The idea that conservative donors become academic thought police when they fund university academic centers is severely misguided, explains Scott Walter in a recent article at Philanthropy Daily (“Are Donors Dangerous?” January 18, 2012).
Walter makes the case that this conservative philanthropy adds to rather than subtracts from the academic conversation. A prime example, he says, was the John M. Olin Foundation’s efforts to start law-and-economics centers at Harvard, Georgetown, Stanford, Yale, the University of Chicago, and other law schools. At Stanford, says Walter, the Olin Foundation worked with law school dean Paul Brest, “a serious scholar in his own right who has never been accused of having conservative views” and who “has praised the law-and-economics donors and urged other funders, regardless of their political views, to learn from them.”
Brest saw firsthand how the donors, grantees, and other scholars functioned, but he voices no concern over threats to academic freedom or integrity. I know from him and the funders involved that both sides, despite their differing views, got along well and knew that their opposite numbers were keen to maintain the highest academic standards.
Of course, one part of high academic standards is vigorous debate that leads to evolving views – something that the law-and-economics donors, far from quashing, have helped foster. Brest notes, for example, that “in recent years, the law and economics paradigm has been challenged by research in behavioral economics,” which means that even a successful academic movement never achieves a permanent victory, but rather spurs further academic work. Real scholars welcome that.
The critics who worry about Koch money seem not to worry at all that George Soros is using his billions to start academic centers devoted to fighting “market fundamentalism.” For them, “more academic freedom” seems to be just a synonym for “fewer conservative ideas.”