Rider University’s $40 million deal to sell Westminster Choir College to a Chinese company should be called off because of contract terms allowing the buyer to shut down Westminster’s graduate and undergraduate music programs at any time, opponents of the deal claim.

The revelation, disclosed to a group of Westminster graduates and other supporters in an Open Public Records Act request to the Attorney General’s Office, provides new ammunition to the supporters in their battle to halt the sale. They say it contradicts Rider’s prior public statement that Westminster’s music programs would continue to operate for at least a decade after the planned sale of the school and its 23-acre campus to Bejing Kaiwen Education Technology Co. And Kaiwen would be in violation of state law governing nonprofits if it sold off Westminster’s real estate for profit-making purposes, said Bruce Afran, the lawyer representing the music school’s supporters.