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The New Jersey attorney general's office has weighed in on Rider University’s proposed sale of Westminster Choir College to a Chinese education company, arguing in a court filing that any proceeds from the sale must be used for the purposes of the 1935 charitable gift granting the land for the campus, absent a cy pres proceeding in which Rider obtains court permission to deviate from those purposes. The attorney general's office also argued that WCC’s $19 million endowment should not be included as part of the sale absent approval from the court in a separate cy pres proceeding.
Opponents of the proposed sale hailed the opinion as a major setback to Rider’s efforts to sell WCC to the Chinese company, Kaiwen Education. “The opinion says that the 1935 trust that created the campus must continue to be used for the choir college’s educational and religious mission or shift to the Princeton Theological Seminary under the terms of the 1935 will of Sophia Strong Taylor,” Bruce Afran, a lawyer for the Westminster Foundation, a group of alumni, faculty and donors who have sued to block the sale, said in a statement (Princeton Theological has also sued). “If the court accepts the AG’s position, it will be impossible for Rider to sell the college to Kaiwen Education … or to anyone other than a nonprofit educational institution.”
Rider said in a statement that it "will carefully review the letter and respond to the claims and issues through the court proceedings. We look forward to the Superior Court of New Jersey resolving the issues in dispute after all the parties have had the opportunity to be heard."
