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Ideas for sale: the “private” takeover of even public universities

Brian Leiter

This article raises an important issue; several examples come from philosophy.  (Thanks to Jason Stanley for the pointer.)

From the article's conclusion:

Nowadays the big-money philanthropist doesn’t just want his name on the building; he wants control over what happens inside. This is not really “philanthropy”—the provision of public good without expectation of reward, out of (from the Greek) a “love of mankind.” These donors are instead looking for and getting great deals: money in exchange for policy recommendations and contacts favorable to them and their interests. At a time when universities are desperate for money, this cash-driven set of research mandates effectively turns professors and administrators into clients, who dare not criticize or challenge the funder’s views. For as anyone in philanthropy will tell you, the smartest person in any room is not the person with the highest IQ or best credentials. It’s the donor.

Thoughts from readers about these developments?  Feel free to share experiences at your own schools.

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4 responses to “Ideas for sale: the “private” takeover of even public universities”

  1. Jacob Seeley

    For me the scary aspect of these cases is not the controversial source of the funding per-se, but the seeming fact that the funder can (wholly) shape the academic trajectory of the school or center they fund. I say this because funding controversies are themselves not foreign to the U.K. I recall LSE had an issue around 2011 when some financial connections to the Gaddafi family were revealed. And the Blavatnik school of government at Oxford (itself not unconnected to philosophy) has recently seen a professor resign over Blavatnik's perceived support for Donald Trump. In both these cases, however, I don't recall the academic integrity of the schools being called in to question, rather the relationships the institutions had to the controversial funders. This, I think, makes them markedly less troubling than some of the cases which the article outlines.

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  2. Keith Douglas

    I'm no longer an academic, but when I worked in the philosophy of science I looked briefly at how many "basic science" discoveries are needed to get products to sell and how the funding works. Estimates (by physical chemist Keith Laidler and philosopher of science/physicist Mario Bunge) put the number at ~1 million or 10 million to 1 (in the mid 1990s). However, and the numbers are shakier here, it seems that these are usually incredibly cheap relative to the technology-and-product end of the scale. One source of "ideas for sale" is the narrow view that we shouldn't fund disinterested research because it is not worth anything. The above "science of science" stuff shows that this is not true: even an ultracapitalist should fund completely arbitrary basic research (ideally via taxes) because the only way the eventual innovative products to sell get created is via this route.

    However, as Jacob Seeley's remarks show, there are political and other interests involved, not just culture (i.e., basic research) vs. money. I guess there the only thing I'd say for now is that if one adequately funds the basic stuff one doesn't have to look to the political stuff for money. This doesn't do anything about "here's a wack of money just because" (where the "just because" is *really* an attempt at setting a political or other agenda).

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  3. Chris Surprenant

    I am one of the people Johnson mentions by name in this article. I can't speak for anyone else mentioned (although I know many of them and think they're doing good things), but 5 minutes listening to my actual comments or looking at the program he's attacking would lead any reasonable person to conclude that he has intentionally misrepresented things to score political points.

    But maybe I can use this opportunity to accomplish some good:

    If you know a high school interested in having their students take a course in philosophy for college credit (full year or half year, standard intro or ethics), please have an administrator or teacher from that school get in touch with me. We can either work with an existing teacher on their faculty who has 18+ graduate credit hours in philosophy, hire someone who can teach the class (and adjunct in the area or graduate student if they're near a city with a graduate program), or provide the class remotely to their students. We take care of the instructional costs if we have to hire a teacher. The only cost to the students or school is the UNO dual-enrollment fee, which is less than $250. If a student or students can't cover this cost due to their personal financial situation, we can usually cover that as well.

    Further, if you know an individual high school student or students interested in philosophy (or who might be interested in philosophy) and their high school does not offer a philosophy course and it is inconvenient or impossible for that student to take a course at a local college, please have him or her get in touch with me. We provide online, asynchronous versions of our courses as part of our program and the high school students can take classes with regular University of New Orleans students.

    More information about the program can be found here: http://www.uno.edu/tocqueville-project/high-school-program.aspx

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  4. Christopher Morris

    Donors are increasingly sophisticated. Universities are adept at taking the money of donors, putting a name on a building and then doing what they wish with the money, including paying the salary of someone already on the payroll. Business donors often want to make donations that "add value", and those with political views that are are unorthodox don't want their money to support views they don't care for. This often means giving small sums and seeing what happens with it. This does not seem unreasonable.

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