Open Letter to President Washington, George Mason University

Dear President Washington,

UnKoch My Campus has organized for academic freedom and to address undue donor influence at George Mason University since 2014. Many of our student, educator, and community activists are deeply connected to the legacy of George Mason University. In 2018, during the presidency of Angel Cabrera, we broke the story about donor agreements from the Koch network which led to the creation of an internal review of donor agreements. This paved the way for reformed regulations surrounding gift agreements, which were passed by the Faculty Senate and approved by the Board of Visitors. Since then, our organizers worked alongside state representatives to introduce HB1529 and HB510 in the VA General Assembly. These bills, passed in the 2020 session and then signed by Governor Ralph Northam in March and April, support transparency in higher education by ensuring that universities make donor agreements more accessible under the Freedom of Information Act as well as denying anonymity to donors who make gift agreements with academic strings attached. 

For years our project and community have demonstrated the harms of the Koch network at over 200 higher education institutions, funding more than 1000 professors espousing regressive social and economic ideals and curricula, promoting the Koch network’s privatization agenda, and even normalizing neo-confederate and neo-nazi ideology. No one has invested in a vast political landscape to capture our institutions the way that Charles Koch and his wealthy donor network has. The material outcomes of all their investment has led to further climate disaster through deregulation, and has halted progressive social and economic possibilities.

On Wednesday, January 6th, 2021, we watched in horror as rioters stormed the Capitol building, disrupting the certification of the 2020 election results. Earlier in the week, 13 GOP Koch-funded senators banned together to object to the congressional confirmation of Biden as our next president, legitimizing and paving the way for Wednesday’s insurrection, which caused the Capitol to be evacuated and has already left five dead.

George Mason University and the GOP insurrectionists have something in common: the Koch network. The Koch network continues to invest in the destabilization and private control of our institutions. George Mason University’s history, in particular, bears out the evidence of how nefarious the impact of Koch network money can be. Capturing our institutions of higher education and leveraging them to image launder, produce pro-corporate biased research, and spread disinformation should be enough cause to break ties. Unfortunately, George Mason University continues to allow Koch funded think tanks to borrow its reputation all while serving the Koch network’s agenda. 

I urge you to evaluate the ways in which George Mason University continues to allow the Koch network to leverage your prestigious reputation and legacy in order to launder their impact on our democracy. Please issue a statement addressing the Koch network’s role in this stain on our democracy.