B-CU grad establishes legal defense fund for alumni association's fight with university

A legal battle between Bethune-Cookman University and its former alumni association − partners for 89 years until the school severed ties in 2021 − carries on, and a graduate of the school has started a legal-defense fund to back the support group.

Percy Williamson, a 1978 B-CU alumnus, said Wednesday he has started the Sustaining the Legacy Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit separate from the Mary McLeod Bethune National Alumni Association. He said he's seeking to raise money for the alumni organization's legal bills, allowing it to steer most of its donations to scholarships benefitting students.

"We are very passionate about raising money that's necessary so that our more than 19,000 graduates will have a voice," Williamson said.

Karen Parks, executive director of marketing and communications at B-CU, declined to comment on the lawsuit on Wednesday.

How they got here

Years of legal, financial and accreditation problems that started with a dorm deal gone wrong, led to a drastic remaking of the Board of Trustees. Gone were seats that had previously been given to members of the alumni association and in came Belvin Perry, an attorney and former Orange County judge, as chairman.

In 2021, as it appeared the university was beginning to turn the corner on some of the biggest challenges, President Brent Chrite abruptly resigned. That event led to a "no confidence vote" by the alumni association in Perry, who fired back that some alumni leaders were "dissidents" who were angling to get seats back on the board.

With ongoing acrimony between Perry and Johnny McCray, the alumni association president, the university announced later in 2021 that it was severing ties with the alumni association and would start its own direct-support organization, a move it said its accreditors required and what has become the industry norm. With that in play, B-CU then wrote a cease-and-desist letter to the alumni association, demanding the name "Bethune-Cookman University" and its trademarks be removed from the group's name, website and other materials.

Thus, the "Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune National Alumni Association" was born, but some of its website still contained B-CU images and references. So in January 2022, Bethune-Cookman filed suit, challenging the alumni group's use of the school founder's name. A petition for a preliminary injunction ordering the NAA to drop the Bethune name came that July.

In a ruling issued May 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court's ruling that the injunction did not meet the standards for the "extraordinary and drastic remedy," including showing that any "immediate and irreparable" harm was being done.

Since the restraining order was denied, Bethune-Cookman terminated its law firm, Cobb Cole of Daytona Beach, and hired Greenberg Traurig, a national firm with an Orlando office. Those firms both submitted bills totaling more than $23,000 that B-CU entered as evidence in a claim Wednesday that the alumni association pay its legal fees for work on two motions it said were caused by the defendants' "long-term resistance to (comply) with its most basic discovery obligations."

And the lawsuit continues, costing the university and the alumni association untold thousands.

Alumni role in holding leaders accountable

The alumni association, founded by Bethune in 1932, has become an important voice for transparency and best practices, Williamson said.

He stepped down from a leadership position on the alumni association to start the defense-fund organization, in part because the university has failed in recent years to be "forthright in providing the lifeblood of the university," which is information about the school's finances and wellbeing.

Reginald Moore, a longtime Daytona Beach attorney, B-CU alumnus and the son of former university President Richard V. Moore, said he is supporting the legal-defense fund to help the alumni association fend off the B-CU lawsuit "so any money that's given to the Mary McLeod Bethune National Alumni Association can be used to help students."

He, too, has concerns about the school's leadership.

"The institution, the present trustees, have decided to make all of the decisions," Moore said. "They now want to control the alumni association without alumni association input and without accountability."

The alumni association is important as a source of scholarships for students and to help keep the university's leadership accountable, Moore said.

In making its legal case, the university argues the alumni association is hurting the school's efforts to grow its own support organization.

Bethune, who founded the school in 1904, remains a major part of the university's mission and identity, with the school, the street that runs through its center, her historic house and the performing arts center named for her.

Her name associated with an organization that has no ties to B-CU is "likely to cause confusion in the marketplace," the university's lawyers have argued. An argument in favor of the injunction included an affidavit from Kimberly Woodard, the university's executive director of alumni affairs and development.

She attested to hearing from one donor who said she gave to the former alumni association by mistake after seeing a message about a "Giving Tuesday." She had intended to give directly to B-CU, Woodard said in the affidavit. Also, she has heard from "potential donors that the former alumni association has represented to them that they are required to send any funds to the former alumni association and not B-CU."

But Williamson says there's no confusion and no legitimate claim by the B-CU to the Bethune name.

"Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune's name is not copyrighted. It's not owned by anybody," he said.

"Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, as you know, is one of the biggest icons in the United States and she's more than just the founder of Bethune-Cookman University," Williamson said. "Just read your basic history on her."

The placement of a marble statue in the halls of Congress last year shows the local community, state and nation recognize her importance, he said.

'Mother Mary' Gets Her Due: Mary McLeod Bethune statue unveiling this week at the US Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Assigning Blame: B-CU sues former president Edison Jackson over dorm deal

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Bethune-Cookman grad aims to help legal defense of alumni association