David F. Greenberg spent 49 years teaching sociology at New York University and died in 2024 without a will. Yet a federal judge has now ruled that his roughly $6.6 million retirement fund belongs not to his surviving family but to the DSA — a windfall that dwarfs the entire national organization's reported assets.
A 1975 Beneficiary Form Decides Millions
The dispute traces back to a retirement-account beneficiary form Greenberg changed in 1975, according to The New York Times. Greenberg named his parents as primary beneficiaries but designated a backup: the New American Movement, or “any successor thereof.” The 1970s socialist group was founded in Davenport, Iowa, in December 1971 by New Left activists including future Tikkun magazine founder Michael Lerner, according to background compiled on Wikipedia.
The New American Movement merged with Michael Harrington's Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee in 1982, forming the modern Democratic Socialists of America, per the Times reporting and corroborated by Encyclopædia Britannica. Greenberg, born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1942, was hired by NYU in 1973 and went on to become a fixture of the sociology department. He earned a Ph.D. in physics.
Family Fought the Ruling, Lost Round One
Martin Hecht, suing as administrator of Greenberg's estate, argued that Greenberg had intended his money for the long-defunct New American Movement specifically — not a modern political organization he may never have anticipated inheriting it. The litigation played out in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York as Hecht v. New York University et al., docket number 25 Civ. 3042, with NYU named as plan administrator and the DSA as a competing claimant, according to court filings reviewed via Justia Dockets.
A Settlement, Pending Judicial Sign-Off
The DSA and the Greenberg estate reached an agreement Friday under which the organization would receive the full balance held in the court account, the Times reported. As part of the deal, the DSA dropped its request for the estate to cover its legal fees. As of Friday afternoon, the transfer still needed a judge's formal approval before any money could move.
The sum stands in stark contrast to the DSA's reliance primarily on member dues and its roughly 126,000 members, per the Times. The retirement fund at the center of the case was separate from a second NYU retirement plan Greenberg enrolled in during 1996, in which he named his two sisters as primary beneficiaries and ultimately left $1.3 million to his nephews, along with stocks, bonds and cash worth at least $1 million left outside any retirement plan.
A Windfall That Reshapes the DSA's Books
The scale of the bequest is almost impossible to overstate against the DSA's actual finances. The national organization reported net assets of just $4.7 million in its 2024 tax return, according to The New York Times. Greenberg's $6.6 million bequest alone exceeds the organization's entire reported net asset base, effectively more than doubling it — a scale of impact unusual for an organization built primarily on member dues from its roughly 126,000 members.
Greenberg's Life and Work
Greenberg died in 2024 at 82.
Greenberg's beneficiary designation named the New American Movement as a backup beneficiary; the group later merged to form DSA.
