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Georgetown explanation for Catholic group’s missing funds ‘raises more questions than it answers’

University has yet to return funds to Love Saxa

A student group that advocates traditional Catholic teaching on man-woman marriage is disputing Georgetown University’s explanation for why some of its funds have either gone missing or been re-routed to LGBT-friendly organizations.

At least $400 intended for Love Saxa never made it into the group’s coffers, including $50 that went to the Catholic university’s “LGBTQ Resource Center Reserve” and $100 to a campus a cappella group that partners with a D.C.-area pro-LGBT organization.

There’s still no explanation why a $250 donation simply went missing, and Love Saxa has reason to believe that it received additional donations from a campus phone-a-thon that likewise never showed up in its account, according to a lawyer for the group.

“The situation raises questions to the overall integrity of Georgetown’s financial functioning,” Travis Barham of the Alliance Defending Freedom told told The College Fix via phone Monday.

The university has stated that it has rectified the matter. Georgetown spokesman Matt Hill told The  Fix via email on Feb. 2 that “all gifts to Love Saxa have been identified and are being deposited to Love Saxa’s account”:

When the university receives a gift designated by donor for a student group with access to benefits, the gifts are allocated with a designated worktag that ensures they reach the intended recipient. Because a Fall 2017 gift was the first donation of its kind to Love Saxa, no established path existed. As always in these cases, we corrected the mistakes, have developed a path to ensure that funds are routed properly in the future, and have communicated to the student group and the donors that the gifts have been properly allocated.

Georgetown’s response “raises more questions than it answers,” and the administration has yet to “directly” communicate with Love Saxa’s lawyers, Barham told The Fix.

“Love Saxa has been operating with a fully functional set of accounting codes since at least the 2016-2017 school year,” he said. “Even if there was a problem with the account codes, that still doesn’t explain why some of the missing funds ended up in the accounts of other organizations.”

Additionally, Barham said that as of Monday, the university still had not returned the funds to Love Saxa.

Matt Hill, the university spokesman, did not immediately respond to an email seeking clarification on these issues.

Considering ‘other avenues for recovering its misappropriated donations’

Love Saxa faced significant social and administrative pressure last semester after its president publicly declared the group’s support of male-female marriage and its opposition to same-sex marriage.

Though it beat a student petition to strip Love Saxa of its university-recognized status, the group says it was harassed at one of its meetings and that the Washington ACLU vowed to protest its events.

Last week the Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to Georgetown President John DeGioia asking the university to investigate the matter and restore the funds to Love Saxa. If it doesn’t get a response by next week, the alliance will advise Love Saxa “as to other avenues for recovering its misappropriated donations,” it warned DeGioia.

“We’re still waiting for the Feb. 9 deadline,” Barham told The Fix, “and we’ll evaluate then.”

MORE: Traditional marriage group’s donations rerouted to pro-LGBT groups

MORE: Meet the student group persecuted for supporting traditional marriage

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