David F. Greenberg was an academic who lived modestly in a small, rent-controlled apartment in the West Village that was, by one account, piled high with papers.
He earned a Ph.D. in physics before joining New York University, which hired him to its sociology department in 1973 even though he did not hold a degree in that field. He worked there for half a century, building an expansive body of scholarship and a reputation as a caring teacher and mentor.
At the same time, he was also building a retirement fund. When Mr. Greenberg died in 2024 at the age of 82, its balance had grown enormously. Today, the fund is worth more than $6.6 million.
But there was a problem. It wasn’t clear who should get it.
The professor, who was not married, had no children and left no will, had listed his parents as his beneficiaries, but they were already dead. He also had selected a backup beneficiary, an obscure 1970s socialist group called the New American Movement, or N.A.M. — “or any successor thereof.”
N.A.M. had disappeared. But in 1982, N.A.M. merged with another group to form an organization that does exist: the Democratic Socialists of America.
But before any money was transferred to the organization, one of the professor’s nephews, Martin Hecht, as the administrator of his estate, filed suit, arguing that his uncle had not left his money to the D.S.A. but rather to N.A.M., which was “now defunct.” The lawsuit argued that Mr. Greenberg’s family, not the modern socialist group, would be the rightful recipient of his millions.
The dispute over Mr. Greenberg’s wishes played out in Manhattan federal court over nearly a year and a half, pitting ideological bonds against familial ones, and seemed to near a conclusion on Friday.
The court filings illuminated the origins of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has become a force in Democratic politics in recent years. They also shed light on an unassuming but prolific man who stood to become, according to the group’s records, the D.S.A.’s largest donor ever. Whether he meant to or not.
‘There Was Never a Question in My Mind’
Born in Evanston, Ill., in 1942, Mr. Greenberg became involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. He took part in voter registration drives in rural South Carolina, where he was shot at. He argued for the abolition of prisons, a position he later dropped after an inmate wrote to him urging that he focus on more attainable goals. (He continued to believe that prisons required radical reform.)
At his 2024 memorial service, Mr. Greenberg’s cousin, Ms. Bender, read a message from an out-of-town relative who recalled staying with the professor once. “Every room was filled with corridors of paper stacked up to the ceiling,” the relative wrote. “We had to clear off a space to eat our Chinese food. And then I had to clear off space on the couch to sleep. I felt like I had walked right into a Charles Dickens novel.”
In a recent interview, Ms. West said she had two conversations with Mr. Greenberg, years ago, in which he made it clear he wanted to leave his estate to his family.
“It was to his sisters, and then later on he specifically said his nephews broadly,” Ms. West recalled.
She did not know how much money they were talking about, she said.
They spoke again after his sisters died. She said he reiterated his position.
“There was never a question in my mind that his relatives were going to get it,” she said.
‘Tributes, Tears and Raised Fists’
The only asset at issue is Greensberg’s first N.Y.U. Account. He only ever made one change to that first account. In 1975, a year after enrolling, Mr. Greenberg changed the form to say that if his parents were no longer alive, the fund should go to N.A.M. “or any successor thereof.”
On the question of succession, the D.S.A.’s lawyers argued that the line was clear, from the merger of N.A.M. and the other leftist group, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, had been seamless, intentional and immediate.
To bolster its case, the D.S.A. submitted to the judge, among other evidence, news coverage of the vote at the March 1982 convention in Detroit that drew hundreds of members from the two organizations.
Mr. Greenberg was not only aware of the new organization, he actively supported it, according to the D.S.A.’s records. Those records show he was a member of the organization since at least 1993, when the group began keeping electronic records, and that he paid dues to the group 29 times, totaling $1,815, over the next three decades until his death.
In July, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled in the D.S.A.’s favor, saying it was “emphatically” clear that the organization was N.A.M.’s legal successor, and thereby entitled to the funds. The judge based the ruling not just on old newspaper clips but also on declarations from former N.A.M. leaders and other records. The professor’s estate appealed.
The judge ordered Mr. Greenberg’s retirement funds, which stood at $6,609,236.13 last month, to be deposited in a court account until the appeal was resolved. A recent legal filing suggested that a settlement was in the works, and on Friday afternoon, the parties indicated they had reached an agreement.
The Democratic Socialists of America would receive the full balance being held in the court’s account, a legal filing shows. As part of the agreement, the D.S.A. has dropped a request that Mr. Greenberg’s estate pay its legal fees. As of late Friday afternoon, the transfer of the roughly $6.6 million to D.S.A. still needed to be approved by the judge.
For more information see Benjamin Weiser “He Left Behind Millions. Who Would Get It — His Family, or the D.S.A.?” The New York Times, October 9, 2026.