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The University of Alabama is poised to return more than $21 million given to the law school after a dispute seemingly touched off by the state's new abortion law—a move that would strip the name Hugh Culverhouse from its law school.

The university's chancellor has recommended giving back the $21.5 million it has received thus far from Miami attorney and businessman Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr., who last fall pledged $26.5 million to the law school. The Tuscaloosa campus was renamed Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. School of Law at the University of Alabama in September.

Culverhouse on Wednesday called for students to boycott the University of Alabama in a bid to pressure state lawmakers to roll back the law, which bans abortion. But university officials responded that tensions between the law school and its namesake donor predate the abortion law and that they would not stand for donor meddling.

Culverhouse said in an interview Thursday that he has pushed law school dean Mark Brandon to increase the size of the student body and offer more scholarships to bring in students, but that the school has instead opted to maintain it class size in a bid to preserve its U.S. News & World Report ranking. (The school is currently ranked No. 25, up two spots from the previous year.)

In a prepared statement issued Wednesday, vice-chancellor for communications Kellee Reinhart said Culverhouse had asked the school to return $10 million and has made repeated “demands about the operations of the University of Alabama School of Law.”

“None of the issues between the law school and Mr. Culverhouse had anything to do with the passage of legislation in which the university had no role,” the statement reads. “Donors may not dictate university administration.”

Reached Thursday, Brandon referred questions to Reinhart, who declined further comment.

But University of Alabama System Chancellor Finis St. John on Tuesday sent a memo to the board of trustees recommending the return of Culverhouse's entire donation and restoring the law school's previous name: The University of Alabama School of Law.

“After numerous conversations and communications involving President (Stuart) Bell and (School of Law Dean Mark) Brandon, it is apparent that university and law school leadership will not be able to meet the donor's expectations and do not share the same vision for the future,” St. John wrote in the memo.

Culverhouse said he was befuddled by St. John's recommendation to return his donation and that attributing the move to earlier disputes is a red herring.

“I don't know why they came back and said, 'We're going to send this money back, but it has nothing to do with his stand on abortion', ” Culverhouse said. “Bullshit.”

Culverhouse said his call for a boycott is not focused specifically on the law school, which draws relatively few students from out of state. Rather, the boycott is primarily intended for the larger university, where out-of-state students compose more than half of the student body, as well as national and international companies that do business in Alabama.

“I don't know who or what has put a bug up the ass of the law school,” Culverhouse said. “It's the rest of the campus where I'm saying, 'If you are out of state and a have a daughter, think long and hard before you send her to Alabama. If you work at Mercedes-Benz and you are a woman, think long and hard about your job. If you're in a technology company, do you really want to be in that environment?”

But Culverhouse acknowledged existing tensions with Brandon centered on the number of students at the law school. The law school has yet to spend any of the $21.5 million he has already given, according to both Culverhouse and the board of trustees memo, including $1.5 million for scholarships that he donated several years ago.

Culverhouse said he would like the school to return to a student body of about 500 students, which has dwindled to 381 over the past eight years. But the school is resisting that expansion in order to maintain its U.S. News rank, he contends. (Alabama is among the many law schools that has shrunk enrollment over the past eight years, when the number of applicants nationwide declined more than 30 percent. Lower enrollments have allowed schools to be more selective in admissions and have contributed to improved entry-level employment figures in recent years.)

Culverhouse made his aspiration for a larger law school clear in a speech he delivered last fall when the school was officially renamed. He said he initially believed Brandon was working toward expanding the school's enrollment but now thinks otherwise.

Culverhouse is a business executive and real estate developer but he didn't attend Alabama's law school. He graduated from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 1974. (He has made smaller donations to his law school alma mater.) But both his parents attended the University of Alabama and donated to the university. The University of Alabama's business school is named for Culverhouse's father, Hugh Culverhouse Sr., who was a successful tax attorney and longtime owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He died in 1994. The younger Culverhouse has also made multimillion-dollar gifts to Alabama's business school and women's golf team. (His mother was a state champion on the links.)

When Culverhouse's donation was announced last September, the law school said the funds would be used to establish an endowment to pursue innovations including a modernized library, fund student scholarships, expand the school's physical presence and generate more career opportunities for students.

It's now unclear if those plans will come to fruition. The university's Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet June 6 and 7 and could reach a decision then on whether to return Culverhouse's donation. Culverhouse said Thursday that he doesn't want his money back.

“I want the university to be one of the best universities, but we're going to do it the right goddamn way and compete with other people by doing the same thing every other law school does,” he said, noting that prominent public law schools including the University of Georgia School of Law and the University of Florida Levin College of Law have nearly twice and triple the number of students, respectively. “You'll have a full boat of students and you're going to teach them and tell U.S. News, 'Fuck you.' What's wrong with that? You're a state school. You need lawyers. And you need to teach them. 381 isn't going to do it.”