Before Bill Gates became a big donor at the UW he, through his Father Bill Senior, was involved in an effort to, IMO, bully the campus in order to build a new law school building. This was at the same time they were being actively investigated for anti-trust violations by the US DOJ.
I was the first to write on the subject, below. Rick Anderson of the Seattle Weekly also wrote on the subject and did a better job than I.
Do make note of the advice of Architecture Professor Folke Nyberg, at the end of the article. The Gates would later step up to the plate and make a fair contribution, though not without a fair amount of bad blood with those departments who had been pushed to the back of the line.
(Asterisk)This **may** well also mark the start of their entire philanthropic effort, through the Gates Foundation.
For another perspective worthy of consideration look at this 'priority' as an expression of the authority of Land Use law and it's Institutional Planning regulations to hold itself above its own regulations....
