western carolina u

<p style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles Koch gave $90 million to influence higher ed in the South<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last month, the provost of Western Carolina University in North Carolina asked the public school's chancellor to approve an academic center funded by the Charles Koch Foundation, a private nonprofit run by the billionaire chairman, CEO, and co-owner of the Koch Industries oil and chemical corporation. The foundation funds academic programs, professorships, scholarships, conferences, lecture series and economics centers, all for the purpose of promoting the free-market agenda embraced by Koch and his brother David.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The chancellor has come out in support, and on Dec. 4 the school's trustees will vote on the fate of the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise, which would launch with $2 million from the Charles Koch Foundation over five years and $1.4 million from the university.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The proposed agreement has come under fire from the school's faculty senate, which voted 21-3 to oppose the center's creation. The group raised concerns about academic freedom, cost, reputation, and the lack of peer review.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"The Charles Koch Foundation has previously set forth explicit expectations in line with their political views in exchange for monetary gifts to universities," the faculty senate said in a statement, "thereby constraining academic freedom by influencing and interfering with the development of new knowledge."<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The proposed center at WCU is part of a long campaign by Koch to influence higher education. The Charles Koch Foundation along with three other groups led by Koch gave nearly $108 million to 366 colleges and universities from 2005 to 2014, finds an Institute for Southern Studies investigation, building on research by Greenpeace. The other groups are the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute. (For more about these groups, see "The Koch-led charities funding higher education" at the end of this story.)<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Eighty-five percent of the donations — or $91 million — went to 147 Southern colleges and universities.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The bulk of the money given by the four nonprofits — $77.7 million — went to George Mason University, a public school in Fairfax, Virginia. Much of that went to the school's Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies, nonprofits housed at the university that focus on teaching and promoting free-market economics. But even when the GMU donations are excluded from the total giving, Southern schools received 45 percent of the remaining contributions.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Besides GMU, the other schools that received the most money from the Koch foundations are all in the South: Florida State University at $2.3 million, West Virginia University at $1.3 million, Clemson University of South Carolina at $1.3 million, and Troy University of Alabama at $1.1 million...<p style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A free-market strategy<p style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">University funding is part of a multi-pronged approach to social change that Charles Koch and his close ally <a href="http://mercatus.org/richard-fink" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(71, 109, 151); text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">Richard Fink</a> devised decades ago.<p style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Fink, the Koch brothers' <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/politico50/2014/charles-kochs-brain.html#.Vl9Z08qdXow" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(71, 109, 151); text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">"grand strategist,"</a> is currently executive vice president of Koch Industries, president of the Charles Koch Foundation, and chair and CEO of Koch Companies Public Sector LLC, which coordinates Koch Industries' lobbying. Starting in the 1970s, Fink worked with Charles Koch to devise <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/sites/default/files/Structure-of-Social-Change.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(71, 109, 151); text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">a three-part strategy of influence</a> based on ideas from Austrian economist and free-market proponent Friedrich Hayek to spread their laissez-faire ideology as widely as possible.<p style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The first step in Fink's "Structure of Social Change" involved pouring millions of dollars into universities to produce what he called "intellectual raw materials" to support their political agenda. But these materials had to be packaged in a way that non-academics could understand, and that's where the second step in the strategy came in: Think tanks such as the libertarian Cato Institute, co-founded by Charles Koch and heavily funded by the Koch foundations, produce reports, policy proposals, and opinion pieces that turn academic work into political fodder.<p style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Next, what Fink calls "citizen activist" groups put the think tanks' ideas into action by advocating for the recommended policy changes. The Koch network includes <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/politico50/2014/charles-kochs-brain.html#.Vl9Z08qdXow" style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(71, 109, 151); text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">a vast array of such groups</a>, including the "social welfare" nonprofit Americans for Prosperity, which David Koch founded with Fink and North Carolina political mega-donor Art Pope, and the closely linked nonprofit Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/30/covert-operations" style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(71, 109, 151); text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">bankrolled the beginnings of the Tea Party</a>. AFP spends millions on federal, state and local elections, often buying attack ads<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/recips.php?cmte=Americans+for+Prosperity&cycle=2014" target="_blank" style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(71, 109, 151); text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">targeting</a> opponents of their favored candidates. The Kochs and their companies' political action committees also donate directly to the politicians they hope will usher their policy preferences into law.<p style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While the Kochs are prolific donors to higher education in the South, they are by no means alone. Their close ally Art Pope, for example, has given six- and sometimes seven-figure donations to mainly Southern universities, much of it going towards free-market programs. The foundation of the North Carolina-based bank BB&T has given at least 63 <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/16/new-paper-details-extent-bbt-banks-ayn-rand-inspired-grant-program" style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(71, 109, 151); text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">"Moral Foundation"</a>grants to universities that require the schools to offer a course centered on "Atlas Shrugged" by libertarian favorite Ayn Rand.