Dirty Money: From Rockefeller to Koch {large image}

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http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/dirty-money-from-rockefeller-to-koch/284244/

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An illustration from an April, 1905, Puck magazine shows John D. Rockefeller "purifying" his donation to a clergy member. (Library of Congress)

Last November, the Catholic University of America announced a pledge of $1 million from the Charles Koch Foundation to support the study of “principled entrepreneurship” at the university’s new business school. As the billionaire funder of various libertarian causes and much of the Tea Party movement, Koch (along with his brother David) is not exactly a stranger to controversy. But his foundation has made gifts to many educational institutions in the past—its website lists 270 colleges and universities it supports, including more than two dozen Catholic schools—with only the occasional stir of opposition. And so he might have assumed that his gift would be met with a press release and that mild mix of gratitude and entitlement with which the public now greets most seven-figure gifts to educational and cultural institutions. After all: Who doesn’t like principled entrepreneurship?

Yet, this time, the gift to Catholic (CUA) caused more than a stir. In fact, from a significant swath of the broader Catholic community it provoked something close to outrage. As things stand today, the outcry hasn’t managed to scuttle the donation. But it has the chance to do something even more important: to renew a vital and century-long debate about the terms of philanthropy itself.

There are two reasons why Koch’s gift did not slide tranquilly into Catholic’s coffers. One is that CUA holds a unique status among American institutions of Catholic higher education; both because of CUA's national profile and because U.S. bishops founded it and sit on its board, American Catholics tend to be especially defensive about its reputation. The other is that Koch’s gift coincided with a moment of mounting confidence among Catholic progressives, who have found an ally in Pope Francis. In fact, just a little more than a week after CUA announced Koch’s donation, the Pope issued his first major public pronouncement, denouncing the “deified market,” the folly of supply-side economics, and the “new tyranny” of unfettered capitalism. Here, it seemed, was a call for principled entrepreneurship that placed Koch’s libertarianism directly in its sights.

Soon after news of the gift broke, Catholics Scholars for Worker Justice, in partnership with a progressive Christian organization, Faith in Public Life, issued a statement, signed by 50 leading Catholic educators (including several from CUA itself), expressing “serious concerns” about the donation. “While the Koch brothers lobby for sweeping deregulation of industries and markets,” they wrote, “Pope Francis has criticized trickle-down economic theories, and insists on the need for stronger oversight of global financial markets to protect workers.” The University should leave no doubt that it stands with the Holy Father. “We are concerned that by accepting such a donation you send a confusing message to Catholic students and other faithful Catholics that the Koch brothers’ anti-government, Tea Party ideology has the blessing of a university sanctioned by Catholic bishops.” They cited the Kochs’s opposition to the expansion of Medicaid, hostility to public unions, and support for global warming denialists. (They also gestured toward past allegations that Koch had meddled with academic content and faculty-hiring decisions in a prior donation to another university). An affiliated group, Faithful in America, launched an online petition urging the school to return the money; it has since collected more than 33,000 signatures.