Controversy over Alabama’s new abortion restrictions could have financial consequences for the state’s public university system.

The chancellor of the University of Alabama system this week asked the institution to return $21.5 million donated to its law school by Florida businessman Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.

Chancellor Finis St. John says he recommended that the school’s board of trustees return Culverhouse’s donation — the largest-ever gift to the institution — because of an “ongoing dispute” that stemmed from Culverhouse making “numerous demands” about the operation of the university’s law school, the school said in a statement.

“None of the issues between the Law School and Mr. Culverhouse had anything to do with the passage of legislation in which the University had no role,” the school system said in a statement.

But the chancellor’s recommendation to return the money came just hours after Culverhouse said students should avoid enrolling in the university’s law school, which was named after him in 2018.

Culverhouse called for a boycott of the school because of the state’s new abortion law, the Tuscaloosa News first reported.

He called the new law “draconian.”

“I don’t want anybody to go to that law school, especially women, until the state gets its act together,” Culverhouse told the Associated Press on Wednesday. He was referring to the state law passed earlier this month that makes it a felony for doctors to perform abortions.

The law, which has been cheered by anti-abortion activists, bans all abortions except when the mother’s life is at stake. Supporters hope the law will eventually lead to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade. “If your daughter is gang-raped, it’s not grounds for an abortion,” Culverhouse told MarketWatch. “Incest is not grounds. If you take the Alabama statute that they just passed and compare it Saudi Arabia, you’ll find that Saudi Arabia is much more liberal.”

Culverhouse, whose father once owned the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is a lawyer and real estate investor. He and his wife Eliza have donated nearly $40 million to the University of Alabama over the past decade, the Tuscaloosa News reported.

“My family has always believed in the rights of women,” Culverhouse, Jr. told MarketWatch, adding that his father was on the board of Planned Parenthood in the 1950s.

He has said he’ll put his resources toward the ACLU’s legal fight against the Alabama law.

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Culverhouse told MarketWatch he wants companies like Google GOOG, +0.92% and Mercedes-Benz DAI, +0.44% to stop doing business in Alabama, and he wants the University of Alabama’s out-of-state students to follow suit by boycotting the school.

Some 66% of the university’s students come from outside Alabama, Culverhouse said. It’s one of many state schools that have turned to wealthy out-of-state students to ease budget constraints as state funding for public education has declined. (Google and Mercedes-Benz did not respond to requests for comment.)

The University of Alabama donation controversy is the latest financial fallout in the abortion debate, which is gripping Americans’ attention again as several states have passed tight restrictions on the procedure. Netflix NFLX, +0.52% and Disney DIS, -0.64% have said they may halt production in Georgia because of that state’s newly passed abortion restrictions.

Higher education is a favorite cause among wealthier philanthropists. Two-thirds of billionaires direct part of their charitable giving to education-related causes, according to a 2018 survey by the research firm Wealth-X.