President Obama’s presidency nears its end, reporter Schiol Mayer is thinking of a moment at the beginning. She says a group of people gathered on the weekend of Obama’s inauguration in And they were organized by Charles Koch, who is one of the two brothers known these days as the Koch brothers, who owns Koch Industry, which is the second-largest private company in America. It’s not so. They have a very distinct and interesting worldview. Charles Koch in particular, much more so than David Koch, is an ideological true believer in some of the most hard-line libertarian philosophy that you can come across in American politics. It’s kind of — marks the far right poll, in some ways, of American politics.
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In some cases, the Koch foundations have attempted, or succeeded, in attaching certain strings to their contributions, such as control over curriculumand more recently, obtaining personal information about students. Dozens of college officials interviewed this year by the Center for Public Integrity assert that their professors retain full academic freedom and may teach as they see fit, regardless of who is funding brothrrs programs. Charles Koch has long maintained close personal and financial ties to the university, which hosts a pair of research centers specializing in free market economics and maek liberty: the Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies. Beyond sheer dollars, the Koch foundations are also giving money to more U. In all, 41 states and the District of Columbia house at least one college or university that received Koch foundation funding during That represents a modest dip fromwhen schools in 46 states and the District of Columbia got Koch foundation cash. The Charles Koch Foundation in also spread several million dollars more among various think tanks, educational centers and media organizations. A complete list of Center for Public Integrity funders is found. There are a few schools, however, that are no longer interested in getting a piece of that money. And earlier this month, Suffolk University in Massachusetts split with the Beacon Hill Institute, a conservative think tank it helped fund — along with the Charles Koch Foundation. Beacon Hill Institute plans to continue operating without conservqtive college affiliation. Huntsman School of Business.
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This story is from the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative media organization in Washington, D. Read more of its investigations on the influence of money in politics or follow it on Twitter. Contact us at editors time. Related Stories. Get our Politics Newsletter. Sign up to receive the day’s most important political stories from Washington and. Please enter a valid email address. Please select your country. I can confirm I have read and accept the Terms Of Use. Sign Up Now.
The Atlantic Crossword
Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers behind the Kansas-based Koch Industries oil and chemical conglomerate, are not the only wealthy donors to fund colleges and universities to further their own ends. But they have uniquely leveraged their astronomical wealth to use the higher education system to push their conservative anti-regulatory agenda. Much of that money has been used to fund academic programs and centers that operate with little oversight compared to other campus programs. But in , students at schools including George Mason University GMU in Fairfax, Virginia — the top university recipient of Koch money — joined together to found the advocacy group UnKoch My Campus to address the undue influence of big money in academia.
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RNS — As Boston College finalizes the details of a potential Koch Foundation donation to its political science department, some students and faculty at the Jesuit-run institution are hoping to pressure university administrators into reconsidering the grant. At a rally on campus last week, organized by the student group Climate Justice at BC, Chu and other campus activists spoke to a gathering of students, faculty and alumni, huddled in thick jackets while holding posters and candles. Sign up for our daily newsletter. The petition has been signed by more than 1, BC community members, including about undergraduate students and six faculty members, organizers told Religion News Service. An informal group of professors from multiple departments, called Faculty for Justice, has also been meeting to discuss ways to halt the program proposal for the Koch funding. The liberal arts school, founded in , has around 9, undergraduate students. The libertarian duo became perhaps the most powerful funding force in conservative politics, bankrolling efforts to roll back environmental and business regulations, push Democratic lawmakers out of office and fund the small-government, free-market right. In particular, the Kochs have poured a fortune into the movement to question climate change science and policies. She said the growing movement on U. Even as they transformed the American political system, the Kochs have also made a major name for themselves as philanthropists. The family has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to cultural and educational institutions around the country.
Conservative donor and philanthropist David Koch dead at 79
Latest Issue. Past Issues. Political success, Kevin Gentry told a crowd of elite supporters attending the annual Koch meeting in Dana Point, California, begins with reaching young minds in college lecture halls, thereby preparing bright, libertarian-leaning students to one day occupy the halls of political power.
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Higher education has become a top Koch priority in recent years. And their funding—as well as pushback against it—is increasing. The brothers, who earned their billions leading private oil, chemical, and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries Inc. Much less well-known are their activities on college campuses. The Kochs are among many wealthy political patrons who give money to education, including conservative Robert McNair, independent Michael Bloomberg, and liberal billionaire financier George Soros. Koch officials routinely cultivate relationships with professors and deans and fund specific courses of economic study pitched by. Koch defenders also note, accurately, that the pair has donated generously to educational causes not necessarily animated by political considerations: the Smithsonianpublic televisionmedia organizations, music scholarships, medical research and a variety of. David Koch, for his part, has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into medicine and the arts over the years. Koch education funding, which is almost singularly focused on economics, also sometimes comes with certain strings attached. At the College of Charleston in South Carolina, for example, documents show the foundation wanted more than just academic excellence for its money. It wanted information about students it could potentially use for its own benefit—and influence over information officials at the public university disseminated about the Charles Koch Foundation. And the foundation certainly did not want the College of Charleston to speak to news reporters about its Koch-funded programs without prior consent from the Charles Koch Foundation. A series of other meetings and conversations between John Hardin, the director of university relations for the Charles Koch Foundation, and Florida State University officials followed, documents indicate. Meanwhile, when officials at the Florida State University Project on Accountable Justice went hunting for funding, the Charles Koch Foundation factored into their strategy. We don’t.
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