Marcos Foundation Postpones Funding For Chair at Tufts

Tufts University will delay filling a controversial chair in Pacific and East Asian studies because it has not yet received any of the $1.5 million endowment from the Marcos Foundation of the Phillipines, a spokesman for Tufts University said yesterday.

The foundation substituted a $75,000 payment, for the expected $500,000 first installment last July, Harry B. Zane, director of public information at Tufts, said yesterday.

The foundation offered no explanation for the substitution, he said. The smaller payments are equivalent to the interest Tufts would have received from the full endowment, Zane said.

Zane said Tufts will not try to fill the chair until it receives the first installment of the endowment. The university views the $75,000 payment as a sign that the foundation intends to proceed with the plan, he added.

The gift caused student and faculty protest at Tufts when Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, personally presented it in November 1977.

Hanky Panky

Eighty Tufts faculty members signed a letter protesting the grant last year, accusing Tufts administrators of lying about the nature of what the letter called "the Philippine dictatorship" justify accepting the gift. Students circulated a similar petition.

Robert E. Kaufmann, associate dean of the Faculty for finance and administration, said yesterday that such a delay by a donor is not unprecedented. "There may have been some similar situations here," he said, though none at Harvard involved professorships.