Cooper Union administrators hit with suit for instituting tuition

Cooper Union alumni slapped the school with a lawsuit Tuesday over the East Village institution's controversial decision to charge tuition — while calling out school officials for approving extravagant expenses like personal bodyguards and $10,000 blinds for their new president.

The Committee to Save Cooper Union accuses administrators of squandering funds by allowing President Jamshed Bharucha to ­indulge "in luxuries that a school dedicated to free tuition and allegedly strapped for cash could not afford," the suit says.

"President Bharucha spent over $350,000 on his inauguration celebration — $50,000 of which went to pay celebrity guest speaker ­Fareed Zakaria," a foreign-policy author, according to court papers.

"And over $23,000 for expensive furnishings for the president's house, including almost $10,000 on new blinds and over $8,000 for a custom buffet."

He also shelled out cash for private security and personal bodyguards, the suit says.

School spokesman Justin Harmon declined to comment on the perks on Bharucha's behalf because they are at issue in ongoing litigation.

The group wants the court to block the $19,500 tuition fees scheduled to go into effect this coming fall.

The alumni accuse the previously tuition-free university's board of trustees of violating founder Peter Cooper's vision for "a perpetual course of free ­lectures and instruction."

In the Manhattan Supreme Court suit, they also take administrators to task for squandering funds by building an extravagant new engineering building, depleting the school's endowment through risky hedge-fund investments and paying past President George Campbell a $1.3 million salary.

The six plaintiffs include two alumni-professors, Michael Essl and Toby Cumberbatch.

Students had staged a months-long sit in at Bharucha's office last year to protest the institution of tuition.

Cooper Union, founded in 1859, went tuition free in the early 1900s.

On the suit in general, Harmon said, "We are disappointed that the Committee to Save Cooper Union would choose costly litigation over constructive conversation."

He added, "The decision to charge tuition was tremendously difficult, and every member of the Cooper Union community feels the profound effect it has had, but our first responsibility is to the students, faculty and to the future of Cooper Union."

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