CONTROL OVER GIFT

The Texas oil executive Boone Pickens appears to have retained significant influence over how his $165-million pledge to Oklahoma State University is being used, The New York Times reports. At year’s end, when donors had their last chance to take advantage of a special tax break passed after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Pickens gave $165-million to an athletics charity at the Oklahoma university, which was then immediately invested in Mr. Pickens’s own hedge fund, BP Capital Management. The investment deal does not appear to violate any laws, legal experts said, but it raised questions about whether donors were able to manipulate the tax code for their own financial benefit, the newspaper said. The university’s athletics director said that the investment was his decision, not Mr. Pickens’s.

Also: See The Chronicle’s stories on Mr. Pickens’s donations last year, including the pledge to Oklahoma State University. (A paid subscription is required to view these articles.)