20 U.S.C. § 127 — Transfer of facilities by University or cessation of operation as teaching hospital facilities; recovery of value by United States

This section applies for 20 years after the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare determines that construction of the new hospital facilities authorized by section 126 of this title is complete. During that 20-year window, if Howard University transfers any of those new facilities — or any of the facilities transferred to it under section 124 and combined with the new ones — to any person or entity other than the United States, or if the university stops operating them as teaching hospital facilities, the United States can recover money from whoever is responsible. If there was a transfer, the United States can collect from either the person who received the facilities or from the university. If there was no transfer but the university simply stopped using the facilities as a teaching hospital, the United States collects from the university. The amount owed equals the current value of the facilities involved (or the part of them involved in the transfer). That value is set either by agreement between the parties or by a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.