Mary Synge, The University‐Charity: Challenging Perceptions in Higher Education, 2023, xix + 504 pp, hb £120.
| Published date | 01 January 2024 |
| Author | John Picton |
| Date | 01 January 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12841 |
Reviews
trinal approaches that focus on the in-depth analysis of case law and emerging
legal principles.
Magdalena Furgalska∗
Mary Synge,The University-Charity: Challenging Perceptions in Higher
Education, 2023, xix +504 pp, hb £120.
In her new book, which she describes as a ‘plea to take charity law seriously’
(462), Mary Synge examines the char itable status of universities. In much of the
analysis, she focuses either directly or indirectly on the purpose at the centre of
charitable universities (463). The charitable purpose is normally found in the
university constitution,and, for almost all charitable universities,it is a variant of
the ‘advancement of education and research’. For Synge, char itable universities
should operate with the pur pose as a ‘raison d’etre’ (472).
It is a core feature of charity law, famously expounded by Lord Macnaghten
in Special Commissioners of Income Tax vPemsel [1891] AC 531, and then leg-
islated in subsection 3(1) of the Charities Act 2011, that all charities must be
established for a legally recognised purpose. The purpose is not the same as an
executive mission statement. So, as is seen in the book, the University of Exeter
issued a statement that it operates to ‘make the exceptional happen by challeng-
ing traditional thinking and defying conventional boundaries’ (140). However,
that amorphous aspirational goal is of no legal eect. Instead,the binding pur-
pose of the University is contained in its foundational document, being, ‘for
research and instruction in the humanities and sciences and other spheres of
learning and knowledge of a standard and thoroughness required and expected
of a University of the highest standing’ (136).
The originality in the book is that it extends core charity law principles
onto university-related ground. It is the rst developed academic work to do
so. As a large number of institutions, particularly those founded before 1992,
are charitable, the implications of the text are signicant.As Synge descr ibes in
Chapter,4, char ity law imposes standards of behaviour upon charitable trustees.
That is because charity law not only requires that organisations are established
for charitable purposes, it also demands as a derivative rule that all trustee deci-
sions are taken in the ‘best interests’ of those purposes (for example Lehtimäki v
Cooper [2020] UKSC 33 at [90]; Harries vThe Church Commissioners for England
[1992] 1 WLR 1241, 1246).
In expanding the ‘best interests of the purpose’ rule outwards,applying it to
the university context and the decisions of university executives,Synge is able to
critique practices in the contemporary sector. She takes the view that increasing
student numbers to the point where teaching standards fall, or encouraging
and facilitating grade ination, might be contrary to the best interests of the
educational purpose (148). Equally, she works through the hypothesis that the
∗York Law School.
240 © 2023 The Author.The Modern Law Review © 2023 The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2024) 87(1) MLR 240–243
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