ACTA am cncl trustees & alumni

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NO MERRI $ TABLE BOTTOM

KOCH ISI AEI DONORS TRUST

LIBERAL PROF BRAINWASH PINKO HOROWOTZ LICHTER ROTHMAN VEDDER

NAS

AA bake sale Fire unhappy about] FRONT PAPGE MAG?

see ann d neal

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AWARD TO JOSHUA Princeton Controversy and Free Speech Advocacy [1]

• The 2020 Faculty Letter: In July 2020, Katz gained national attention after publishing an essay opposing a letter signed by his Princeton colleagues regarding campus anti-racism demands. ,]
• Dismissal: In 2022, Princeton's Board of Trustees dismissed him following a university investigation into past policy violations involving an inappropriate relationship with an undergraduate student. Supporters argued the firing was politically motivated retribution for his speech. [1, 2, 3]

• Recognition: He received the 2020 Hero of Intellectual Freedom award from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) and the 2025 Academic Freedom Award from the Columbia Academic Freedom Council. [1, 2, 3]

==

inside higher ed

In the past 20 years this core group of funders has, by many reports, built and strategically linked an impressive array of almost 500 think tanks, centers, institutes and "concerned citizens groups" both within and outside of the academy. It is particularly telling to observe the funding sources of these organizations during the first 10-15 years of their existence, when their ideological identities were being established. }:}:

A small sampling of these entities include the Cato Institute,the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute,the Manhattan Institute, the Hoover Institution, theClaremont Institute, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni,Middle East Forum,Accuracy in Media, and the National Association of Scholars, as well as Horowitz's Center of the Study of Popular Culture.}:}:

:{:{:{The absence of formal organizational linkages between the entities within these networks creates an illusion of independent analytical voices reaching similar conclusions about strategic policy issues, a technique known in the public relations industry as “astroturfing.”}:

This network has developed an enormous capacity to generate “data” consistent with the targeted political agenda and world views of its core group of funders to quickly and redundantly represent these issues in the mainstream press by what appear to be the voices of independent analysts and to translate these viewpoints into public policy that serves the focused ideological agenda of this core group of funders. The Bradley Foundation under Michael Joyce's leadership has even established a publishing house, Encounter Books, to ensure that grantees like Horowitz have a quasi-academic outlet for their viewpoints.}:}:

The degree of interconnectedness within this network of organizations is considerable but almost invisible to the casual observer. For example, when ACTA’s president, Anne Neal, introduced herself to the Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, she presented ACTA as “a bipartisan network of college and university trustees and alumni across the country dedicated to academic freedom.”

:{:{:{Full disclosure should have required some mention of the fact that ACTA (see funding sources above), which changed its name from the National Alumni Forum in 1998, was established by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in 1994. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute in turn evolved from }::{William Bennett}::{’s }:Madison Center for Educational Affairs:{ and the Institute for Educational Affairs founded by }::{Irving Kristol}::{, Michael Joyce’s mentor, and William Simon, the first president of the John M. Olin Foundation.}:

Bennett and Kristol also sit on ACTA’s Board of Directors. The remarkably consistent record of funding across all of the incarnations of this organization and the high degree of redundancy with Horowitz’s own, highly partisan Center for the Study of Popular Culture is not consistent with Neal’s definition of ACTA as an independent, non-partisan organization.}:}:

:{:{:{Another example illustrative of the quietly incestuous nature of this network is presented by an article by the }:Boston Globe:{columnist Cathy Young. The article is entitled }:“Liberal bias in the ivory tower”:{ and by all appearances is an independent opinion piece written by a regular }:Globe:{ columnist.}:

At the end of the article Young identifies herself as “a contributing editor at Reason Magazine.” What is undisclosed in the article is that Reason Magazine is the publication of the Reason Foundation, whose funding sources are virtually the same as those funding Horowitz’s "Academic Bill of Rights" project and Neal’s ACTA.}:}:

:{Young’s premise for the article is stated in her opening sentence: “Yet another study has come out documenting what most conservatives consider to be blindingly obvious: the leftwing tilt of the American professoriate.” The study that she references was conducted by:{ Stanley}::{ Rothman, now emeritus professor at Smith College; }:S.Robert Lichter, emeritus professor at George Mason University; and Neil Nevitte of the University of Toronto, and was published in the online journal Forum. This study was also cited by Neal in her testimony in Pennsylvania.

Young does not inform her readers that Rothman is director of the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change, a center with funding sources that are remarkably redundant with Horowitz’s Center for the Study of Popular Culture. Lichter is also president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which again has funding sources that are redundant with those referenced earlier.}:

In addition, a recent article in Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting is highly critical of Lichter’s research methodology. Another example of such conflicted interests is provided by Professor Thomas Reeves. When Reeves writes in strong support of Horowitz’s proposals on the History News Network,he fails to note that he is a spokesman for the California Association of Scholars, a branch of the National Association of Scholars (see funding sources above) and that he is director of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, which was, again, brought into being by the Olin and Bradley Foundations.

This manufactured drumbeat against “academic bias” is amplified by Stanley Kurtz of the Hoover Institution (see funding sources above), Heather MacDonald, a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute (see funding sources above), and Brian C. Anderson, editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and a former research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (see funding sources above).

The relentlessness with which columnists and experts with direct funding relationships with Olin, Scaife, Bradley, Koch and Coors level charges of academic bias and assert the need for legislative reform of higher education is remarkable. The goal of this narrowly focused and ideologically driven public relations campaign can only be understood in terms of its fostering of a political climate in which federal regulatory “reform” of what is universally recognized as the finest system of higher education in the world, will be tolerated.

Indeed, as has been discussed, such regulatory oversight may already be in the offing. The academy stands today as one of the last spaces in America where the democratic ideas that shape the social, economic and political fabric of the nation can be openly and independently debated on the basis of their merits and without coercion or distortion from vested economic and political interests. It is certainly in the national interest that it remain such.

---

---

Academic Bashing [20], Bill Berkowitz, Z Magazine, February 1, 2002

https://zcomm.org/zmagazine/academic-bashing-by-bill-berkowitz/

Berkowitz

When the American

Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) published its recent report claiming

college and university faculty were “the weak link in America’s response to the

attack” of September 11, it brought that conservative organization into the

public spotlight for the first time. Many newspaper editorials quickly condemned

the report’s overheated rhetoric and overstated conclusions. Some commentators

:{branded it an incredibly shoddy piece of scholarship. According to the :{New}:

York Times, Hugh Gusterson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of}:

Technology and a target of the report, suggested that it had “a little of the

whiff of McCarthyism” to it.

ACTA’s report

documented the statements made by a handful of academics that questioned the

bombing of Afghanistan and the president’s war on terrorism at teach-ins and

campus protests across the country. These academics bothered the heck out of the

Washington DC-based group founded by Lynne Cheney and Connecticut Senator Joseph

Lieberman as the National Alumni Forum in 1995. However overzealous ACTA’s

report may have been, it accurately reflects several aspects of the

organization’s mission, especially its fevered opposition to “political

correctness” and its desire to keep an eye on campus “radicals.”

However, the key

aspect of ACTA’s agenda is its ongoing attempts to influence the way

universities throughout the country are organized and governed.

Shoddy

Scholarship

:{According to the:{}:

Chronicle of Higher Education, ACTA’s report documented 117 incidents since}:

September 11 that reflected “a shocking divide between academe and the public at

large.” Although the report, titled “Defending Civilization: How Our

Universities Are Failing America, and What Can Be Done About It,” affirmed the

right of professors to academic freedom, it also maintained that this freedom

does not make academics immune from criticism. “We learn from history that when

a nation’s intellectuals are unwilling to defend its civilization, they give

comfort to its adversaries,” the report declares. It names more than 40

academics out of line with American public opinion on the war on terrorism (see

www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv. pdf).

The subtext of

the report is ACTA’s longtime assertion that when universities stopped requiring

students to take American History and Western Civilization courses, these

institutions fell victim to the twin evils of moral relativism and

multiculturalism. “Expressions of pervasive moral relativism are a staple of

academic life in this country and an apparent symptom of an educational system

that has increasingly suggested that Western civilization is the primary source

of the world’s ills—even though it gave us the ideals of democracy, human

rights, individual liberty, and mutual tolerance,” the report says. These are

themes that Lynn Cheney has been promoting for years.

Many of the

:{incidents cited in the report, as reported by the :{Chronicle of Higher}:

Education and the New York Times, seemed on the face of it downright}:

innocuous:

• At a campus teach-in on the

evening of the attacks Michael Rothschild, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School

of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, commented that

there is a “terrible and understandable desire to find and punish” the

perpetrators. He also warned “It’s very important for Americans to think about

our own history, what we did in World War II to Japanese citizens by interning

them.”

• Walter Daum, a professor of

mathematics at the City University of New York’s City College, was surprised

that the report used a quote from him as an example of academe’s response.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, “most of his colleagues

in academe, he notes, disagree with his emphatic critiques of U.S. policy.”

The report cites a comment originally quoted in the New York Post, “the

ultimate responsibility lies with the rulers of this country, the capitalist

ruling class of this country.” He has since repeatedly clarified his

statements saying he wasn’t trying to justify the attacks but to explain them.

• At a September 20 teach-in,

Hugh Gusterson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said, “At this

particular moment in time, it seems there is a crying need to understand the

culture and history of the people who attacked us.” The report also cites a

quote by him from a September 20 campus peace rally: “Imagine the real

suffering and grief of people in other countries. The best way to begin a war

on terrorism might be to look in the mirror.” A professor of anthropology and

science-and-technology studies, Mr. Guster- son said it is not anti-American

to know about the rest of the world. “What anthropology is supposed to do is

try to get people to get out of their own skins.”

• Joel Beinin, a professor of

Middle Eastern history at Stanford University said: “If Osama bin Laden is

confirmed to be behind the attacks, the United States should bring him before

an international tribunal on crimes against humanity.”

Although Cheney

was not responsible for writing the report, it contained many of her comments.

For example, in 1995 Cheney said, “The main threat to academic freedom today is

from political intolerance on campus. Alumni and trustees must make sure our

colleges and universities remain forums for open debate. They want to support

their colleges, but they are often shut out of the discussion. This organization

will serve as a voice for interested and concerned alums.”

According to

Patrick Healy, reporting for the Boston Globe, Anne Neal, a co-author of

the report and an ACTA official, said that many professors and students that

support the U.S. government were afraid that if they speak out liberal

colleagues might shout them down. “For the most part, public comments in

academia were equivocal and often pointing the finger at America rather than the

terrorists,” Neal said. “It’s hard for non-tenured professors [who support

current policies] to speak up when there’s such a chorus on the other side.”

Despite ACTA’s

claims that its objective is to expand dialogue on campus, the report criticized

anyone who dared speak out against the president’s war on terrorism.

Money Talks

According to its

web site, members of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni contributed

$3.4 billion to colleges and universities last year, making the organization

“the largest private source of support for higher education.” Large donors are

frequently advised by ACTA staff as to what kind of influence their money can

buy over courses and departments at colleges and universities.

:{:{The Right}:

Guide, published by the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Economics America,}:

documents that 99 percent of ACTA’s nearly $500,000 in operating revenue came

from contributions and grants from conservative foundations in 1997. Included

were grants of $100,000 from the John M. Olin Foundation, $50,000 from the Lynde

and Harry Bradley Foundation, and $10,000 from the Earhart Foundation. Since

1998, according to mediatransparency. org, a web site tracking the money behind

right wing politics, ACTA has received an additional $600,000 from the Bradley,

Olin, Sarah Scaife, and Earhart foundations.

ACTA’s mission

statement reads: “…help meet the challenges facing higher education—from

political intolerance and speech codes to declining academic standards and

soaring tuitions—the Council is working to elevate public awareness of the

status of higher education and to implement positive ways to reform it through

several channels.” ACTA also aims to “challeng[e] policies and practices that

threaten academic freedom and excellence”; develop “networks to help alumni have

an impact on campus issues at their alma maters”; and offer assistance to alumni

on how to target their donations.

What are ACTA’s

academic objectives? On the surface one of the things it wants is for students

to be better informed about their history. But ACTA wants its sanitized version

of history to be taught.

Conservative

Makeovers

ACTA is

fundamentally interested in having conservative trustees and alumni exercise a

greater say over the entire university governance process. An October 5, 1998

article written for the Nation by Annette Fuentes spells out ACTA’s

goals. Titled “Trustees of the Right’s Agenda—Conservative Appointees Hold

Increasing Sway Over Public Higher Education,” Fuentes writes: “With the

authority to hire and fire chancellors and college presidents, as well as to set

educational policy, the boards [of trustees] wield enormous power. Across the

country, conservative Republican governors have appointed trustees who are their

political allies rather than independent advocates for the university system.

These political proxies—often backed by the National Association of Scholars and

the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, groups that oppose affirmative

action and multicultural studies—are enacting sweeping changes in the mission of

public higher education to provide wide access.”

In Florida this

past summer, ACTA worked with Governor Jeb Bush as he initiated a series of

sweeping changes in the way the state’s university system is organized. The

governor’s extensive restructuring initiative, a plan that many academic

observers and Florida politicians, including Senator Graham, have termed both

unnecessary and unwarranted, abolished the Board of Regents, which had governed

the system and replaced it with 12-member boards of trustees for each of the

colleges in the state university system.

According to the

Naples Daily News, the orientation sessions for the new trustees was

organized by the American Council of Trustees. One of the key speakers was Anne

Neal, a vice president and lawyer for ACTA and co-author with Jerry L. Martin,

the president of ACTA, of the “Defending Civilization” report.

Neal informed the

incoming trustees that they now had the power over their schools’ budgets and

academic standards and would also be able to select their schools’ presidents.

“That’s the easy part,” she said. She also pointed out that the more difficult

task would be revising their schools’ policies and examining their personal and

business relationships to assure there isn’t even the appearance of impropriety.

Given all that’s happened in Florida over the past year, it’s hard to imagine

she said all this with a straight face.

While the

ramifications of the switch over has not yet been felt, it certainly will be a

major issue when the contracts between the state’s university employees and the

now-defunct Board of Regents expire in the next year or so. The system, as

designed by Governor Bush, forces the unions to bargain separately with each of

the autonomous Boards of Trustees. As one professor, who preferred anonymity

told me, “Putting such issues as tenure, pension plans, seniority, health care,

and other benefits on the bargaining table could severely erode both the unions

bargaining and political power.”

Opposing

affirmative action and multiculturalism and countering “political correctness”

on campus have been long-time core activities of ACTA. While its high profile

and widely criticized report added bashing academics to its list of priorities,

it appears that ACTA’s biggest prize will come when other college and university

systems across the country begin adopting the full scope of the Florida model.

                     Z

---

Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering conservative movements.

---

==

Ward Churchill says Brown thought Eichmans referred to jewish ppl?! he admitted never read art'l, got all info from RW media

https://books.google.com/books?id=XhJXDgAAQBA

Wielding Words Like Weapons: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1995–2005

By Ward Churchill

written on 9/11 at urgent request, posted on blog, typed w/ 1 finger, no annotations

link

==

The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic ...

By Ellen Schrecker

https://books.google.com/books?id=ybEcOdd1y88C

link p131-

==

His scholarly work was investigated by aUniversity of Colorado special committee—overseen by CU President Hank Brown, a former Republican senator who co-founded the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), a conservative campus watchdog, with Lynne Cheney in 1995. Churchill was accused of plagiarism and falsifying his research, and he was fired in July 2007.

Most of the claims leveled against Churchill were later deemed “almost entirely false or misleading.” But it was too late.

:{:{}:

}:

After reviewing 17,000 pages of evidence, the American Association of University Professors would later find most of the claims leveled against Churchill “almost entirely false or misleading.” When Churchill sued CU, a jury reached the same conclusion. But it was too late. Churchill’s career and reputation were eviscerated....

==

wiki

George Hanks "Hank" Brown (born February 12, 1940) is a former Republican politician and U.S. Senator from Colorado who served as president of the University of Colorado system from April 2005 to January 2008.

• 1Education
• 2Career
  • 2.1Military
  • 2.2Politics
  • 2.3CU President
  • 2.4Other positions
• 3Bibliography
• 4References
• 5External links

Education

Brown was born in Denver in 1940, and graduated from college in 1961 and from law school in 1969, both from the University of Colorado. Brown also has a master of law degree from George Washington University. At the former, he became a member of Delta Tau DeltaInternational Fraternity.^[1]

Career

Military

Brown served in the United States Navy from 1962 to 1966. He was an aviator and volunteered for service in Vietnam. He was decorated for his combat service as a forward air controller.

Politics

He served in the Colorado Senate from 1972 to 1976, and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1980, serving until 1991. In 1990, he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served one term, not running again in the 1996 election. From 1998 to 2002, he was president of the University of Northern Colorado. Brown and his wife, Nan, live in Denver.

In 1995, Brown was involved with the Airstan Incident, where he mediated efforts for a prisoner exchange between Russia and the Taliban, which ultimately broke down. However, his efforts did set up an escape by the Russian prisoners.^[2]

CU President

In April 2005, Brown was named to succeed Elizabeth Hoffman, as the president of the University of Colorado on an interim basis. Brown took office on August 1, 2005. Upon taking this role, he inherited a system weakened by sharply decreasing state appropriations, and scandals that included allegations of misuse of foundation funds, instances of sexual assault by members of the football team, waning public confidence, and sharp criticism in the state newspapers. He was later praised for the effective remedies he implemented for aggressively attacking these issues.^[3]

During his interim tenure, Brown also led the university through the controversy surrounding Ethnic Studies professor Ward Churchill. An investigation of Churchill for academic misconduct which had been supported by American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an organization that Brown had co-founded in 1995, identified seven separate instances of misconduct and referred the matter to the university administration.^[4] Brown urged the Board of Regents to dismiss Churchill, which it did in March 2006, overriding a tenure committee recommendation for one-year suspension. The decision was met with mixed opinion. Those in favor applauded the decision based on the findings of academic fraud, while those opposed believe the firing was simply a smokescreen to silence his views.^[5][6] In a July 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed on the Churchill affair, Brown wrote: "Controversy -- especially self-sought controversy -- doesn't immunize a faculty member from adhering to professional standards."^[7]

In May 2006, the regents appointed Brown permanently. Later that year, he announced an initiative to add class rankings to student transcripts as a counterweight to grade inflation. ^[8]

In 2007, CU set a fundraising record of $133 million, with some donors "credit[ing] Brown with restoring their confidence in the university." ^[9] Brown tendered his resignation January 18, 2007 and left his post effective March 10, 2008.^[10]

Other positions

Brown is a member of the board of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a non profit which supports international elections.^[11]

---

sum overview of kochademia, many docs, but no acta

http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/the_koch_club/story/Koch_millions_spread_influence_through_nonprofits/

...

INFLUENCING THE NEXT GENERATION

The Kochs have been involved in influencing higher education for more than 30 years, beginning with what is now called the Mercatus Center and the Institute for Humane Studies, both based at George Mason University in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. Between 2007 and 2011, the Kochs gave $30.5 million to 221 universitiesthrough their charitable foundations. More than half of that giving, roughly $16 million, has gone to George Mason University and its foundation. Recently, however, the Koch brothers’ influence has expanded outside Northern Virginia and created potential conflicts of interest for the universities accepting their donations.

The May-June 2012 issue of Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors,focused on corporate influence in higher education. Kent Miller and Ray Bellamy wrote about the Koch influence in the Florida State University economics department. The Charles G. Koch Foundation offered to give the university $1.5 million to hire two assistant professors and fund fellowships and undergraduate curriculum on free-enterprise topics. The foundation appointed an advisory board that would award money to faculty and make sure that the work they completed fit with the foundation’s mission. Miller and Bellamy wrote, “In exchange for his ‘gift,’ the donor got to assign specific readings, select speakers brought to campus and instruct them with regard to the focus of their lectures, shape the curriculum with new courses and specify the number of students in the courses, name the program’s director, and initiate a student club.”

It’s not just at Florida State, which was a high-profile case, but also at other universities where the Kochs and John Allison, retired chairman and CEO of the financial institution BB&T, have donated money. Allison is on the board of directors at the Mercatus Center, which is funded by the Kochs, and following an intense fight in which the Kochs backed him, is now the president of the Cato Institute. BB&T sponsors chaired professors, typically in economics departments, and the universities where they sponsor a chaired professor often line up with where the Kochs donate.

An Investigative Reporting Workshop analysis found that the Kochs had donated to 10 universities where there were BB&T-chaired professors, including West Virginia University, Clemson University and smaller universities, such as Hampden-Sydney College and Barton College. According to Inside Higher Ed in 2011, Clemson “spent several years cultivating the Charles G. Koch Foundation to support its Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, and has received $1 million thus far.”

At the core of the Kochs’ philosophy are the works of Ayn Rand, the objectivist philosopher and author of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” (Rand’s writings are also emblematic of the readings recommended to students by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University). The new course that the Charles G. Koch Foundation wanted approved at Florida State was called “Market Ethics: The Vices, Virtues, and Values of Capitalism,” featuring the work of Rand as required by the memorandum of understanding. Through their charitable foundations, the Kochs gave $100,000 to the Ayn Rand Institute from 2009 to 2011.

And in the interest of full disclosure, in the course of this investigation, we discovered that American University, where the Investigative Reporting Workshop is based (within the School of Communication), received $17,500 in two separate grants from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. The university’s Office of Special Programs (OSP) reports that both grants are for a program called “Lectures in Classical Liberalism,” which is under the direction of Tom Merrill and Alan Levine. Both professors are in the School of Public Affairs.

OSP said the following language describes the program that the grants supported:

“We seek to build on and expand the program of lectures in classical liberalism funded by the Koch Foundation to date. At least two of these lectures would be designated “Koch Lectures on Classical Liberalism”; all of the funded lectures, however, will discuss some aspect of classical liberalism whether in its theoretical and historical roots or in its contemporary applications. This series of lectures is primarily designed to encourage our students to have a sustained engagement with the ideas of classical liberalism, and secondarily at presenting an opportunity for classical liberal ideas to be heard in the larger university community and the D.C. policy conversation. To that end, we also require our speakers to meet and take questions from our students in an informal session separate from the public lecture, either in one of our classes or in a breakfast or lunch session during the speaker’s campus visit.”

...

==

flying monkeys

from Associated Press via the Portsmouth Herald News:

“A national group has suggested that a formal review of a University of New Hampshire professor's teaching is necessary, including his views that government officials orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

:{:{The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, in a Sept. 1 letter to the chairman of UNH's board of trustees, suggested that ‘a formal investigation is necessary’ into William Woodward.”}:

Unfortunately, the article fails to mention that the organization in question was founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of Dick Cheney, with Senator Joseph Lieberman, in 1995.}:

These folks are as relentless as they are shameless.

==

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Council_of_Trustees_and_Alumni

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), founded in 1995, is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt, nonprofit, educational organization committed to academic freedom, excellence and accountability at America's colleges and universities," its website states [1]. ACTA was formerly known as the National Alumni Forum [2].

---

##

• 1 Personnel
• 2 National Council
• 3 Description
• 4 What others say
• 5 Related Organizations
• 6 Contact Information
• 7 Related SourceWatch Resources
• 8 External links
  • 8.1 Profiles
  • 8.2 Reports
  • 8.3 Articles by ACTA
  • 8.4 Articles & Commentary

Personnel

• Jerry L. Martin, Chairman
• Anne D. Neal, President

National Council

The following are listed as members of the National Council [3]:

• Richard D. :{Lamm, Vice Chairman and Co-Founder; Director, Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues, University of Denver; Former Governor of Colorado (D)}:
• Jerry L. Martin, Chairman, American Council of Trustees and Alumni
• Jacques Barzun, University Professor Emeritus, Columbia University
• William J. Bennett, Director, Empower America; Former U.S. Secretary of Education
• Georgie Anne Geyer, Syndicated Columnist, Universal Press Syndicate
• Judith Richards Hope, Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Former member of the Corporation, Harvard University
• Irving**Kristol, Co-Editor, The Public Interest
• Hans Mark, Former Chancellor, University of Texas System; Former Secretary of the Air Force, 1979-1981
• Philip Merrill (1995-2002) Publisher, The Washingtonian
• Martin Peretz, Editor-in-Chief and Chairman, The New Republic
• Laurence H. Silberman, US Circuit Judge, US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit
• William K. Tell, Jr., Retired Senior Vice President, Texaco,Inc.
• Curtin Winsor, Jr., William H. :{Donner :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:Foundation; Former US Ambassador to Costa Rica

Description

The organization is best described by Prof. Joel Beinin:

The first post-September 11 expression of the link between the neo-conservative political agenda and the attack on critical thinking about the Middle East was a report issued by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) in November 2001 entitled ‘Defending civilization: how our universities are failing America and what can be done about it’. As the title suggests, ACTA maintained that criticism of the Bush administration’s war on Afghanistan on campuses across the country was tantamount to negligence in ‘defending civilization’ and proof that ‘our universities are failing America’. ACTA alleged that American universities were brought to this sorry state by inadequate teaching of western culture and American history. Consequently, students and faculty did not understand what was at stake in the fight against terrorism and were undermining the defence of civilization by asking too many questions.ACTA was founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney. Former Democratic presidential candidate Senator Joseph Lieberman is a member of its national council. Although she is no longer officially active in ACTA, a lengthy quote by Ms. Cheney appears on the cover of the report, giving the document the appearance of a quasi-official statement of government policy.The original version of ‘Defending civilization’ named and quoted comments by 117 university faculty members, staff and students in reaction to the September 11 attacks. ACTA’s ire was aroused by my statement that, ‘If Usama bin Laden is confirmed to be behind the attacks, the United States should bring him before an international tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity.’ Other remarks in the report’s list of unacceptable speech included ‘Ignorance breeds hate’ and ‘[T]here needs to be an understanding of why this kind of suicidal violence could be undertaken against our country’.

— Joel Beinin, The New American McCarthyism: policing thought about the Middle East, Race & Class, Vol. 46(1): 101-115; (NB: loads very slow.)

What others say

"In 1995, Lynne Cheney and so-called liberal Senator Joseph Lieberman founded the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. According to Roberto Gonzalez of the San Jose Mercury News, the Council’s report “Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America,”appears to protect academic freedom but actually resembles a blacklist. 'In a chilling use of doublespeak,' says Gonzalez, 'it affirms the right of professors to speak out, yet condemns those who have attempted to give context to Sept. 11, encourage critical thinking, or share knowledge about other cultures. Faculty are accused of being ‘short on patriotism’ for attempting to give students the analytical tools they need to become informed citizens.'

"'Many of those blacklisted are top scholars in their fields, and it appears that the report represents a kind of academic terrorism designed to strike fear into other academics by making examples of respected professors.'

"'The report might also function to extend control over sites of democratic debate – our universities – where freedom of expression is not only permitted but encouraged.'"— Carolyn Baker, Dissident Voice, February 7, 2005.

Related Organizations

Comment: Prof. Beinin finds that these organizations work for the same aims, and some of the principals overlap in these organizations

• ADL
• AVOT
• AIPAC
• Campus Watch

Also:

• Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Inc. (founded by ACTA)

Contact Information

1726 M Street, NW (sam eaddy, big bld?

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/is-hamas-really-changing/

afp 10th flr

http://dos.elections.myflorida.com/committees/ComDetail.asp?account=49968

Washington, DC 20036-4525

Phone: 202 467-6787

Toll Free: 800 ALUMNI-8

FAX: 202 467-6784

Email: info AT goacta.org

Website: http://www.goacta.org/flashindex.html

Weblog: http://www.goactablog.org/

Related SourceWatch Resources

• treating dissent as treason

External links

Profiles

• American Council of Trustees and Alumni in the Wikipedia.
• Profile: American Council of Trustees and Alumni and ACTA Recipient Grants (1997-2005), Media Transparency.

Reports

• "How Many Ward Churchills?" GOACTA.org, May 2006.

Articles by ACTA

• "Survey Reveals Pervasive Political Pressure in the Classroom," FrontPageMag.com, December 9, 2004.
• "Academia’s Failing Grade," FrontPageMag.com, December 14, 2005.

Articles & Commentary

• Annette Fuentes, "Conservative Appointees Hold Increasing Sway Over Public Higher Education. Trustees of the Right's Agenda," The Nation, October 5, 1998.
• Steven Menashi, Editorial: "I'm Going to Say It Now,"The Dartmouth Review(The American Scene), September 18, 2000.
• Patrick Healy, "On Campus, Conservatives Denounce Dissent," Boston Globe (Common Dreams), November 13, 2001.
• "An Organization on the Lookout for Patriotic Incorrectness. Attack on academic anti-war (anti-civilization) talk" (Extracts from the ACTA web site) November 24, 2001.
• John Troyer, "Blacklist Me! Mrs. Cheney's Squad of Academic Snitches," CounterPunch, December 7, 2001.
• Roberto J. Gonzalez, "Lynne Cheney-Joe Lieberman Group Puts Out a Blacklist," San Jose Mercury News (Common Dreams), December 13, 2001.
• Editorial: "A 'defense' that civilization can do without," National Catholic Reporter, December 14, 2001.
• Michelle Chihara, "The Silence on Terrorism," AlterNet, December 26, 2001: "Everyone professes to love free speech, just not in their backyard. While the debate rages over exactly when and where speech should be free, the bigger questions are going un-discussed."
• Bill Berkowitz, "Academic Bashing," Academic Watch (ZMag), February 2002.
• Jim Lobe, "US hawks unleash public opinion war," Inter Press Service (Asia Times), March 12, 2002.
• Amber Hussung, "Academic Freedom Under Fire," Organization of American Historians, May 2003.
• Carolyn Baker, "Ward Churchill And The Imminent Destruction of American Higher Education," Dissident Voice, February 7, 2005.
• Steven Selden, "Who’s Paying for the Culture Wars? Conservative critiques of higher education rely on liberal doses of cash," Academe, September 2005. Note: "Some data cited in this article also appear in "The Neo-Conservative Assault on the Undergraduate Curriculum" in Reclaiming Universities from a 'Runaway World'," published in 2004."
• Katherine Webster, "National group opposes changes in Dartmouth alumni group," Associated Press (Boston Globe), June 6, 2006.
• "Lynne Cheney’:{s Flying Monkeys:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}: on the Attack," The Gaelic Starover Blogspot, September 6, 2006.
• Eliana Johnson, "Dartmouth Changes Threaten Independent Trustees," New York Sun, October 20, 2006.

Categories:

• Education
• Think tanks

==

wiki

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) is an American non-profit organization whose stated mission is to "support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that the next generation receives a philosophically rich, high-quality college education at an affordable price."^[1][2] ACTA does so primarily by calling on trustees to take on a more assertive governing role.^[3][4] It is based in Washington, D.C. and its current president is Michael Poliakoff.^[5]

Contents

• 1 History
• 2 Organization
• 3 Activities
  • 3.1 Academic freedom
  • 3.2 Academic excellence
  • 3.3 Accountability

• 4 References
• 5 External links

History

ACTA was founded in 1995 as the National Alumni Forum by former National Endowment for the Humanities chairman Lynne V. Cheney, former Colorado governor Richard Lamm, then U.S. Senator and future University of Colorado at Boulder president Hank Brown, sociologist David Riesman, Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, and former ACTA president Anne D. Neal.^[6] With the exception of Neal, all those involved in ACTA’s founding have since retired. In 1996, the organization changed its name to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Jerry L. Martin, a former philosophy professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was president from the organization's founding until 2003, when Neal became president.^[7]

Organization

ACTA is a non-profit organization and is funded by grants from foundations and gifts from individuals. Foundations that have donated to ACTA include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation,^[8] the John M. Olin Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education.^[9] Members of ACTA's board of directors include Robert T. Lewit, M.D. (chairman),^[10] Terence Ross, John D. Fonte, Carl Menges,^[11] Sandra Stotsky, Jody Wolfe, Edwin Meese III, and Anne D. Neal.^[12]

Activities

ACTA’s stated goals are to promote academic freedom, academic excellence, and accountability in higher education. ACTA promotes a substantial core curriculum,^[13] exposing college students to a broad range of ideas, for an active role for governing boards,^[14] and for greater transparency and accountability in higher education. According to ACTA, a university education should prepare its graduates to become "informed citizens, effective workers, and lifelong learners." ^[15][16]

Academic freedom

ACTA argues that students should be free to express their views on campus. In this regard, the organization is closely aligned with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the two organizations have collaborated on cases.^[17] ACTA opposes campus speech codes.^[18] ACTA has spoken out against the dis-invitation of speakers and called on universities to use guest speakers to add to the mix of ideas.^[19]

Roger Bowen, the former General Secretary of theAmerican Association of University Professors, has criticized ACTA on the grounds that non-academics should not weigh in on academic questions.^[20]

ACTA has opposed the ban of Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs on campuses.^[21]

An ACTA study in 2004 found that 49 percent of students at selective colleges complained of professors frequently injecting political comments into their courses even if they had nothing to do with the subject, while 46 percent of students reported that professors used their classrooms to promote their own political views.^[22]

Free to Teach, Free to Learn

In April 2013, ACTA published a guide for trustees titled Free to Teach, Free to Learn: Understanding and Maintaining Academic Freedom in Higher Education. The guide reports on the decline of academic freedom and intellectual diversity on college campuses. Contributors to the guide include former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers,U.S. Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes, CUNY board chairman and former Yale professor Benno Schmidt, and Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate, co-founders of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.^[23][24]

Academic excellence

General education requirements

ACTA advocates for stronger general education requirements. According to ACTA, a core curriculum should include, at a minimum, courses in composition, literature, American history, foreign language, mathematics, science, and economics.^[13]

In 2003, ACTA published Degraded Currency: The Problem of Grade Inflation, a report dealing with grade inflation in American colleges and universities. The report stated that a larger percentage of students now get "A's" than ever before.^[25]

ACTA has also spoken out about the "beer and spectacle" climate at many universities,^[26] and thecivic and economic illiteracy of college graduates. In 2000, ACTA published a report called Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century. The organization surveyed 556 randomly selected seniors at leading colleges and universities, including Harvard University, Princeton University, and Brown University. Students were asked 34 high-school level questions designed to test their historical literacy. One student answered all the questions correctly, and the average score was 53%.^[27][28][29] ^[30] None of the 55 liberal arts colleges and universities surveyed included American history as a graduation requirement. The report also found that while students could easily identify pop culture icons, 65% of those surveyed failed the 34 question multiple-choice test on American history and government. ^[31] The report led to the adoption of a joint unanimous resolution of Congress expressing “the importance and value of United States history” and calling on boards of trustees, college administrators and state officials to strengthen American history requirements.^[32]

In 2012, ACTA published a new survey that followed up on the original Losing America's Memory survey, published in 2000. The 2012 study found that only a small percentage of college graduates could identify James Madison as the father of the Constitution or George Washington as the victorious general at Yorktown. Only 17 percent could identify the source of the phrase "government of the people, by the people and for the people."^[33]

In 2007, ACTA published a reported entitled The Vanishing Shakespeare. It found that 55 of the 70 leading colleges and universities surveyed did not require their English majors to take a course in Shakespeare.^[34]

ACTA has published reports evaluating the higher education systems in California,^[35] Minnesota,^[36] Illinois,^[37] Missouri,^[38] Georgia,^[39] North Carolina,^[40] Virginia,^[41][42] South Carolina,^[43] Maine,^[44] Idaho,^[45] and Florida.^[46]

What Will They Learn?

See also: What Will They Learn?

Since 2009, ACTA has published an annual report entitled What Will They Learn?^[47] The report, which includes data from 1,108 four-year institutions, assigns a letter grade to each university based on how many of the following seven core subjects are required: composition, literature, foreign language, American history, economics, mathematics and science.^[13] ACTA concludes that most of the country’s leading universities do not have rigorous general education requirements.^[48]

In the 2009-2010 report, 42 institutions received a “D” or an “F” for requiring two or fewer subjects. Only 5 institutions received an “A” for requiring six subjects and none required all seven.^[49] ^[50] In the 2011-2012 edition, 19 schools received an "A" grade for requiring at least six of the subjects the study evaluated.^[13][51] In the 2012-2013 edition, 21 schools received an "A" grade.^[52][53] The 2013-2014 edition of the report awarded 22 "A" grades,^[54] while the 2014-2015 edition awarded 23 "A" grades."^[55] The most recent edition of the report, for 2015-2016, awarded 24 "A" grades.^[56][57]

The report has been endorsed by Mel Elfin, founder of the U.S. News & World Report College Rankings.^[58] New York Times higher education blogger Stanley Fish agreed that universities ought to have a strong core curriculum, but disagreed with some of the subjects ACTA includes in the core.^[3]

Phillip Merrill Award

See also: Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education

Each year, ACTA gives out the Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to :{Liberal Arts :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:Education. This award “honors individuals who advance liberal arts education, core curricula, and the teaching of Western civilization and American history."^[1] Award winners have included Robert David :{“KC” Johnson, professor of history at Brooklyn College;^[59] Benno Schmidt, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of City University of New York;,^[60] historian David McCullough,^[1] and Tom Rollins, founder of the Teaching Company.^[61]}:

Accountability

Governance

:{To address the problems it says exist in higher education, ACTA calls on university governing boards to exert oversight in order to hold administrations and professors accountable.^[3][14] ^[62] ACTA argues for a much more active approach to trusteeship than the Association of Governing Boards.^[63] ^[64] ACTA president Anne D. Neal cited the Penn State sex abuse scandal as an example of university trustees failing to exert adequate oversight, writing, "The institutional reckoning must begin and end with the governing board. It is responsible for the actions of university leaders, and its members owe taxpayers and students accountability and transparency."^[65] In 2012, ACTA presented the:{ Penn State :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:Board of Trustees with a recommendation for changes in the board's structure and operations.^[66]}:

On the financial front, ACTA calls on governing boards to keep costs under control—in particular administrative spending—and not to reflexively increase tuition.^[67][68] ACTA has also spoken out on the need to raise graduation rates as a cost-saving measure.^[69]

In December 2012, ACTA, representing a group of trustees and alumni from across the nation, sought an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education into an accreditation agency's decision to put the University of Virginia MANN?] on warning for a failed attempt to fire president Teresa A. Sullivan. ACTA president Anne Neal wrote, "We believe there is substantial reason to believe that the accreditor has inappropriately become involved in a power struggle between the president, faculty, and the board of trustees and urge you to investigate." On December 11, 2012, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools' Commission on College sent a warning notice to the University of Virginia regarding governance issues. Neal wrote, "It appears that SACS' real issue is not the absence of a board policy, but the substance of the board's policy." In an interview, Neal said she wanted the Department of Education to put the accrediting agency on notice that its proper role is to ensure educational quality "and not to intrude on the governance processes of our colleges and universities."^[70] The Department of Education determined that the Southern Association of Colleges had not violated federal laws. In March 2013, Neal challenged the ruling, writing, "SACS’ action falls outside its legitimate authority and amounts to the wielding of federal power in clear violation of the principles of federalism and the U.S. Constitution."^[71]

Accreditation

ACTA has been a vocal critic of the current system of federal educational accreditation, arguing that the system as it is structured today pays no attention to the quality of the education that students receive (learning outcomes) and hampers the transfer of credits between institutions. In 2007, ACTA published a study on accreditation reform entitled Why Accreditation Doesn't Work and What Policy Makers Can Do About It. The study, a revised and updated version of a 2002 study entitled Can College Accreditation Live up to Its Promise? concluded that "accreditation does nothing to ensure educational quality" and that "the system of college accreditation has done more to raise costs than to improve or even maintain educational quality, and that it gives students, parents, and public decision-makers almost no useful information about institutions of higher education."^[72][73]

In June 2013, ACTA president Anne Neal provided testimony at a hearing conducted by the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training.^[74] The hearing was titled "Keeping College Within Reach: Program Quality through Accreditation." According to See Thru Ed, "Neal provided devastating testimony... before Congress that points to the continuing failure of college accreditors to support true incentives that would enhance academic quality and student achievement."^[75]

In September 2013, Hank Brown, who serves on ACTA's Accreditation Reform Initiative, published a paper titled "Protecting Students and Taxpayers: The Federal Government's Failed Regulatory Approach and Steps for Reform." Brown wrote that the nation's accreditation system is a "public policy and regulatory failure by almost any measure." U.S News & World Reports wrote that "Brown argues that lawmakers should consider reforms ranging from expanding the number of accrediting agencies to separating an institution's eligibility for federal funding from the accreditation process."^[76] Publication of the paper included a cosponsored panel with the American Enterprise Institute.^[77]

Graduation rates

In 2013, ACTA reviewed data from 1,070 fully accredited public and private colleges, finding that 40% of the included schools graduated less than half of their students in six years. More than 13% of the schools had graduation rates of 33 percent or less.^[78]

==

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Cheney received media attention when an organization she jointly founded with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) in the mid-1990s, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), published a report called "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America.” Many observers harshly criticized the ACTA report for seeking to "blacklist" professorswho had made statements such as "It is from the desperate, angry, and bereaved that these suicide pilots came," which ACTA characterized as "anti-American."[[7]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cheney_Lynne/#_edn7)

The criticism spurred ACTA to issue a "revised and expanded" edition of its report in February 2002, which included "a sampler of the many responses" to the original report. The revised edition, authored by ACTA staff, claims in its "Acknowledgements" that "no public official—including Lynne Cheney and Sen. Joe Lieberman—has endorsed or been asked to endorse this report." The new report was in essence a compendium of some 100 statements recorded by ACTA that revealed what it called "moral equivocation" and outright hostility toward the United States among academic elites. Such statements included: "Just because a grotesque act was committed against this country, does not mean any response is justified; it does not grant this country special license to use the sword"; "[Americans should] bring ourselves and our country to justice, not just the perpetrators"; and "War created people like Osama bin Laden, and more war will create more people like him."[[8]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cheney_Lynne/#_edn8)

Cheney has also criticized universities for offering more courses on global culture and history.Reported one journalist: "The American experience, she argues, was the high point of world history: 'I find it hard to imagine that there's a story more wonderful than being driven by the desire to worship freely, to set off across that ocean, to make a home out of this wild, inhospitable land.'"[[9]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cheney_Lynne/#_edn9)

Pre-9/11, Cheney's hard-line views focused mainly on countries like China. According to TheAtlantic's James Fallows, while Cheney served on the Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security in the 21st Century,she repeatedly insisted that a military showdown with the Chinese was unavoidable.[[10]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cheney_Lynne/#_edn10)

Cheney is a former director of the Independent Women's Forum (IWF), a right-wing group opposed to "radical feminism," government-sponsored childcare, and equal pay for equal work standards for women in government service. IWF was one of the contractors selected by the State Department to implement the “Iraqi Women's Democracy Initiative" to train Iraqi women for political participation.[[11]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cheney_Lynne/#_edn11)

Cheney's projects typically receive large donations from a plank of right-wing funders. Both IWF and ACTA have received money from the Sarah Scaife, Carthage, Bradley, and John Olin foundations.[[12]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cheney_Lynne/#_edn12)

==

intern

Robert Lewit Fellowship in Education Policy is available for a two-month period during the summer or the academic year to a student currently engaged in undergraduate or graduate studies at any institution of higher education, with preference given to students of Harvard University. Recent graduates with a strong interest in ACTA's mission of higher-education reform and an excellent scholarly record may also be considered. The Fellowship is made possible by Dr. Robert T. Lewit—a 1959 graduate of Harvard College, 1963 graduate of Harvard Medical School, and chairman of ACTA's Board of Directors.

Lewit Fellows report to ACTA president Anne D. Neal (Harvard College '77 and Harvard Law School '80)and other senior staff. Their projects include research and writing, some of which may be published by ACTA. They play a full part in the research work of ACTA and attend higher-education meetings and conferences as appropriate. Lewit Fellows also participate—along with ACTA summer interns—in a special series of seminars with ACTA staff and board members, as well as such experts as 

Dr. Bruce Cole, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities; 

Dr. Frederick M. Hess, director of education-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute; 

Ross Douthat, op-ed columnist for The New York Times;

 Dr. Richard K. Vedder, distinguished professor emeritus of economics at Ohio University; 

Arthur Rothkopf, president emeritus of Lafayette College; and Stephen Trachtenberg, president emeritus of The George Washington University.

==

http://www.goacta.org/about/scholars

Ms. Neal cofounded the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and has been president since 2003.

For over 15 years, Ms. Neal has been a prominent national player in higher education reform, publishing widely and appearing frequently on radio and television, including Fox Business News, CNN, Fox News, WGN, and National Public Radio. She has authored or coauthored numerous ACTA studies on historical illiteracy, federal accreditation, governance, intellectual pluralism, and cost, and has contributed chapters to Reforming the Politically Correct University (AEI Press, 2009) and Accountability in American Higher Education (Palgrave MacMillan, 2010). She has also convened higher education conferences under the auspices of the Philanthropy Roundtable. In 2007, and again in 2010, Ms. Neal was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the U.S. Secretary of Education on federal accreditation.

Ms. Neal has providedexpert testimony before the Commission on the Future of Higher Education; the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Commission; the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission; and in many state capitals. She has also presented at conferences sponsored by theAmerican Enterprise Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the University of Notre Dame, the Foreign Policy Association, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Montana State University, the American Association of University Professors, and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

Prior to joining ACTA, Ms. Neal served as general counsel and congressional liaison for the National Endowment for the Humanities. She also worked as a First Amendment and communications lawyer for Rogers & Wells and for Wiley, Rein & Fielding.

Ms. Neal graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Harvard College with an A.B. in American history and literature. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was president of the Harvard Journal on Legislation. She has served on the boards of many cultural and civic organizations, and she is currently a director of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, and Casey Trees.

==

inside higher ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/06/16/jones

Connecting the Dots

Submitted by Alan Jones on June 16, 2006 - 

By all objective measures, the dawning of the 21st century should be a golden era for American higher education. A recent issue of The Economist described America’s system of higher education as “the best in the world” and provided convincing documentation for its claim. A recent review article [1] by Jonathan Cole, provost at Columbia University, meticulously documents the preeminence of U.S. higher education in the world today as an established fact.

Perhaps sensing the current domestic political climate, however, Cole uses his analysis as the basis for sounding a strong cautionary note. “The United States paid a heavy price when the leaders of its research universities in the 1950’s failed to defend the leader of the Manhattan Project J. Robert Oppenheimer; the double Nobel Prize chemist Linus Pauling; and the China expert Owen Lattimore. But a wave of repression in American universities today is apt to have even more dramatic consequences for the nation than the repression of the Cold War.”

This broad-based and even global acclaim for higher education in the United States is strangely at odds with the concentrated political attacks that Cole warns us about and that the academy is currently experiencing. It is particularly out of step with the dark and dysfunctional picture of the academy painted by David Horowitz and his Center for the Study of Popular Culture. [2] If Horowitz were simply a disaffected political crank, as many have hitherto regarded him, then his views on the academy could be easily dismissed. Such dismissal would seem to be all the more in order following his disastrous testimony before the legislative subcommittee in Pennsylvania in which he was forced to recant as unsubstantiated [3] several of the cases that he had been widely circulating as documentation of alleged malfeasance in the academy.

Oddly, however, his campaign goes on. Horowitz, with assistance from Karl Rove and the former House majority whip, Tom DeLay, has briefed Republican members of Congress on his Academic Bill of Rights campaign and DeLay has even distributed copies [4] of Horowitz’s political primer The Art of Political Warfare: How Republicans Can Fight to Win to all Republican members of Congress. Rove refers to Horowitz’s pamphlet as “a perfect pocket guide to winning on the political battlefield."

In a more recent development, last fall, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings appointed a Commission on Higher Education.Spellings, described as a protégé of Rove,[5] gained considerable attention as the principal architect of President Bush’s controversial “No Child Left Behind” initiative.Among the proposals being discussed by Spellings’s new commission is one that calls for scrapping the current system of accreditation, [6] which is done by independent regional bodies, in favor of a National Accreditation Foundation that would be created by Congress and the president.

The current system of institutional review through independent accreditation boards is one of the hallmarks of American higher education and is one of the most important structural safeguards of the academy’s ability to ensure academic quality and intellectual excellence. The introduction of oversight by an inherently partisan political body in lieu of the currently independent accreditation process is a peculiar remedy if the perceived ailment in the academy is political bias. Carol Geary Schneider, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, has said [7] that “the commission is sending out firebolts, one after another." To chair this extraordinary committee Secretary Spellings chose Charles Miller, a former chairman of the University of Texas Board of Regents and, historically, a large contributor to the President’s election campaigns.

The question of why the academy is under such focused and persistent attack by individuals like David Horowitz and his political supporters despite the fact that it appears to be an extraordinarily successful enterprise and an unrivaled resource for the nation is a question that many Americans are asking. In understanding the origins, scope and staying power of this attack it is crucial to understand not only the political relationships that Horowitz enjoys, but the sources of funding that created and sustain his Center for the Study of Popular Culture and its Academic Bill of Rights campaign. It is also critical to understand that the same funding sources that brought Horowitz’s organization into being, also created and sustain a large and integrated network of ideologically defined think tanks and centers both outside of and within the higher education establishment.

When Michael S. Joyce died in February 24, his death received scant attention in the mainstream press. Although very few people in academic circles are familiar with his name, he was, nonetheless, one of the foundational pillars of the current ideological attacks on the academy. A tribute to him [8] by Peter Collier was published in FrontPage, Horowitz’s Web site. Joyce and his intellectual muse -- the late University of Chicago political philosopher Leo Strauss [9] -- would have been pleased by the level of anonymity that he maintained during his lifetime. Joyce's ability to maintain such anonymity despite the enormous influence that he wielded in shaping and developing the infrastructure of the neoconservative movement in this country is quite remarkable.

Although The Atlantic Monthly, as early as 1986, was describing Joyce as "one of the three individuals most responsible for the triumph of the conservative political movement," he nevertheless adhered rigorously to the secretive and profoundly antidemocratic principles advocated by the enigmatic Strauss. As characterized by Jeet Heer in The Boston Globe, [10] Strauss held that "the best regime is one in which the leaders govern moderately and prudently, curbing the passions of the mob while allowing a small philosophical elite to pursue the contemplative life of the mind. Such a philosophical elite may discover truths that are not fit for public consumption.... For Strauss the art of concealment and secrecy was among the greatest legacies of antiquity."

In 1979, Michael Joyce entered the world of large-scale philanthropy with assistance from his mentor Irving Kristol, when he assumed the reins of the John M. Olin Foundation from the retiring president, William Simon. At Olin, one of Joyce’s first projects was to organize support for the launching of the Federalist Society. [11] Joyce’s work in creating and fostering the development of the Federalist Society is instructive and foreshadows the role that he has played in current efforts by neoconservatives to restructure American higher education. The Federalist Society, with Joyce’s ongoing support, not only fostered the development of ultra-conservative legal scholars and politicians such as Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, Samuel Alito, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and Kenneth Starr (all of whom are members) but organized them into a powerful force for reshaping American jurisprudence in support of a larger neoconservative agenda.

Also significant in this regard is a report by Jerome Shestack, [12] former president of the American Bar Association,that the Federalist Society is being increasingly being used as a platform from which to launch ideological attacks on the mainstream legal community. Through the device of the Federalist Society publication, ABA Watch, the society has launched a vicious attack on the ABA. In a special edition of the Watch, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), co-chair of the society, announced that he would no longer invite the ABA to participate on a pro forma basis in the Senate judicial confirmation process. Employing rhetoric eerily parallel to that being used in the current attacks on the academy, Justice Clarence Thomas openly denounced the ABA, declaring “I am doubtful that the ABA can ever reform itself.”

In her testimony [13] before Pennsylvania's Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education, which convened in Philadelphia, Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, expressed a similar sentiment as to the ability of the academy to reform itself. “Faced with growing legislative pressure on this issue, the higher education establishment issued the American Council on Education statement, figured it would pretend to have a quick conversion, endorse intellectual diversity, get those yahoo legislators off their backs and go back to business as usual. DO NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS CHARADE.”

In 1985, Michael Joyce left the Olin Foundation to assume the presidency of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, in Milwaukee. During this time, he not only built the Bradley Foundation into the largest and most influential right-wing foundation in the country, he also forged a  formidable alliance among a small group of the nation’s largest, far right-wing foundations so that their resources could be more strategically deployed in support of the developing neoconservative agenda. Included in this alliance are the Koch Foundation (either directly or through its subsidiary the Claude Lambe Foundation), the Castle Rock Foundation (Coors) and the Sarah Scaife Foundations  (either directly or through its subsidiaries the Carthage Foundation and the Alleghany Foundation) which, together with Olin and Bradley, have collectively financed the rise of the neoconservative movement in this country and have done so with an impressive display tactical precision.

It is a telling marker of the ideological cohesiveness and extremism of this core group of philanthropies that three of the five founding members, Joseph Coors, David Koch and Harry Bradley, were members and financial supporters [14] of the John Birch Society. The Scaife foundations, headed by Richard Mellon Scaife, are also involved, [15] albeit in less direct ways.

In the past 20 years this core group of funders has, by many reports, built and strategically linked an impressive array of almost 500 think tanks, centers, institutes and "concerned citizens groups" both within and outside of the academy. It is particularly telling to observe the funding sources of these organizations during the first 10-15 years of their existence, when their ideological identities were being established. A small sampling of these entities include the Cato Institute, [16] the Heritage Foundation, [17] the American Enterprise Institute, [18] the Manhattan Institute, [19] the Hoover Institution,[20] the Claremont Institute,[21] the American Council of Trustees and Alumni,[22] :{Middle East Forum,[23]Accuracy in Media, [24] and the National Association of Scholars:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:, [25] as well as:{Horowitz's Center of the Study of Popular Culture.[26]}:

The absence of formal organizational linkages between the entities within these networks creates an illusion of independent analytical voices reaching similar conclusions about strategic policy issues, a technique known in the public relations industry as “astroturfing.” This network has developed an enormous capacity to generate “data” consistent with the targeted political agenda and world views of its core group of funders to quickly and redundantly represent these issues in the mainstream press by what appear to be the voices of independent analysts and to translate these viewpoints into public policy that serves the focused ideological agenda of this core group of funders. The Bradley Foundation under Michael Joyce's leadership has even established a publishing house, Encounter Books, [27] to ensure that grantees like Horowitz have a quasi-academic outlet for their viewpoints.

The degree of interconnectedness within this network of organizations is considerable but almost invisible to the casual observer. For example, when ACTA’s president, Anne Neal, introduced herself to the Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, she presented ACTA as “a bipartisan network of college and university trustees and alumni across the country dedicated to academic freedom.”

Full disclosure should have required some mention of the fact that ACTA (see funding sources above), which changed its name from the National Alumni Forum [28] in 1998, was established by theIntercollegiate Studies Institute [29] in 1994. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute in turn evolved from William Bennett’s Madison Center for Educational Affairs [30] and the Institute for Educational Affairs founded by Irving Kristol, Michael Joyce’s mentor, and William Simon, the first president of the John M. Olin Foundation.Bennett and Kristol also sit on ACTA’s Board of Directors. The remarkably consistent record of funding across all of the incarnations of this organization and the high degree of redundancy with Horowitz’s own, highly partisan Center for the Study of Popular Culture is not consistent with Neal’s definition of ACTA as an independent, non-partisan organization.

Another example illustrative of the quietly incestuous nature of this network is presented by an article by the Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young. The article is entitled “Liberal bias in the ivory tower” [31]and by all appearances is an independent opinion piece written by a regular Globe columnist.At the end of the article Young identifies herself as “a contributing editor at Reason Magazine.” What is undisclosed in the article is that Reason Magazine is the publication of the Reason Foundation, whose funding sources [32] are virtually the same as those funding Horowitz’s "Academic Bill of Rights" project and Neal’s ACTA.

Young’s premise for the article is stated in her opening sentence: “Yet another study has come out documenting what most conservatives consider to be blindingly obvious: the leftwing tilt of the American professoriate.” The study that she references [33] was conducted by Stanley Rothman, now emeritus professor at Smith College;S. Robert Lichter, emeritus professor at George Mason University;and Neil Nevitte of the University of Toronto, and was published in the online journal Forum. This study was also cited by Neal in her testimony in Pennsylvania. Young does not inform her readers that Rothman is director of the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change, [34] a center with funding sources that are remarkably redundant with Horowitz’s Center for the Study of Popular Culture. Lichter is also president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, [35] which again has funding sources that are redundant with those referenced earlier.

In addition, a recent article in Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [36] is highly critical of Lichter’s research methodology. Another example of such conflicted interests is provided by Professor Thomas Reeves. When Reeves writes in strong support of Horowitz’s proposals on the History News Network,[37] he fails to note that he is a spokesman for the California Association of Scholars, a branch of theNational Association of Scholars (see funding sources above) and that he is director of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, [38] which was, again, brought into being by the Olin and Bradley Foundations.

This manufactured drumbeat against “academic bias” is amplified by Stanley Kurtz [39] of the Hoover Institution (see funding sources above), Heather MacDonald, [40] a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute (see funding sources above), and Brian C. Anderson, [41] editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and a former research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (see funding sources above).

The relentlessness with which columnists and experts with direct funding relationships with Olin, Scaife, Bradley, Koch and Coors level charges of academic bias and assert the need for legislative reform of higher education is remarkable. The goal of this narrowly focused and ideologically driven public relations campaign can only be understood in terms of its fostering of a political climate in which federal regulatory “reform” of what is universally recognized as the finest system of higher education in the world, will be tolerated.

Indeed, as has been discussed, such regulatory oversight may already be in the offing. The academy stands today as one of the last spaces in America where the democratic ideas that shape the social, economic and political fabric of the nation can be openly and independently debated on the basis of their merits and without coercion or distortion from vested economic and political interests. It is certainly in the national interest that it remain such.

Author/s:

Alan Jones

Author's email:

info@insidehighered.com

Alan Jones is dean of the faculty and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Pitzer College.

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Source URL: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/06/16/jones?width=775&height=500&iframe=true

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Elizabeth D. “Betty” Capaldi Phillips

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni today welcomes the addition of Dr. Capaldi Phillips as ACTA’s scholar-in-residence.  Continue Reading »

COUNCIL OF SCHOLARS

The distinguished professors who comprise ACTA’s Council of Scholars provide guidance on academic policy issues. Small working groups of the Council help ACTA set appropriate standards and criteria for its What Will They Learn?™ core curriculum project.

George E. Andrews

Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics,

Penn State University

Mark Bauerlein

Professor of English,

Emory University

Marc Zvi Brettler

Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor

of Judaic Studies, Duke University

William Cook

Distinguished Teaching Professor

and Emeritus Professor of History,

SUNY–Geneseo

Paul Davies

Professor of Philosophy,

College of William & Mary

David C. Doughty, Jr.

Professor of Physics and Provost,

Christopher Newport University

William Fagan

Professor and Chair of Biology,

University of Maryland

Judith Farr

Professor of English Emerita,

Georgetown University

Sidney L. Gulick III

Professor of Mathematics,

University of Maryland

Robert “KC” Johnson

Professor of History,

CUNY–Brooklyn College

Anatoly M. Khazanov

Ernest Gellner Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Wisconsin; Fellow, British Academy

Alan Charles Kors

Henry Charles Lea Professor of History,

University of Pennsylvania

Jon D. Levenson

Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies, Harvard Divinity School

Molly Levine

Professor and Chair of Classics,

Howard University

George R. Lucas, Jr.

Distinguished Chair in Ethics Emeritus, U.S. Naval Academy; Professor of Ethics and Public Policy, Graduate School of Public Policy, Naval Postgraduate School

Joyce Lee Malcolm

Professor of Law, George Mason University; Fellow, Royal Historical Society

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Professor of Astrophysics,

UCLA

Michael Podgursky

Professor of Economics,

University of Missouri

James A. Sellers

Professor and Associate Head for Mathematic

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