A Koch Foundation on Campus

A small liberal arts college was recently rocked to discover that a visiting lecture series was funded by the Koch Foundation. Whitman College, in rural Washington, hosts "The Classical Liberalism Lecture Series" each year, which is supposed to bring "more conservative ideas to campus." It was formerly funded by a private donor and then last year, it was funded by the Kochs, after the school applied for a grant from one of their foundations. But the story, as the student paper tells it, is confusing. It's all put together as "liberal college worried about conservatives on campus," basically, but that's not the real story at all. The story, from what we can tell, really goes like this: "There were no undesirable strings attached" to the grant money, says one professor—but then the faculty "perceived the [Charles G.] Koch foundation as overstepping its bounds." (Perceived!) Apparently, to be vaguely specific, that particular Koch Foundation "started wanting all sorts of other things, like student emails." Like what else? Oy, student newspapers! Love you, and here's some tips: demand a copy of the correspondence between the school and the Koch Foundation! Demand a copy of the school's grant paperwork! Ask the trustees and the school president to lay it out! This sort of vagueness is untenable.