To the Editor:
The Daily Princetonian has published several articles recently that refer to a lawsuit filed in New Jersey tax court that challenges Princeton University’s exemption from taxes on properties that support its educational mission.
To prevail, the plaintiffs will need to persuade the court that Princeton has ceased to be an educational institution and instead has become an entity whose dominant motive is to make a profit. No one can argue in good faith that Princeton’s dominant motive is anything other than to be the best educational institution it can possibly be.
As an educational institution, Princeton’s mission is to educate students and generate new knowledge and new ideas. It does these things not only for their students' own sakes, but to serve the public good by preparing and encouraging students from a broad range of backgrounds to aspire to positions of leadership and lives of service, and by making discoveries that lead to advances in a broad range of fields that have a direct impact on the broader society — fields ranging from medicine and the environment to technology and public policy.
The University generates revenues to support its educational mission through endowment earnings, charitable gifts and tuition and other charges, and it spends its revenues to achieve this mission. Both state and federal tax policies enable educational institutions to maximize the extent to which their revenues can be used to support their missions. The University also generates a small fraction of its budget through patents and royalties, and it similarly invests those revenues to advance its educational mission. Even with a successful patent, the revenues that come to the University are dwarfed by the investment the University makes in creating the conditions that allow our faculty to do the research that leads to the ideas that eventually lead to the patent.
Federal law and policy strongly encourage research universities to work with outside partners to convert intellectual property into products and services that meet human and societal needs. This is fully consistent with a mission that seeks to serve the public good through the discoveries and insights that arise out of the core mission of teaching and research. The federal Bayh-Dole Act provides guidance on how this is to be done. A number of the practices that are being challenged by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are specifically required by Bayh-Dole, and they are followed by research universities throughout the country.
When the University hires someone to help make connections with companies that might be interested in the intellectual property created by our faculty through their research, or works with congressional staff or federal agencies on matters related to tax or patent policy, it is working within the framework and spirit of the Bayh-Dole Act on matters that enhance the University's capacity to achieve its educational mission and contribute to the public good.
Robert K. DurkeeVice President and Secretary, Princeton University
Read More
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