4-25-16

During this hour I guest host "The Leslie Marshall Show."

I'm joined by Lindsey Berger, co-founder of 'UnKoch My Campus', a national campaign led by students, faculty and alumni working to stop billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and his donor network from being able to advance their political agenda at the expense of academic freedom and faculty governance.

We discuss how the Koch brothers' donations influence college research, the professors hired, and the coursework being taught, all in service of advancing their ideologies, building their reputation, and increasing their profits.

Here's some background info. to show how the problem is widespread. Jane Mayer, Author of the new book "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right," reports that, as of 2015, the Kochs subsidized programs in 207 colleges and universities and were set to expand into 18 more. In some cases, such as West Virginia University and Florida State University, their foundations exert influence over hires. At Florida State, one student reported that the new introductory economics course included lessons that “sweatshop labor wasn’t bad,” and “climate change wasn’t caused by humans and isn’t a big issue.”
Even more disturbingly, the Koch brothers have recently been pushing their ideology into high schools. The curriculum teaches that,

“Franklin Roosevelt didn’t alleviate the Depression, minimum wage laws and public assistance hurt the poor, lower pay for women was not discriminatory, and the government, rather than business caused the 2008 recession.”

Lindsey Berger's Twitter handle is @LindseyBerger and the Twitter handle for her organization is @UnKochCampus.
Their website is www.UnKochMyCampus.org.

(Image Credit: Spencer Platt via Getty Images)