Dive Brief:
- UCLA is canceling a $3-million research gift to the university from the charitable foundation of disgraced Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who was banned from the league on Tuesday for his racist remarks.
- Part of the gift — $425,000 — had already been paid, and that money will be returned to the foundation.
- UCLA also denied Sterling’s claim that the university was planning to name a laboratory after Sterling and his wife.
Dive Insight:
UCLA said that the gift was rejected because Sterling’s comments showed that he does not share the university’s core values. Sterling was fined $2.5 million and banned from the league for life on Tuesday for racist comments made in a now-public recording of a conversation with his girlfriend. The NBA announced that he will also be forced to sell the team. The $3 million gift to UCLA was to be paid out over seven years to fund kidney research. Sterling had already courted controversy over the gift with his claims in a newspaper advertisement that UCLA would name a kidney lab after him, complete with a "gold-colored plaque."
