Harvard names a restroom after an interesting alum donation

WASHINGTON – Professional sports teams often play in stadiums emblazoned with corporate monikers, but there’s a new trend in the sale of naming rights: bathroom stalls.

A growing number of colleges and universities are getting some financial relief by naming restrooms after people who make large donations. Even the Harvard Law School now has a restroom named after alum.

William Falik, a Harvard Law School graduate, donated $100,000 to his alma mater. And yes, the pronunciation is exactly the same as the term used in Freudian psychology.

The website Above the Law has a picture.

Falik has said the donation came about after he met with the former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, who is now a U.S. Supreme Court justice. He tells Above the Law she shares his sense of humor and went along with the idea, in honor of the 100th birthday of Falik’s father and a public interest fellowship.

Other universities are making money off of their restroom stalls. They include the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

At Penn, the donor requested that the restroom walls include plaques reading, “The relief you are now experiencing is made possible by a gift from Michael Zinman.”

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(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

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