Higher Education Quick Takes

A foundation created and led by Henry Louis Gates Jr. is amending its federal tax form after questions were raised about $11,000 paid to foundation officers -- funds that the original tax form called research grants, but that should have been classified as compensation, ProPublica reported. When the payments are accounted for accurately, the foundation's administrative expenses will account for 40 percent of its spending in 2007, not 1 percent as originally reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Gates created the Inkwell Foundation with the goal of supporting work on African and African-American literature, history and culture, the article said. The report by ProPublica also noted that some of the actual grants went to people close to Gates. Gates told ProPublica that the foundation's second-largest grant, for $6,000, went to his fiancée, Angela DeLeon. DeLeon was formerly on the foundation board and Gates said he recused himself from a vote on the grant. A grant of $500 went to Evelyn Higginbotham, chair of the foundation's board and chair of Harvard University's Department of African and African-American studies. Gates said she didn't vote on the grant. ProPublica is an organization that conducts investigative journalism. The article noted that Gates -- the Harvard scholar who is a leading figure in African-American studies whose arrest at his home has set off a national debate about the way black men are treated by law enforcement -- also serves on ProPublica's board.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Monday sued a couple, John J. and Frances Stuart, charging that their business was engaged in illegal marketing techniques by telling parents that their children had expressed an interest in materials they were selling. The business -- SAT and ACT Prep Center Inc. -- sells test prep materials. State investigators found that the company called parents, claimed that their children wanted the materials, and sold them for $120. Many parents later reported that their children never requested the materials. Further, the state found that the materials could be found online for about $10. A lawyer for the Stuarts told the Associated Press that they deny any "intentional or systematic wrongdoing."

When Texas Tech University first announced that Alberto Gonzales, attorney general under President George W. Bush, has been hired to teach political science, faculty reaction was quiet, while some students and alumni objected, citing the role Gonzales played in authorizing what many see as torture and unconstitutional actions by U.S. authorities. Now the faculty is getting involved, or at least some of it is. More than 40 faculty members have signed a statement opposing the hire, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported. But it looks like the faculty protest will not have an impact. Chancellor Kent Hance told the newspaper he had no intention of withdrawing the offer, saying of the faculty petition: "That’s their freedom of speech and I applaud that, but you don’t go around making decisions based on faculty positions."

The University of New Hampshire’s men’s ice hockey team has been placed on a two-year probation by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for major recruiting violations. The Division I Committee on Infractions announced last week that one of the team’s two associate head coaches -- it would not clarify which one -- sent 923 impermissible e-mail messages to 30 prospects who were in their freshman and sophomore years in high school. The Concord Monitor reports that the associate head coach had been using Scoutware, an automated recruiting software program that allows coaches to send messages to many prospects at once. The associate head coach told the committee that he “misunderstood the relevant recruiting rule” and entered data into Scoutware “according to the prospective student-athletes’ expected enrollment at the university, rather than their high school graduation.” In addition to the probation, the team will reduce its number of off-campus recruiters by one and will not allow any of the 30 prospects in question to sign a National Letter of Intent with the university. Dick Umile, head men’s hockey coach, said the team had accepted the penalties, telling the Monitor, "We realized we made a mistake.”