Federal lawsuit aims to cancel $100M donation to U of C

The family that pledged to give the University of Chicago its second-largest donation ever is suing the prestigious Hyde Park university, alleging a series of contract-nullifying failures by the school over the last two years.

The lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma, tells of an underwhelming bang for the donors' 100 million bucks. Now, they're asking a judge to void the deal and recoup the family the nearly $23 million already given to U of C.

In 2015, The Thomas L. Pearson and The Pearson Family Foundation pledged $100 million to the U of C to establish The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts.

"At the end of this, when we look back, 10 to 20 years from now, we want to have changed, fundamentally, the way we think about global conflict," Daniel Diermeier, then-dean of the university's Harris School of Public Policy, said at the time.

In the 2½ years since, the donors say they no longer trust U of C to put their money to good use.

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