By Anne Levin

Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) has filed a lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court against Rider University, regarding Rider’s ongoing attempt to sell Westminster Choir College. The suit says that Rider “appears to have disregarded its obligations to the Seminary and the conditions set by the original donor of the land.”

That donor was Sophia Strong Taylor, who in the 1930s donated property in Princeton to Westminster Choir College. She named PTS as a steward of the gift, stipulating that the ownership of the land would shift to the Seminary “if Westminster ever ceased to operate as a choir college,” according to a press release from PTS.

Taylor Hall on the Westminster campus is named for Taylor, who underwrote the purchase of the original Princeton acreage and the construction of its first four buildings.

Westminster merged with Rider, which is in Lawrenceville, in 1992. The merger saved the choir college, then in a financial crisis. But last year, Rider announced plans to sell Westminster in order to stem its own looming deficit. The name of the buyer, said to be a Chinese for-profit company, has not been revealed.

At the time of the merger, “at Westminster’s request, the Seminary then entered into legal agreements that enabled the merger, with the understanding that Rider would serve Westminster’s mission,” the PTS statement reads. “Rider has not honored the substance of various interinstitutional agreements, which were intended to protect Mrs. Taylor’s wishes.”

PTS president Craig Barnes said the Seminary has made repeated attempts to engage Rider on issues of the proposed sale, “but we have been kept at arm’s length,” he said. “We don’t take this legal action lightly, but we have had no choice but to task the court to intervene. We are hopeful that this matter will come to resolution quickly and fairly, in a manner that honors our institutional agreements and preserves Mrs. Taylor’s wishes.”

Speaking Tuesday on behalf of Rider, Kristine Brown, assistant vice president of University Marketing and Communications, said, “Rider University is aware of the lawsuit filed today by the Princeton Theological Seminary in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Mercer County, Chancery Division. We have been in conversations with the Seminary for approximately a year in regards to their note and mortgage on the Westminster property. We are disappointed they felt the need to file suit at this time, which we believe to be premature. Rider’s main focus has been to find an entity to continue running Westminster in Princeton. It has been our intention when we achieved that goal to return to discussions with the Seminary to address its demand for a share of the net proceeds, to the extent there are any. Rider has supported and sustained Westminster Choir College since 1991, when the Seminary declined to do so. Rider will not allow this lawsuit to derail its efforts to find a new partner to continue running Westminster.”