From the Statesman.com (via Bookslut):
This month, the St. Andrew's Board of Trustees officially released Cary McNair and his family from their $3 million pledge to the school's capital campaign after McNair objected to the use of "Brokeback Mountain" as reading material in a 12th-grade English class.
"Brokeback Mountain" tells the story of two male ranch hands who fall in love and have a homosexual relationship over many years. The story contains details of gay sex acts. It appeared first in the Oct. 13, 1997, issue of The New Yorker magazine, then as part of a collection of Proulx's short stories, titled "Close Range."
"St. Andrew's has a policy not to accept conditional gifts, whether it's $5 or $500,000. When the McNair family looked at their gift in a conditional manner, then the school could not accept it," said Bill Miller, who was asked by St. Andrew's to serve as its spokesman for this story.
It's even more impressive: This was actually the last year that the school was going to teach the story (the teacher only uses texts that haven't been made into movies), so the school pretty much refused the money as a matter of principle. Kickass.
I was totally going to send that to you after I read it the other day. But the statesman is a "registered users only" site, so I didn't. GLad you found it!
Posted by: tracy | 05 October 2005 at 11:29 AM
I am a huge fan of BugMeNot.com!
Posted by: leila | 05 October 2005 at 11:39 AM
Wow, talk about putting your money where your mouth is, yay St. Andrews. Would you believe that I've owned "Close Range" for years but never read it? Dumbuh.
Posted by: C.C. | 05 October 2005 at 02:39 PM
The best part is the story was part of an optional reading list. I can only assume this means that most students never bothered about it anyway, but now that it is dripping with scandal you can bet they're being all badass and reading the story.
Posted by: Hissy Cat | 05 October 2005 at 07:27 PM