Center for Business and Economic Research - Ball State University


CBER Data Center
Projects and PublicationsEconomic IndicatorsWeekly CommentaryCommunity Asset InventoryManufacturing Scorecard

About

Commentaries are published weekly and distributed through the Indianapolis Business Journal and many other print and online publications. Disclaimer

RSS Feed

Disclaimer

The views expressed in these commentaries do not reflect those of Ball State University or the Center for Business and Economic Research.

Recent

Bank Failures Warn of Deeper Economic ProblemsDuring the Great Recession, a whopping 0.014 percent of banks were closed by the FDIC.

Remote Work Through the Eyes of Three 20-SomethingsRemote work is here to stay.

Remote Work and Labor MarketsThere are more remote workers today than there are immigrants in the U.S.

The Amish in IndianaIt is hard not to draw similarities between the Amish and newer immigrant groups.

View archives

Top Tags

jobs and employment 228
economics 176
education 146
economic development 144
state and local government 124
taxes 122
finance 108
recession 100
budget and spending 100
indiana 99
Browse all tags
Reporter / Admin Login

May 29, 2016

unKoch My Campus Is Soros-Funded Hypocrisy

Last week a small protest group, unKoch My Campus, appeared at Ball State. This group is funded by billionaire (and convicted inside trader) George Soros, through a grant to Greenpeace. This group clearly aims to intimidate into silence any faculty and students with whom they might disagree. Now this is a serious accusation; how do I know it is about free speech and not about Koch Foundation funding, as they claim? It's simple really; they targeted me. Their representative told the local paper I am “among their [Koch’s] most trusted academics.”

Flattering as that may be, there's just one problem with that claim. I’ve never submitted nor received a grant from the Koch Foundation, never been paid by the Koch Foundation nor received any gifts or honoraria from them. Though I give about 50 talks per year, I’ve never knowingly given a speech to or attended a Koch-sponsored event. The reason for this is simple; the Koch Foundation doesn’t typically fund the type of research my research center performs.

My apparent connection is having a co-author whose employer took about 1.0 percent of its funding from the Koch Foundation. By the way, that research was instrumental in ending a failed $1.4 billion corporate give-away program in Michigan. Ironically, among those recipients were several in which Mr. Soros had financial interests. Now there’s a story.

So, make no mistake about it, this is merely an effort to intimidate people with whom the Soros Foundation disagrees or finds intellectually (or financially) inconvenient. The stunning hypocrisy of this new McCarthyism suggests they are a short-lived phenomenon. Still, this offers a great opportunity to explain what universities do with private grants, contracts and donations.

The research center where I work receives contracts or grants to answer a research question such as “what happens to household location decisions when a tax rate changes?” Typically, we’ll use the bulk of this money to hire students. For graduate students we usually offer nearly free tuition and a stipend. For undergrads we offer pay, experience and mentorship. None of the center’s staff receive extra pay for this.

The work we do is challenging and fast-paced. We have no time for an ideological litmus test on employment. We care about work ethic, skills, and almost nothing else. I am very proud to say that in my 16 years as a professor, I’ve helped support the education of more than a hundred students. My university needs more, not less of this, and if you want to help please drop me a line at cberdirector@bsu.edu.

Here at Ball State, the Koch Foundation along with “Papa John” Schnatter are funding entrepreneurial education. While some folks might tremble at the thought of thousands of American college graduates starting their own business, I don’t. But, against this notion the Soros funded youngsters offer neither an opposing argument, nor money to support education, research or free speech. This isn’t about ideas, it is about intimidating faculty and students into rigid intellectual conformity. It is exactly this sort of intolerant nonsense that any honest faculty and student body must vigorously reject.

Link to this commentary: https://commentaries.cberdata.org/840/unkoch-my-campus-is-soros-funded-hypocrisy

Tags: private sector, politics, education


About the Author

Michael Hicks cberdirector@bsu.edu

Michael J. Hicks, PhD, is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and the George and Frances Ball distinguished professor of economics in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University. Hicks earned doctoral and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Tennessee and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Virginia Military Institute. He has authored two books and more than 60 scholarly works focusing on state and local public policy, including tax and expenditure policy and the impact of Wal-Mart on local economies.

© Center for Business and Economic Research, Ball State University

About Ball State CBER Data Center

Ball State CBER Data Center is one-stop shop for economic data including demographics, education, health, and social capital. Our easy-to-use, visual web tools offer data collection and analysis for grant writers, economic developers, policy makers, and the general public.

Ball State CBER Data Center (cberdata.org) is a product of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. CBER's mission is to conduct relevant and timely public policy research on a wide range of economic issues affecting the state and nation. Learn more.

Terms of Service

Center for Business and Economic Research

Ball State University • Whitinger Business Building, room 149
2000 W. University Ave.
Muncie, IN 47306-0360
Phone:
765-285-5926
Email:
cber@bsu.edu
Website:
www.bsu.edu/cber
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/BallStateCBER
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/BallStateCBER
Close