A $1-million gift to Kent State University that would have named the basketball court after the donor was withdrawn after a student journalist raised questions about the contributor’s business history, according to KentWired and the Akron Beacon Journal.

The mid-December pledge would have renamed the university’s MAC Center arena Cope Court. Would-be donor Jason M. Cope, a 1995 Kent State graduate, was one of four defendants assessed millions of dollars in fines by the Securities and Exchanges Commission in connection with a stock fraud in 1999 and 2000.

Contacted by a reporter for the campus newspaper, the Daily Kent Stater, last week, athletic director Joel Nielsen said the school had discussed the case with Mr. Cope and “we are comfortable in not only where he stands but where we stand in that relationship.” But on Friday the university said in a statement that the donor had rescinded the gift due to “unforeseen changes.”

The university would not comment further, and efforts by both newspapers to reach Mr. Cope were unsuccessful.