Charles and Nancy Munger Donate $43.5 Million to Stanford University and Its Law School

Business Wire, August 26, 2004

STANFORD, Calif. -- Charles T. Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and his wife, Nancy B. Munger, have donated $43.5 million to Stanford University and its Law School, the university announced today. The gift will be used to support construction of a new graduate residence that will house law, business and other graduate students.

The gift is believed to be the largest individual gift ever given outright to an American law school and is the largest gift for student housing in Stanford's history.

"In recent years there have been few more pressing issues at Stanford than the need to construct student housing, especially for graduate students," Stanford President John Hennessy said. "This magnificent gift of Charlie and Nancy Munger is especially meaningful because it will so directly benefit our students. We are deeply appreciative of their tremendous generosity."

Although extensive discussions and planning on the housing are under way, final plans have not been developed. The general plans call for a complex of buildings adjacent to the Law School with sufficient capacity to include law, business and other graduate students, as well as common facilities available to the entire graduate student community. Additional fundraising will be required to complete the project as it is currently conceived.

Munger, 80, was founder of the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson. While he did not attend Stanford, Nancy is an alumna and served on the Board of Trustees. Several of their children and grandchildren have attended Stanford as well. His daughter, Wendy (AB '72), is a current trustee.

Munger has worked closely for the past three years with Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen M. Sullivan and President Hennessy to bring the concept to fruition.

"If you build really good housing," Munger told the Stanford Daily earlier this year, "it will be a huge advantage for Stanford. It will form a community that doesn't yet exist in American education. The students will educate each other."

Sullivan said, "It has been a joy to work with Charlie and Nancy Munger to create a unique living-learning model for legal education that at the same time will provide the best housing in the country for law and other graduate students."