Catholics Fight University Accepting Koch Grant

Fifty Catholic educators are protesting the Catholic University of America’s acceptance of a $1 million grant from the Koch brothers? foundation, making a strong case that the billionaire libertarians? ideology conflicts with Catholic teachings and values. The recent grant is said to support the business school and hire four visiting scholars who will perform research on ?principled entrepreneurship.?

The letter, which Catholic university leaders from across the country have delivered to Catholic University of America President John Garvey and Dean Andrew Abela, calls out Charles and David Koch as ?billionaire industrialists who fund organizations that advance public policies that directly contradict Catholic teaching on a range of moral issues from economic justice to environmental stewardship.?

The group goes on to point to the inconsistency of Koch ideology with the recent statements of Pope Francis, pointing out that ?while the Koch brothers lobby for sweeping deregulation of industries and markets, Pope Francis has criticized trickle-down economic theories, and insists on the need for stronger oversight of global financial markets to protect workers from what he calls ‘the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.’?

The university has responded with a disappointing defense of the grant acceptance, evading the merits of the case against them by calling the signers of the letter ?arbiters of political correctness? and daring to still suggest that the grant will support ?principled entrepreneurship.?

Skeptics of how impactful this move may actually be should look to the results of the Koch Brothers? grants made to Florida Gulf Coast University’s economics department. At FGCU, a fraction of the money given to the Catholic University of America afforded the Koch Brothers with power to make key hiring decisions. It remains obvious that the leaders of the country’s biggest anti-regulatory, corporate lobbying efforts would not draw the line of advancing their political and economic self-interest at the door of academia.

 

Edited by DH.

Lindsay Jakows was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. She is a 2012 graduate of Pepperdine University, where she organized a campaign for a recognized LGBT student organization on campus. After graduation she took a job with the Student PIRGs, organizing a student-run voter registration drive in Denver, CO and environmental campaigns in Western Massachusetts. Currently Lindsay resides in Northampton, MA, where she works for a local environmental non-profit. She enjoys coffee, cats, and Harry Potter. Her views expressed here are hers and hers only.