Noah Feldman, Columnist

Tax Yale's Endowment? Good Luck With That

There's a 1745 charter. And the Constitution. Plus Daniel Webster.

March 30, 2016 at 6:30 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Rich.
Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg

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"It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!" These words, spoken by Daniel Webster, are among the most famous ever uttered before the Supreme Court. And they may be spoken again if Connecticut passes proposed legislation that would tax Yale University’s $25.6 billion endowment.

Yale isn't especially small, nor is it vulnerable as Dartmouth was in 1818 when Webster spoke of his alma mater. But the Connecticut bill almost certainly violates the holding in the 1819 case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, which established that the Constitution bars states from changing a university's charter.