$3.8 million golf donation sparks legal battle

negative thing, and we need to make it so that it becomes more of a positive experience,” Hueston said. “The whole idea behind any of these ceremonies is to reconnect these people with the people who value them. That’s really the whole process of healing and moving on.”

Kotz said the Native American Alumni at Dartmouth network was also an important part of the ceremony’s planning process, helping identify appropriate individuals to do the preparations. DeSilva added that the alumni network mainly focused on student needs.

“What stuck with me was that the questions they asked were about the students, and what can we do to support the students,” DeSilva said. “This ceremony is quite important for a number of our alumni as they return to campus… but it is my sense that it is more important to the community that we’re doing the right thing for our current students.”

According to Kotz, the next step in the healing process involves the establishment of a task force, composed mostly of faculty and staf, to examine the history of Dartmouth’s collections and ensure that they were collected in an ethical manner.

“We now have an opportunity to take a conscious look at both our past, the collections we still have and our future practices around the future collection of human remains, bones and other materials for research and teaching,” he said.

DeSilva said the anthropology department has paused its teaching of theology and forensic anthropology until the faculty is able to build up an ethically sourced skeletal collection that would connect every body with proper documentation.

“As anthropologists, we can do a better job of making sure that the materials we teach and do research with are ethically sourced,” DeSilva said.

BY ARYANNA QUSBA The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on May 4, 2023.

When he died in 2002, Robert Keeler ’36 left a $3.8 million endowment to the Dartmouth golf course in his will. The donation, however, triggered a lasting legal battle: When the college-owned Hanover Country Club closed for financial reasons in 2020, the Robert T. Keeler Foundation and the Keeler estate demanded the College return the money, according to John Laboe, the attorney representing both Keeler’s estate and foundation.

According to Laboe, Keeler set aside the funds for the “sole and exclusive purpose of preserving, enhancing and improving the golf course.” If the money is not spent on the golf course, it must be given back, Laboe said. Although the course closed, College spokesperson Diana Lawrence wrote in an email statement that the $3.8 million is an “irrevocable, completed gift” that the College is not obligated to return.

“Dartmouth College decided, completely on its own volition, that the land of the golf course could be better used more profitably for other purposes,” Laboe said.

Legally, institutions can adjust the use of charitable gifts if the donor consents to the modifications, or if the donor’s original purpose becomes impossible, impracticable, unlawful or wasteful, according to the New Hampshire Department of Justice. Under these circumstances, the institution can utilize the donation if it adheres to the donor’s “probable intention,” as judged by a court of law.

In February, the Attorney General’s Charitable Trusts Unit — an office which protects donors’ intentions in New Hampshire — endorsed the circuit court’s February decision that Dartmouth can keep the $3.8 million dollars if it is used for “golf-related” purposes, according to the Valley News.

Charitable Trusts Unit Director Diane Quinlan declined to comment, since the case is currently pending in the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

“The fact that there is a completed gift does not in any way, shape or form remove the obligation to follow the donor’s directions,” Laboe said in his arguments before the New Hampshire Supreme Court on March 30, according to court records.

Laboe said he is appealing the circuit court’s decision, arguing that