Rather, this is a critical examination of the black-hooded folks who put themselves and their cause at grave risk by their rashness. A man did not die in Italy because of the inherent evil of capitalism and globalism, but because he was attacking an Italian police officer. It has happened in nearly every city in which these meetings have occurred and will likely continue to do so. But those within the movement should take a long, hard look at where the source of all that anger stems from and try to help stop future outbreaks of explosive violence.
Those large metal gates that surround the chief policy-makers are not symbolic of the walls that keep the people away from their leaders or the rich from the poor; they are there because activists can no longer be trusted to act responsibly in public. For every rock hurled at some police officer, activists put themselves and their cause further from the realm of reasonable political discourse.