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<div><div>OPINION  COMMENTARY</div><div>An Anti-Koch Meltdown at Wake Forest</div><div>Professors are attacking the billionaires and undermining academic freedom.</div><div>By Naomi Schaefer Riley</div><div>
</div><div>April 6, 2017 </div><div>Denizens of the ivory tower are rarely nuanced in their statements about Charles and David Koch. But the professorial ruminations published last month at Wake Forest University break new ground by showing that disdain for conservatives weighs more heavily on faculty minds than academic freedom.</div><div>
</div><div>About two years ago, Wake Forest professor James Otteson came to the administration with an idea: a new center devoted to the study of happiness. Such programs are all the rage in psychology departments, but Mr. Otteson, a scholar of classical philosophy who has written books on Adam Smith, offered a unique interdisciplinary approach. Planning began for a center that draws scholars from across the university to study the political, economic, moral and cultural institutions that encourage human happiness. It was named the Eudaimonia Institute, after Aristotle’s term for flourishing.</div><div>
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</div><div>http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2016/06/23/the-koch-brothers-funded-invasion-of-nc-universities-continues-as-wake-forest-joins-the-network/</div><div>
</div><div><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Love them or hate them, there’s one thing that most everyone can agree on when it comes to the nation’s most visible and ambitious billionaire plutocrats: the Koch brothers know what they want and make no bones about pursuing it. Simply put, they want to control public policy making at the national, state and local levels in the United States and are prepared to do whatever it takes and spend whatever is necessary to make their dream a reality.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Whether they’re buying politicians and lobbyists by the bushel, flooding the airwaves and the Internet with anti-science/pro-pollution propaganda, funding a national network of private “think tanks” and advocacy groups or, increasingly, effecting a gradual infiltration/takeover of academia, the Kochs are ambitious, direct and unapologetic.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">The push in academia<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">The Kochs’ move to reshape academia is not an especially new or secret development. As the good people at Polluter Watch, a project of Greenpeace, have <a href="http://polluterwatch.org/charles-koch-university-funding-database" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">documented</a>, the Kochs have spread millions of dollars amongst dozens of universities over the past decade-plus.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That said, there are signs that the push is gaining speed and strength. The following is from <a href="http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2016/06/12/koch-papa-changing-bsus-mission/85026636/" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">a news story</a> that appeared just last week in the Muncie, Indiana <em style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Star Press:<blockquote style="padding: 30px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; overflow: hidden; position: relative; z-index: 5; background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border-radius: 4px;"><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">“The agreement that Ball State University signed with the Charles Koch Foundation and ‘Papa John’ Schnatter requires the university to promote understanding of the virtues of free enterprise, aka limited government.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">In March, the foundation and the founder of Papa John’s donated $3,250,000 to Ball State for the creation of the John H. Schnatter Institute for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">Its mission, according to the grant agreement, is to ‘become a national model for values- and ethics-based entrepreneurship, developing research and talent to help solve contemporary problems and promote understanding of the characteristics and virtues of free enterprise in helping people improve their lives.’”</blockquote><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">The Ball State initiative is just the latest in a mushrooming array of Koch-inspired “academic centers” taking root at colleges and universities around the country. The following excerpt from <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/25/new-koch" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">an article penned earlier this year for the <em style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">New Yorker magazine</a> by journalist Jane Mayer, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307970655" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;"><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,”</a> (wherein she discusses a 2014 Koch-organized California retreat at which the brothers and their minions plotted their next moves) explains some of the objectives and methods being employed:<blockquote style="padding: 30px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; overflow: hidden; position: relative; z-index: 5; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border-radius: 4px;"><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">“At another panel that weekend, James Otteson, a professor of political economy at Wake Forest University’s business school, argued that using the term ‘well-being’ would be ‘a game changer.’ He added that he was setting up an institute devoted to well-being at Wake Forest. To illustrate the power of framing free-market theories in this way, he shared an anecdote. A colleague, whom he described as a ‘left-wing political scientist’ who ‘railed’ against Republicans and capitalism, had been so fully persuaded by Otteson’s description of factors contributing to human well-being—‘peace and security,’ ‘health,’ ‘environment’—that he had said, ‘You know, even <em style="background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">I’d be willing to take Koch money for that.’ The donors laughed. ‘Who can be against well-being?’ Otteson exclaimed. ‘The framing is absolutely critical.’<p style="background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">Days after the Southern California summit, the Charles Koch Institute—which arranges fellowships for those interested in “advancing free societies”—hosted what it called its Inaugural Well-Being Forum, at the Newseum, in Washington. Among the panelists was Otteson. Arthur Brooks served on the initiative’s five-member advisory board. Although the forum’s name suggested New Age spirituality, it promoted the Kochs’ free-market message. As Brooks had concluded in an earlier speech on well-being, standing beside a sign reading, ‘h-a-p-p-i-n-e-s-s,’ ‘The earned-success system that brings you happiness is the system of free enterprise that lifts people out of poverty.’<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">The term ‘well-being’ also cropped up in an initiative launched by Americans for Prosperity’s charitable foundation. (David Koch sits on the foundation’s board.) The initiative, which was named the Bridge to Wellbeing, incorporates such charitable events as Tapas and Topics, where snacks are dispensed along with advice on ‘how you can advance economic freedom in your community.’”</blockquote><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kochs in North Carolina<br style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%;" /><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Here in North Carolina, where the Kochs’ home-grown junior partner Art Pope has played the role of right-wing financier and kingmaker for years, direct Koch tentacles have been somewhat less visible. Recently, however, this has started to change. Last fall, <a href="http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2015/11/19/proposed-koch-funded-free-enterprise-center-at-unc-system-school-sparks-controversy/" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">we reported on the establishment of a new Koch-funded propaganda shop at Western Carolina University</a> to be dubbed the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">Meanwhile, as is noted in the Mayer piece, another Koch network shop has sprouted and is taking shape 200 miles to the east at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. The Wake Forest operation is called <a href="http://capitalism.wfu.edu/eudaimonia/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">the “Eudaimonia Project”</a> and it is headed by James Otteson – the head of <a href="http://capitalism.wfu.edu/" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">the BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism</a> at Wake (where the project is based) and the same fellow who outlined the Koch plan at the California retreat in the above excerpt.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Check out the mission of the project and see if it sounds familiar:<blockquote style="padding: 30px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; overflow: hidden; position: relative; z-index: 5; background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border-radius: 4px;"><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">“This is a new initiative of the Center, and forms the core of the research we encourage and support. We investigate the institutions—including the economic, political, moral, and cultural institutions—that enable eudaimonia, or human flourishing. Our questions include:<ol style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px 19px; outline: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: decimal; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">What exactly is eudaimonia? How can it be measured or assessed?</li><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: decimal; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">How does capitalism affect eudaimonia? How do other systems of political economy affect eudaimonia?</li><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: decimal; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">What effect does business have on eudaimonia—on its proprietors and employees, on its customers, and on the larger culture in which it operates?</li><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: decimal; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">What policies should we recommend, or recommend against, in light of their effect on eudaimonia?</li></ol><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">We view the pursuit of eudaimonia as perhaps the most important pursuit in which human beings can engage, and since systems of political economy have a profound effect on people’s ability to achieve and experience it, we believe this is perhaps the most important cluster of questions we can examine. Indeed, we believe we are morally required to do so.”</blockquote><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As with all of the academic centers in the growing (some would say “metastasizing”) Koch Empire, the Eudaimonia Project and its parent organization do little to disguise what they are all about. The goal is clearly to advance hard right market fundamentalist ideology by cloaking it in warm and fuzzy language and to thereby grace it with the veneer of academic legitimacy.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;">Despite the talk of high flown philosophical concepts, the rather limited output of the Center appears to be confined mostly to restating and repackaging the same hoary right-wing platitudes that one might find on the websites of, say, the John Locke Foundation. The <a href="http://capitalism.wfu.edu/commentary/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">“commentary” section</a> of the website of Otteson’s center, for instance, features multiple links to articles by Otteson and others (including a YouTube video produced at – surprise! – Ball State) extolling the virtues of unfettered capitalism and attacking “socialism” and the “socialist inclination.” In another article, Otteson purports to explain “Why raising the minimum wage isn’t always the best answer.” Not surprisingly, Otteson is listed on the website of the Raleigh-based Pope Center for Higher Education as a “Pope Center Author.”<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Going forward<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There are a lot of other issues that arise from a first blush look at the Wake Forest center:<ul style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px 19px; outline: none; list-style: square; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: square; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Will what appears to be an essentially one person operation remain such or will it grow?</li><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: square; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Will the Kochs be contributing significant resources going forward? (The Polluter Watch site says the Kochs gave Wake Forest $87,000 in 2014.)</li><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: square; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Will the center be connected to the new operation at Western Carolina and other Koch-affiliated outfits?</li><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: square; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Will it serve principally as a source of genuine academic research and teaching or an “ideological framing” operation? (According to a source at Wake Forest, Otteson currently teaches only one course – a “Why Capitalism” class.)</li><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: square; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Will the Wake Forest business school and the broader university faculty be provided an opportunity to weigh in on the matter?</li><li style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: square; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">How did Otteson, someone who appears to have little connection to the academic community in the field of business ethics secure an endowed chair with the grand title of “Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics”?</li></ul><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At this point, however, the near term bottom line seems pretty clear: The Koch Brothers’ effort to reshape American academia continues apace and their foothold in North Carolina is growing stronger.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Update: After this story was published, James Otteson contacted me and asked that two specific changes be made.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">First, he pointed out that he is not a “contributing author” at the Pope Center for Higher Education as the story originally stated. The reference was based on the fact that the Pope Center specifically lists Otteson on the “Pope Center Authors” section of its website (<a href="http://www.popecenter.org/about/author.html?id=573" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">click here to view it</a>). We have updated the story to clarify this reference.<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;"><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Second, Otteson asked for the removal of a clause that appeared in the final bullet point of the “Going forward” section of the story (which we obliged) that read “and who left a previous university position under suspicious ethical circumstances.” The clause was based upon (and linked to) <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/09/12/yeshiva" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s;">a lengthy 2008 article from the publication </a><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/09/12/yeshiva" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; transition: none 0s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Inside Higher Ed</a><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"> that explored Otteson’s departure from Yeshiva University after sexist comments were published on a controversial blog with which he was connected. Otteson, however, told me that he disputes the substance of the Inside Higher Ed<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"> story, that he did not write the offensive comments himself and that he left Yeshiva on good terms. <p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; list-style: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">-Rob Schofield</div><div>=</div><div>aei</div><div>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley</div><div>
</div><div>Naomi Schaefer Riley (born ca. 1977)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-NYT_wedding-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> is an American conservative<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a> commentator and author.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a>Riley's writings have appeared in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Journal" class="mw-redirect" title="Wall Street Journal" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wall Street Journal</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times" title="The New York Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The New York Times</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boston_Globe" title="The Boston Globe" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Boston Globe</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Los_Angeles_Times" class="mw-redirect" title="The Los Angeles Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Los Angeles Times</a>, The New York Post, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post" title="The Washington Post" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Washington Post</a>, among others. At The Wall Street Journal, she covered religion, higher education, and philanthropy for the editorial page.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a> Prior to this assignment, she founded the magazine In Character.Riley was a blogger for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_Higher_Education" class="mw-redirect" title="Chronicle of Higher Education" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Chronicle of Higher Education</a> until she was fired in 2012 after writing a blog arguing for the elimination of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Studies" class="mw-redirect" title="Black Studies" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Black Studies</a> at university departments,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> which resulted in a social media backlash, kicked off by an essay by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tressie_McMillan_Cottom" title="Tressie McMillan Cottom" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Tressie McMillan Cottom</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-blog-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-thick-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> and a petition demanding her firing, which contained roughly 6,500 names.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a>
She graduated from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_College" title="Harvard College" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Harvard College</a> in 1998,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_cum_laude" class="mw-redirect" title="Magna cum laude" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">magna cum laude</a>. She and her husband (since 2004), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Riley(journalist)" class="mw-redirect" title="Jason Riley (journalist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jason Riley</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-NYT_wedding-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> have three children.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Schaefer_Riley#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Writing[</h2><ul style="list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" d4515="d4515" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" padding="padding"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America, Ivan R. Dee (2006); <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1566636988" title="Special:BookSources/978-1566636988" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-1566636988</a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">The Faculty Lounges … And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay For, Ivan R. Dee (2011); <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1566638869" title="Special:BookSources/978-1566638869" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-1566638869</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Acculturated: 23 Savvy Writers Find Hidden Virtue in Reality TV, Chic Lit, Video Games, and Other Pillars of Pop Culture (co-editor), Templeton Press (2012); <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1599474045" title="Special:BookSources/978-1599474045" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">978-1599474045</a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">'Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage is Transforming America, Oxford University Press (2013); <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0199873746" title="Special:BookSources/978-0199873746" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-0199873746</a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Opportunity and Hope: Transforming Children's Lives through Scholarships, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (2014); <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1442226098" title="Special:BookSources/978-1442226098" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-1442226098</a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Got Religion?: How Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back, Templeton Press (2014); <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1599473918" title="Special:BookSources/978-1599473918" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-1599473918</a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians, Encounter Books (2016); <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1594038532" title="Special:BookSources/978-1594038532" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-1594038532</a></li></ul><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">References</h2></div><div>---</div><div>AA?</div><div>Jason L. Riley (born July 8, 1971)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-nyt-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[</a>] is an American commentator and author. He is a member of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Journal_editorial_board" class="mw-redirect" title="Wall Street Journal editorial board" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Wall Street Journal editorial board</a>. Riley is a senior fellow at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute" class="mw-redirect" title="Manhattan Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Manhattan Institute</a> and has appeared on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_Editorial_Report" title="Journal Editorial Report" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Journal Editorial Report</a>, other <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News" title="Fox News" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Fox News</a> programs and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-SPAN" title="C-SPAN" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">C-SPAN</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a>Riley was born in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,New_York" title="Buffalo, New York" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Buffalo, New York</a>. He is the son of Lee Riley of Buffalo and the late Ola Riley. His father retired as a social worker at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, a residential psychiatric treatment hospital.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-nyt-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> He earned a bachelor's of arts degree in English from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_University_of_New_York_at_Buffalo" class="mw-redirect" title="State University of New York at Buffalo" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">State University of New York at Buffalo</a> and began his career in journalism working for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_News" class="mw-redirect" title="Buffalo News" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Buffalo News</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Today" title="USA Today" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">USA Today</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-Manhattan-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Career[</h2>He joined <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal" title="The Wall Street Journal" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Wall Street Journal</a> in 1994 as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_editing" title="Copy editing" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">copyreader</a> on the national news desk in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">New York</a>. In April 1996, he was named to the newly created position of editorial interactive editor, and joined the editorial board in 2005.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a>Riley is the author of four books. In 2008, he published Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> which argues for a more <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market" title="Free market" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">free-market</a> oriented <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States" title="Immigration to the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">U.S. immigration system</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-Manhattan-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a>In 2014, Riley published Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a> The book was praised by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell" title="Thomas Sowell" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Thomas Sowell</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Review" title="National Review" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Review</a>, who wrote "Pick up a copy and open pages at random to see how the author annihilates nonsense."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a>In his 2017 book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Black_Power%3F" title="False Black Power?" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">False Black Power?</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a> Riley argues economic success is a more important strategy for the empowerment of black people than dependence on political leadership.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a>According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_Magazine" class="mw-redirect" title="Salon Magazine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Salon</a>, "The American left should start paying attention to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal" title="The Wall Street Journal" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Wall Street Journal</a>'s Jason Riley. His name is on the rise".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L.Riley#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a>In 2021, Riley published Maverick: A Biography of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell" title="Thomas Sowell" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Thomas Sowel</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell" title="Thomas Sowell" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">l</a>.</div><div>=
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</div><div>https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/03/22/wake-forest-faculty-senate-objects-koch-funding</div><div>
</div><div> Faculty Senate at Wake Forest University has called on the administration to stop accepting money from the Koch brothers, conservative political activists and philanthropists, <a href="http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/faculty-senate-of-wfu-wants-university-to-reject-funding-from/article_52f06c82-2d76-5006-9524-2f6cd7e68315.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Winston-Salem Journal</a> reported. The Koch Foundation in 2016 pledged more than $3 million to a Wake Forest institute. Faculty members note controversy over past Koch gifts, which many professors say give the various Koch funds too much influence over academic decisions. The donor agreement for the Wake Forest grant has not been released.A spokeswoman for the university said, “We remain vigilant against attempts either to limit free expression of our faculty and students or to exert improper outside influence over our curricula and programs. The Senate’s symbolic vote is concerned with the latter principle. As a campus community, we continue to navigate the complexities of simultaneously upholding both in the spirit of our ethical responsibility to discern reason, argument and evidence and engage in frank, civil discussion in pursuit of our shared best interests.”<div>
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</div><div>kochademic double $ in 3 yrs, 2x # campus ?! exponential?!</div><div>grad fellowships, pick fellows and diss topics?!</div><div>80 min AAAS?</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrz4nBRH4nw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrz4nBRH4nw</a></div><div>
</div><div>Ralph Wilson senior researcher at UnKoch My Campus was invited to give a presentation to students and faculty of Wake Forest University, Jan 30, 2017, entitled "Are the Koch's a threat to higher education and Wake Forest?"</div><div>
</div><div>=<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/business/02bbt.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/business/02bbt.html</a>no lnxGive BB&T Liberty, but Not a BailoutJohn A. Allison IV, chairman of the banking company BB&T, is a devoted follower of Ayn Rands antigovernment views.By Andrew MartinAug. 1, 2009OVER much of the last four decades, John A. Allison IV built BB&T from a local bank in North Carolina into a regional powerhouse that has weathered the economic crisis far better than many of its troubled rivals ? largely by avoiding financial gimmickry.And in his spare time, Mr. Allison travels the country making speeches about his bank’s distinctive philosophy.Speaking at a recent convention in Boston to a group of like-minded business people and students, Mr. Allison tells a story: A boy is playing in a sandbox, only to have his truck taken by another child. A fight ensues, and the boy’s mother tells him to stop being selfish and to share.“You learned in that sandbox at some really deep level that it’s bad to be selfish,” says Mr. Allison, adding that the mother has taught a horrible lesson. “To say man is bad because he is selfish is to say it’s bad because he’s alive.”If Mr. Allison’s speech sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it’s based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who celebrated the virtues of reason, self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism while maintaining that altruism is a destructive force. In Ms. Rand’s world, nothing is more heroic ? and sexy ? than a hard-working businessman free to pursue his wealth. And nothing is worse than a pesky bureaucrat trying to restrict business and redistribute wealth.Or, as Mr. Allison explained, “put balls and chains on good people, and bad things happen.”Ms. Rand, who died in 1982, has all sorts of admirers on Wall Street, in corporate boardrooms and in the entertainment industry, including the hedge fund manager Clifford Asness, the former baseball great Cal Ripken Jr. and the Whole Foods chief executive, John Mackey.But Mr. Allison, who remains BB&T’s chairman after retiring as chief executive in December, has emerged as perhaps the most vocal proponent of Ms. Rand’s ideas and of the dangers of government meddling in the markets. For a dedicated Randian like him, the government’s headlong rush to try to rescue and fix the economy is a horrifying realization of his worst fears.Indeed, so many bad things are happening that many followers of Ms. Rand, known as objectivists, believe that the ugly scenario in her 1957 novel “Atlas Shrugged” ? in which the government takes over industry as the economy progressively collapses ? is playing out in real life.New regulations are being enacted by the day. The rich may be forced to pay for health care for the poor. The auto industry is a ward of the state. An activist administration occupies the White House. And, of course, the federal government has inserted itself into the nation’s banks, including BB&T, which accepted $3.1 billion in bailout money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.“Rand predicted what would happen 50 years ago,” says Mr. Allison, who notes that his bank was forced to take the money, which he labels “a rip-off.” “It’s a nightmare for anyone who supports individual rights.”But as cringe-inducing as the government’s actions may be for objectivists like him, there is a silver lining: sales of “Atlas Shrugged,” which Ms. Rand considered her definitive work, are better than ever.In the first six months of 2009, Penguin Books shipped more than 300,000 copies of the book, which opens with the famous question, “Who is John Galt?” That’s 25 percent more than in all of 2008.“It’s just gone through the roof,” said Kara Welsh, publisher for the New American Library, a division of Penguin. There’s even a renewed effort to make a miniseries out of the book. The studio Lionsgate, along with the producers Howard and Karen Baldwin, hope to begin shooting as early as next spring.“It is incredibly timely,” said Michael Burns, vice chairman of Lionsgate.While book sales haven’t translated into a flood of new converts to objectivism, Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, said attendance at this year’s Objectivist Summer Conference in Boston ? where Mr. Allison delivered his speech ? was the best yet for an East Coast event. (Attendance at conferences on the West Coast, where the institute is based, tends to be 25 percent higher, he says.)Among the participants was Dr. Shira Miller, who became interested in Ms. Rand’s writing in college. She says objectivism continues to provide her with “a moral philosophy for how to live a good and happy life.”Dr. Miller, who practices age-management medicine in Los Angeles, doesn’t accept Medicare or health insurance so there can be no third-party interference with her individual rights or those of her patients, she says. “Medicine is a product just like any other,” says Dr. Miller, likening it to toasters, computers or legal advice. “I should have the right to sell or trade it on my own terms, just like any other business owner.”For his part, Mr. Brook is encouraged by the new interest in Ms. Rand’s work, but feels that it has yet to have much impact on the political debate. He’s also struggling to change a popular perception that the financial crisis was caused by deregulation and the fiscal policies of a top Rand disciple: Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman.Mr. Brook argues that the problem wasn’t deregulation, but “misregulation.” He also says it’s unfortunate that Mr. Greenspan continues to be associated with Ms. Rand. While the two were close in the 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Greenspan abandoned objectivism decades ago, he says. Through a spokesman, Mr. Greenspan declined to comment.“If you look at every aspect of the political world, things are going against us, from health care to cap-and-trade,” Mr. Brook says. “And it’s accepted wisdom that the financial crisis was caused by capitalism.”“In the narrow sense of objectivism, things have never been so good,” he adds. “When you look at the larger world, it’s pretty depressing.”THE enduring popularity of Ms. Rand bewilders her many detractors, who complain that her writing is melodramatic, heavy-handed and intellectually bereft.“To describe her as a minor figure in the history of philosophical thinking about knowledge and reality would be a wild overstatement,” says Brian Leiter, director of the Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values at the University of Chicago. “She’s irrelevant.”Professor Leiter conducted an informal poll in March on his philosophy blog, asking, “Which person do you most wish the media would stop referring to as a ‘philosopher’?” The choices were Jacques Derrida, Ms. Rand and Leo Strauss. Ms. Rand won by a landslide, with 75 percent of the roughly 1,500 votes cast.Professor Leiter says Ms. Rand’s views on moral philosophy and objective reality are “simple-minded in the extreme.”“She doesn’t understand the historical positions of thinkers on these issues, such as Hume and Kant,” he says. “Even the minority of philosophers with some sympathy for her celebration of the virtues of selfishness usually find her general philosophical system embarrassing.”Others contend that a lack of constraints on self-interested and greedy business people set the financial crisis in motion ? a view that tends to undermine Ms. Rand’s theories on the value and social benefits of unfettered ambition and limited government.“It takes a great leap of ideological blindness to look at the past few years and think that the main problem was too much government involvement,” said Robert B. Reich, a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who was a labor secretary in the Clinton administration.Mark A. Thoma, an economist at the University of Oregon, says the financial crisis would have been worse if the government hadn’t rapidly intervened.“I completely disagree with the idea that letting the markets heal themselves is the best idea,” he says. “We tried that in the ’30s, and it didn’t work out so well.”Fiscal conservatives take an opposite tack, arguing that the government has intervened in overly aggressive and risky ways. They find much to praise in Ms. Rand’s economic views. Yet even for that crowd, her social views are a tougher sell.Ms. Rand was an ardent atheist who considered the cross a symbol of how “a man of perfect virtue” sacrificed himself for a bunch of losers. “It is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors,” she said.She had little time for women who stay home to raise children. Ms. Rand wrote sex scenes that one critic recently described as “dark, kinky and weird, but not in a good way,” in which normally tough businesswomen melt under the steely gaze and rough hand of übercapitalists.Even so, Ms. Rand’s books have sold briskly without the sanction of academics and book critics since they were published.[ImageAlan Greenspan, center, was a follower of Ayn Rand, right with her husband, Frank OConnor. With them in 1974 were Mr. Greenspans mother, Rose Goldsmith, and President Gerald R. Ford.]Her black-and-white views were shaped by her upbringing in Russia, where her father’s pharmacy was taken over by Communists, who also suppressed free thought at her university. In 1926, she came to the United States, which she had idealized as a free nation that valued human achievement.A short, chain-smoking woman with a severe haircut and heavy Russian accent, she once worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and fashioned herself as “a radical for capitalism.” As her reputation grew, she was interviewed by Johnny Carson, Phil Donahue and Playboy magazine.A member of her New York salon was the young economist Mr. Greenspan. Ms. Rand called him “the Undertaker” for his dark clothing and dour manner.Mr. Greenspan, who wrote an article for one of Ms. Rand’s nonfiction books advocating a gold standard, was among those who listened to and praised early drafts of “Atlas Shrugged,” which Ms. Rand started writing in 1946.It tells the story of Dagny Taggart, a brilliant and leggy railroad executive who steamrolls the “looters” and “moochers” who populate a deteriorating America to keep her trains running on time.She is part of a loose collection of can-do industrialists who struggle against a rising tide of government intervention that seeks to lessen competition and redistribute wealth “for the common good.”As conditions worsen, the most talented people flee society to an idyllic mountain retreat overseen by an ingenious inventor, John Galt, who wants to deprive a corrupt nation of its greatest minds and to facilitate its demise. He warns that the best thing the bureaucrats could do is “get the hell out of my way.”Mr. Brook, of the Ayn Rand Institute, says Ms. Rand understood then, in 1957, an emerging trend toward more government influence, where “somebody’s need is a claim against our wealth.”The problem with this, he says, is all too real.“The last 50 years have been an orgy of placing need above wealth creation, above personal pursuit of happiness,” Mr. Brook says. “I think we are seeing the consequences of that today.”MR. ALLISON of BB&T has the tall, lean frame, copper-colored hair and confident demeanor of many of Ms. Rand’s fictional heroes, including John Galt ? a look “which would not seek forgiveness or grant it.”He also has a résumé befitting a Rand prophet. He started at BB&T, once known as the Branch Banking and Trust Company, in 1971 and became chief executive in 1989, when the bank had $4.7 billion in assets.By the time he retired as C.E.O. in December, he had overseen 60 bank and savings-institution acquisitions and turned BB&T into the 11th-largest bank in the nation, with $152 billion in assets, according to the bank.A 60-year-old who speaks in a rapid-fire Southern accent, Mr. Allison says the current financial crisis is primarily the government’s fault. He criticizes the Fed as trying to manipulate normal business cycles and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as facilitating mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them.The government’s remedies have made matters only worse, he says: “Almost everything that has been done since this crisis started is going to reduce our long-term standard of living.”Mr. Allison says the government forced BB&T and some other healthy banks to accept TARP money to obscure that they were simply trying to save several large banks like Citigroup.“Everyone thinks we got some kind of subsidy,” he says, noting that his company paid the money back in June, with interest. “It’s going to cost us about $250 million for money we didn’t want.”He suggests that government get out of the way and let businesses start making money again. An example of how to make money? Look no further than BB&T, which, he says, has a proven formula for success that centers on “an uncompromising commitment to reason.”Under Mr. Allison, new executives were handed a copy of “Atlas Shrugged.” All employees get a 30-page pamphlet describing BB&T’s philosophy and values: reason, independent thinking and decisions based on facts.“Wishing something is so does not make it so,” Mr. Allison says. “I guarantee that long before the rest of us knew, those geniuses at Lehman Brothers knew that something was wrong, but they evaded it.”Mr. Allison was introduced to Ms. Rand’s work in college, when he read her book “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.” He describes egalitarianism as the “most destructive principle in our society” and believes that the best employees should receive the most rewards.“It’s not true that everybody is equal,” he says. “A lot of business people don’t want to deal with nonperformance.”Mr. Allison cites two examples in which the bank’s philosophy guided its real-world decisions.After the Supreme Court upheld the right of local governments in 2005 to condemn private property and hand it to someone else for commercial development, he says, BB&T refused to make loans to developers who obtained property that way.He also says BB&T decided not to offer the controversial “pick a payment” mortgages that got so many of its competitors into trouble. Such loans, also known as “option A.R.M.’s” or “negative amortization loans,” allow borrowers to make payments that don’t even cover the interest on the loans, which causes the amount they owe to grow.“While we did not foresee the decline in the real estate market, we knew home prices would not continue to appreciate at 15 percent per year forever,” he says, adding that his bank knew that pick-a-payment loans would be trouble for many homeowners.“We believe Rand’s concept of the ‘trader principle,’ where life is about trading value for value, where both parties benefit from the transaction,” he says.MR. ALLISON says that only a small fraction of the bank’s employees are objectivists. Among the many who are not is his successor as chief executive, Kelly S. King.Bob Denham, a bank spokesman, says that “most employees don’t equate our values as being tied to John’s objectivist philosophy,” adding that “they just think of them as practical values, which they are.”Christopher Marinac, an analyst at the research firm Fig Partners, says the culture at BB&T is definitely different from that of most other banks, attracting employees who “have their heart and soul in their job.”He recalled attending his first analysts’ meeting at the bank a decade ago and being surprised when Mr. Allison launched into an hour-and-a-half lecture on philosophy.“I think those of us who are a little more open-minded got something out of it,” Mr. Marinac says. “Their employees drink the Kool-Aid. If they don’t drink the Kool-Aid, they don’t work at the bank.”Although BB&T has had problems during the financial crisis, it has outperformed its peers and remained profitable. After the government stress-tested major banks’ balance sheets in May, BB&T wasn’t required to raise additional capital.“The philosophy has clearly been a competitive advantage,” Mr. Allison says.Besides making speeches, Mr. Allison is also trying to spread Ms. Rand’s ideas to the nation’s colleges and universities. BB&T spends about $5 million a year to finance teaching positions and research on “the moral foundations of capitalism.”Mr. Allison, who is now teaching at Wake Forest University, says the money isn’t specifically slated for objectivism but rather to support the work of “free-market professors, especially those that have a serious interest in Rand’s philosophy.”Despite the current bleak state of capitalism, he’s also optimistic about the future.“In some ways, Ayn Rand filled in the ideas of Aristotle. It’s a whopping competitive advantage,” he says. “I personally believe objectivism will be the dominant philosophy in this country in 25 years.”...?=Wake Forest NewsWFU receives $4.2 million to further study of human flourishingSeptember 8, 2016by Katie Neal ('03)  |   media@wfu.edu  |   336.758.5237What constitutes a life well lived? Wake Forest University professors are addressing this age-old question with the support of nearly $4.2 million in new research funding to study eudaimonia (yoo-dye-mo-NEE-uh)—Aristotle’s term for “flourishing.”The mission of Wake Forest’s Eudaimonia Institute is to study the nature of human flourishing—as well as the institutions, attitudes and cultural practices that encourage it. An interdisciplinary intellectual community of scholars will explore the concept beyond the typical scope of how happiness is understood or used in everyday conversation.In June, the Eudaimonia Institute began with a planning grant from the Wake Forest Office of the Provost. Now, the Charles Koch Foundation, a charitable organization supporting a wide range of scholarly opportunities and research at U.S. colleges and universities, has committed $3.69 million to support the institute over the next five years. Liz and Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Resources and Liberty Oilfield Services, have committed an additional $500,000. Wake Forest anticipates additional contributions to the institute.These grants will enable the Eudaimonia Institute to support:Research from a wide range of perspectives, such as economic, political, philosophical, psychological and societal;Faculty and staff members contributing to the institute’s mission;Faculty development and workshops;Opportunities for student research;Programs, conferences and speakers on campus.“The pursuit of eudaimonia is one of the most important goals for humankind.”James Otteson, Executive Director of the Eudaimonia Institute, Professor of Economics and Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business EthicsOtteson, a distinguished scholar of philosophy and political economy, is one of the world’s leading scholars on Adam Smith. He writes extensively on eighteenth-century liberalism, the history of economic thought, and moral philosophy. His book Actual Ethics won the 2007 Templeton Enterprise Award.Otteson, a distinguished scholar of philosophy and political economy, in the classroom.  Otteson, a distinguished scholar of philosophy and political economy, in the classroom.“There is no shortage of research institutes that look at happiness in various ways, but the niche we are serving brings together multiple disciplines and perspectives to create an intellectual community focused on the deeper notion of eudaimonia. We are grateful for the support that will enable a much more robust body of research than would be possible by looking only at political, economic, or societal influences and outcomes,” he said.
INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ON REAL-WORLD TOPICSThe Eudaimonia Institute expects to put forth its first call for research proposals later this year. Otteson said topics associated with the institute are likely to be more relatable than the ancient Greek name might suggest.Take New York City’s proposed big-soda ban. There were significant bodies of political and social science research both for and against the ban as lawmakers, corporations and public health groups debated the controversial measure – which the state’s highest court ultimately struck down in 2014. The Eudaimonia Institute could support scholarly research that explores people’s reactions to the proposal and how it influenced – or not – their sense of well-being.Another example is parenting. For many, becoming a parent has long been assumed to be a social, moral, or perhaps religious calling and also a key to a happy life. But does parenting actually contribute to eudaimonia? Recent research, including contributions by Wake Forest scholars, questions whether having children actually makes people happier. This kind of issue—which can be addressed from many angles, including psychological, economic, moral, and political—is what the institute’s multi-disciplinary community hopes to address.“The Eudaimonia Institute’s commitment to the rigorous academic exploration of human flourishing from multiple disciplines and perspectives has been affirmed by its Faculty Advisory Board, a group of a dozen Wake Forest faculty from across the university,” said Provost Rogan Kersh. “Institute researchers will not shy away from asking or investigating difficult questions; the study of individual and collective well-being is too important to be viewed solely from any one perspective. I look forward to the diversity of thought and scholarship, and the hoped-for landmark findings, which emerge as a result of this generous support.”The Eudaimonia Institute is the third academic institute at Wake Forest. It joins the Humanities Institute, led by Wake Forest Kahle Professor of Religion Mary Foskett, and the Pro Humanitate Institute, led by Maya Angelou Presidential Chair and Professor of Politics and International Affairs Melissa Harris-Perry.Additional information about the Eudaimonia Institute is available at eudaimonia.wfu.edu.
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Wake Forest University - UnKoch My Campushttp://www.unkochmycampus.org › wake-forest-univer...UnKoch My Campus is a fiscally sponsored project of Essential Information. UnKoch My Campus c/o Essential Information P.O. Box 19405 Washington, DC 20036.
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