U-of-I tries to explain sale of donated farm

University of Iowa officials are scrambling to explain their decision to sell farmland a Franklin County man donated to the school’s hospital. In his will, Donald Hackbarth asked that the farm not be sold for 10 years after his death, but University of Iowa officials have decided to sell anyway. The president of the University of Iowa Foundation says the law allows the university to sell the farm, as the will’s 10-year-no-sale stipulation is — in his words — well meaning but unenforceable. Mr. Hackbarth, who died in 1997, asked that the proceeds from the farm’s sale be put in an account, with the interest to be used for children’s services and the intensive care unit at University Hospitals. Iowa State University was recently criticized for selling a farm that had been willed to the school. The donor had asked that the property be kept intact and used as a demonstration farm.