Gordon Raises Stakes After Baj’s Dismissal

The mark of the Gordons on Harvard is hard to ignore. Members of the family invested in the Murr Center, in the outdoor track, and in the soccer program, among other sports. Albert F. Gordon ’59 said he gave around $10,000 for the women’s squash team to take a training and service trip to India in January. The Albert H. Gordon Track and Tennis Center and the Albert H. Gordon Professorship of Business Administration bear the name of his late father, the class of 1923 alumnus and former Crimson editor who ran track and led a stock brokerage firm through the Great Depression.

But the contract non-renewal of squash coach Satinder P. Bajwa left the younger Gordon at a crossroads between his friend and his—and his father’s—alma mater, and the choice he made to stay loyal to Bajwa has put Harvard in a position where it could stand to lose access to thousands of dollars.

Gordon wrote in an e-mail to Director of Athletics Robert L. Scalise on April 14 that he would eschew Harvard athletic events and “not step foot on any Harvard University property on either side of the Charles River” for the next five years.

In an interview Friday evening, Gordon went one step further, saying that he would cease donating to Harvard during that time period.

“If you’ve been around for 50 years and they have their hands out expecting you to be successful, you don’t expect to be stabbed in the back like I have been with Scalise,” Gordon said.

Since 1959, Gordon has donated $5.4 million to Harvard, he wrote in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

If he receives a request for donations in any given year, Gordon said in the Friday interview that he would be comfortable giving $25,000 of his own money. In an e-mail to Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds and Vice President for Human Resources Marilyn Hausammann, Gordon also threatened to withhold an annual 6 percent disbursement of his father’s trust, whose value he said is contingent on the sale of his father’s apartment but could be valued at around $20 million.

John R. Gordon ’71, a brother of Gordon ’59 and executor of the trust, said that a decision has not been made regarding how contributions from that trust would be disbursed. The father of a current Harvard College senior, he described himself as someone who has and will continue to personally be a regular donor to Harvard.

While the extent to which any loss of access to these funds would strain financial resources is unclear, the already-reduced budget of the Department of Athletics does not stand to gain from divestment. Last May, the athletic department announced plans to close the Malkin Athletic Center over the summer, reduce the travel budgets for teams, and demote the junior varsity baseball, basketball, and ice hockey teams to club sports as part of the $77 million in budget cuts across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

An e-mail sent to Scalise was returned by spokesman Timothy J. Williamson, who wrote in an e-mailed statement that this issue constituted a personnel matter and, therefore, deserved to be treated with respect to employees’ privacy.

“For this reason, it would not be appropriate for us to respond specifically to the issues that Mr. Gordon has raised, nor to the issues others have raised at Mr. Gordon’s request,” he wrote. “Please be assured that all of us at Harvard remain committed to treating all employees, students and student-athletes with fairness and dignity.”

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.