UnKoch Victory at Suffolk University

Suffolk University has received over $800,000 from the Charles Koch Foundation since 2008, all of which has gone to the Beacon Hill Institute (BHI). BHI is an anti-regulation think tank housed on campus run by a former tobacco lobbyist. BHI has been criticized by economists and scientists for its inaccurate and faulty research, especially around energy policy. The Kochs are using their influence over policy analysis at BHI to push their political and economic agenda in state legislatures across the country,with the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). 

In the fall of 2013, the first UnKoch My Campus campaign was launched at Suffolk. By the end of the semester, after collecting petition signatures from students and alumni, UnKoch activists were able to meet with then-President McCarthy and ask for more transparency around Koch donations.

After delivering a petition with over 20,000 signatures, UnKoch successfully moved President McCarthy to release a document of all grants received in the previous three years. This is the first documentation from a private university that UnKoch has been able to secure regarding Koch funding to date, and the first time Suffolk made that information public. 

In the spring of 2015, UnKoch worked tirelessly to draw national media attention to the fact that BHI was contributing research to reports attacking the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan. This included organizing around documents that were released revealing that BHI promised its corporate donors studies that would pave the way for “legislative activity that will pare back or repeal the [Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative]” in nine states. 

In December 2015, in an unprecedented move, Suffolk University announced that they were planning to cut ties with the Beacon Hill Institute, with the center moving off campus by the end of 2016. The announcement came a month after a groundbreaking exposé by the Center for Public Integrity revealed that the Koch brothers have quietly funneled tens of millions of dollars to more than 350 colleges and universities across the country, including Suffolk. 

The news and UKMC’s reaction was covered by several national and regional media outlets, including the Boston Globe and Inside Higher Ed.