Reports

The Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) operates on the campus of George Mason University. Admittedly following Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth Model, the IHS serves as a "talent pipeline" for the Koch network-- recruiting students & faculty pursuing the study of “classical liberal ideas.”

Many faculty hired at Koch-funded research centers across the country are products of the IHS. IHS faculty have been accused of grading students based on their sympathy with “classical liberalism” and their potential career direction.

Evidence of the Charles Koch Foundation exerting undue donor influence over academic and administrative decisions on campuses they fund.

Examples include donor influence over faculty responsibilities, hiring, scholarly activities, and the creation of curriculum and academic programs. Donor influence is also seen in student activities from student groups to graduate fellowships. Other items of concern include conflicts of interest, threats, intimidation, deliberate misinformation, and bypassing faculty dissent.

In 2016, UnKoch My Campus made recordings at the annual conference of a Koch-funded academic association, the Association for Private Enterprise Education.

Evidence collected includes Koch-funded professors confirming their role in leveraging their universities to pursue Koch's political goals, taking over curriculum and hiring, and using the classroom “primarily as recruitment grounds” for Koch's liberty movement.

The Koch network is influencing the education, appointment, and election processes of Judges and Attorneys General across the country. Judges educated by Koch-sponsored judicial seminars are statistically more likely to issue longer prison sentences and overturn regulations protecting workers and the environment. At the same time, the Koch network has leveraged the "justice" system to drive mass incarceration through campaigns for mandatory minimums, “three strikes” laws, laws allowing juveniles to be tried as adults, and stand your ground laws.

Koch entities have widespread financial interests in the western United States, including oil and gas development, cattle grazing and logging. Removing or weakening public-lands protections will substantially benefit Koch entities and other corporate interests.

A recent donation to the Utah State to establish the Center for Growth and Opportunity seeks to elevate the reputation of national policy research, commentary, panel discussions, and congressional testimony encouraging public lands privatization and the rollback of environmental protections.

For over a decade, the Koch network has funded a "criminal justice" movement for corporations called Right on Crime.

This agenda seeks to protect the interests of their corporate network, namely white collar criminals and corrections profiteers, while expanding the privatization of prison reentry services.