Citing financial difficulties and a new, more restrictive policy on academic centers, the Graduate School of Education (GSE) announced last week that actress Jane Fonda will not be donating most of the $12.5 million she pledged two years ago for the creation of a gender studies center.

Fonda’s pledge—which would have been the GSE’s largest in its 83-year-history—was slated to endow a center with $2.5 million earmarked for the center’s chair, a position named for famed gender studies expert and former Graham professor of gender studies Carol Gilligan.

In an October interview, Gilligan said that the funding would make it possible for Harvard to legitimize gender studies once and for all and to “take leadership internationally on these issues.”

Fonda gave the GSE $6.5 million at the time of her pledge, a large part of which was earmarked for the chair. But this summer, when nothing had been made of her donation, the actress was reportedly angry and considering withholding the rest of her donation, according to a Boston Globe columnist.

According to Thursday’s announcement, Fonda will indeed not be donating the additional $6 million.

Even the unused portion of the money that Fonda has already given will be returned to the actress.

The University is calling the change in this agreement with Fonda a mutual decision between Fonda and the GSE.

The small portion of the Fonda funds which the GSE still plans to use will be channeled into the Boston chapter of the Big Sisters foundation and Project ASSERT, a program to increase awareness of gender, race and class issues among educators.

Center Policy Changes

Since the time of Fonda’s donation, Harvard has installed a new president and the GSE has named a new dean, each of whom brought new visions. The University has also created a new, much more restrictive policy on centers.

Last week’s announcement cited the University’s new policy on centers as part of the reasoning behind abandoning the Gender Studies Center.

“Several factors, including the prolonged slump in the stock market as well as new University rules regarding research centers led to a change of terms,” stated the press release.

Early this December, deans and University President Lawrence H. Summers approved a policy requiring that each new center have an explicit mission statement that supplements the work of individual departments.

“We want to make sure that these add-ons don’t actually take resources away from the core mission of the schools,” said University Provost Steven E. Hyman, at the time of the policy’s approval.

At that time, Hyman spoke of the problems that often arise when centers lose a leader.