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Koch Buys Right to Pick FSU Faculty

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Posted on May 10, 2011
Flickr / Sue Peacock

A union supporter expresses his opinion in Madison, Wis., earlier this year.

Billionaire Charles Koch pledged $1.5 million to Florida State University’s economics department three years ago with the stipulation that his staff would screen the faculty hired for a program on “political economy and free enterprise.” The St. Petersburg Times has cried foul, and rightfully so. We’re talking about a public university here. Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch continue to leverage wealth from Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held company in America, to wage war on government regulation, public benefits and labor rights. —KDG

St. Petersburg Times:

Traditionally, university donors have little official input into choosing the person who fills a chair they’ve funded. The power of university faculty and officials to choose professors without outside interference is considered a hallmark of academic freedom.

Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, however, faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it’s not happy with the faculty’s choice or if the hires don’t meet “objectives” set by Koch during annual evaluations.

David W. Rasmussen, dean of the College of Social Sciences, defended the deal, initiated by an FSU graduate working for Koch. During the first round of hiring in 2009, Koch rejected nearly 60 percent of the faculty’s suggestions but ultimately agreed on two candidates. Although the deal was signed in 2008 with little public controversy, the issue revived last week when two FSU professors—one retired, one active—criticized the contract in the Tallahassee Democrat as an affront to academic freedom.

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By Gmonst, May 10, 2011 at 10:45 am Link to this comment

Whats really left to be said? 

Its obvious that the class war is going to be won by the rich.  I see no serious tide of opposition rising, what small opposition is rising is to slow and haphazard to have any serious impact.  We are led astray into ever more complex and time consuming modes of entertainment until we are left with no time for the contemplation in which a serious focus or understanding of the problem becomes clear. 

Those few that do understand find their warnings falling on the deaf ears of those too distracted to listen.  Those so called “news” sources from the entertainment-net are so filled with noise, confusion, and distorted truths that it becomes itself just another distracting element.  It corrals the rising energy for change, justice, and freedom into straw-man battles over nonsensical ideas and non-existent boogie men.  We become angry about non-issues while the real issues go on under the radar of most. 

Not to be pessimistic, but I don’t see it getting better before it gets much worse.  At some point the greed will push things too far, because the nature of greed is it doesn’t know when to stop.  Even when stopping would be in the long term interest of the greedy, greed turns a person into a virus that will destroy that which sustains it in pursuit of just a little bit more.  Greed is the addiction of accumulation.  Helpful insofar as it spurns one to prepare for hardship in a harsh world, but like hunger for the obese, it becomes destructive in a world of unencumbered acquisition.  As we mature into adults we are supposed to learn to control our greed, exercise higher mental functions to see the long term consequences of greedy behavior.  Instead our logic has become corrupted by greed until it became just another of greed’s tools.  We become slaves to our own self-centered needs loosing site of the forest for the trees.  Eventually it will push too far and we will be killed off by our stupidity or we will wake up and become adults again because we have lost it all.

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By SarcastiCanuck, May 10, 2011 at 10:18 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Bend over America as the corporate fascist state becomes a reality in our time.All the great presidents warned of this but your latest breed are just schills for hire.Expect your kids to be programmed instead of educated in the near future.

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