Estate of Wilson
Court of Appeals of New York
452 N.E.2d 1228 (1983)
In one consolidated matter, a private trust directed scholarship income to men nominated by a public school superintendent, and after the superintendent stopped cooperating amid discrimination complaints, the Appellate Division applied cy pres to strike the superintendent-nomination provision and let candidates apply directly to the trustee; in the other, a will similarly restricted scholarships to men with a public school board of education itself serving as trustee, and after the parties stipulated to changing "men" to "persons," the lower court instead replaced the school district with a private trustee, a decision the Appellate Division reversed by applying cy pres to eliminate the gender restriction entirely.
Whether, when a court applies trust principles that permit private discrimination, but do not encourage or compel it, this constitutes a state action in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.