Thursday, February 07, 2008

No Fisk Delay

Lee Rosenbaum reports that the court has rejected the Attorney General's request (discussed earlier here) to delay the Fisk trial to allow further development of a proposal for sharing its collection with the forthcoming Museum of African American Music, Art and Culture in Nashville. According to Lee, the judge ruled that "the court does not have the authority to force Fisk to do something with the gift, such as lease it to another institution." I'm glad to see things moving forward, but I find that reasoning a little hard to square with the approach the court took when considering whether to approve the deal Fisk wanted to make with the O'Keeffe Museum back in September. Then, the issue seemed simply to be whether a better offer existed or not (because, if it did, then accepting the proposed settlement was not in the best interests of the people of the State of Tennessee).