Harvard Returns Disputed Gift to Nation
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Harvard Divinity School has agreed to return a $2.5-million gift from the president of the United Arab Emirates after 18 months of controversy over the donor’s alleged connection to anti-Semitic and anti-American propaganda, Harvard officials said.
While not unprecedented, the university’s return of a major donation is rare. It followed a campaign by some students and faculty members to protest the inflammatory activities of a think tank named for the Arab nation’s unelected leader, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Nahayan.
Zayed gave the money to Harvard in 2000 to endow a professorship of Islamic studies.
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