Inside the Koch brothers' campus crusade
The campus of Koch Brothers Academy spans a nation.
Learn about the “role of government institutions in a capitalistic society” at South Carolina’s College of Charleston.
Dive into the “integrated study of philosophy, politics and economics” at Duke University and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
And philosophize about the “moral imperatives of free markets and individual liberty” at the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University in Alabama.
Billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch may rank among the nation’s biggest bankrollers of conservative causes and Republican campaign vehicles. But Koch proselytizing of government deregulation and pro-business civics is increasingly targeted not just at creatures of Capitol Hill, or couch sitters in swing states, but at the hearts and minds of American college students, as well.
In all, two of the six private charitable foundations the Koch brothers control and personally fund combined in 2012 to infuse colleges and universities with more than $12.7 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Internal Revenue Service tax filings.
The vast majority of this cash was spread among 163 U.S. colleges and universities — many with reputations for liberal faculty and left-leaning patrons — throughout 41 states and the District of Columbia. It came on top of tens of millions of dollars more Koch foundations have given colleges and universities during the past decade, tax filings show.
The Koch foundations together have also spent millions more to fund dozens of academic scholarships and internships, numerous think tanks and education-focused organizations, such as the Philadelphia-based Jack Miller Center. The latter is a nonprofit that used $250,000 in Koch money to help bankroll academic programs that “reinvigorate the teaching of America’s founding principles and history” at 45 institutes of higher education, from Harvard University to American University to the University of California, Los Angeles.
Related: Top higher ed recipients of Koch foundation cash
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Consider the Source. Seeking to ‘out’ shadowy political organizations flourishing in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
