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In 1961, our parents,
Charles (Princeton
’26) and Marie
Robertson, donated 700,000
shares of A&P stock
– worth $35 million
at the time – to
establish the Robertson
Foundation. At the time,
the gift – having now grown to over $750 million dollars – was one of the
largest ever in support of
higher education and the largest in Princeton's history.
The sole mission of the
Foundation, according to
the Composite Certificate
of Incorporation, was
“to strengthen the
Government of the United
States and increase its
ability and determination
to defend and extend
freedom throughout the
world by improving the
facilities for the
training and education of
men and women for
government service... with
particular emphasis on the education of such persons for careers in those areas of the Federal
Government that are
concerned with
international relations and
affairs.”
Putting their faith in
dad’s beloved alma
mater, our parents selected
Princeton to act as their
trusted agent to vigorously
pursue and accomplish the
Foundation’s mission.
Instead of taking the
mission seriously, and
instead of taking their
fiduciary duties as
Foundation trustees
seriously, University
officials secretly used the
Foundation’s growing
endowment as a University
“piggy bank,” diverting more than $200
million to activities,
projects, programs, and
personnel unrelated to the
mission. Worse still,
during the more than 45
years the program has been
in existence, University
officials have placed very
few graduates in government
foreign-policy positions
when compared to similar
programs at other
universities, most of which
operate with significantly
smaller budgets and do not have the government service focus that the Robertson Foundation has.
Because the University
insists it has done no
wrong, and refuses to make any meaningful changes in the way they spend the foundation's money, our family was
forced to bring this
lawsuit against them in
2002. We hope for a
resolution to this matter
in the near future, but
until then, we will
continue to share important
information with Princeton
alumni, the interested
public and the philanthropic community, all of
whom have a right to know
what one of the
country’s most
prestigious universities
has done to the largest donors in its history. |
