Refuse to image launder Koch in our schools, communities, coalitions, and movements.
Charles Koch Foundation, Stand Together, and the Koch Network are not progressive.
We saw this all come to a head on January 6th of this year, when violent protestors stormed the Capitol in DC, leaving five dead. These people were organized by Koch network-funded groups (including the Rule of Law Defense Fund, Turning Point Action, and Tea Party Patriots) and spurred on by 13 Koch-funded politicians who had vocally refused to confirm President Biden. It’s unacceptable for institutions of higher ed to continue accepting funds from a source that had a hand in an attempt to manipulate an election and subvert democracy. And it is absolutely unconscionable for progressive organizations to do the same.
As head of Koch Industries for over 50 years, Charles Koch has profited from policies that have supported and benefited corporate interests while harming those most at risk, particularly communities of color.
For years our project and community have demonstrated the harms of the Koch network at over 200 higher education institutions, funding more than 1,000 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.
The Koch family’s wealth and legacy were built upon corporate power and white supremacy, and not much has changed despite carefully crafted sound bytes, press tours, and recent books promising change. It has all been lip service, as the actions surrounding the Koch network show time and time again that they place profit over people, and their benefit over that of the common good. Koch’s vast wealth is made up of dirty money that has been earned at the expense of marginalized communities. We call on progressive organizations who pride themselves on their values to commit to refusing this tainted money, no matter how promising it may seem.
Climate
The Koch network has funded campus centers that have been instrumental in creating lax environmental regulations. The Trump administration has acted on many of these centers’ polluter-friendly recommendations, directly harming the 68% of Black Americans who end up living next to harmful coal-fired power plants, incinerators, chemical factories, and other polluters, increasing the risk of both air and water contamination, resulting in chronic health conditions like cancers, asthma, and heart, kidney, liver, and lung diseases.
COURTS
The Koch network has backed regressive judicial appointments--including Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorusch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett--pouring millions into getting them approved to lifetime posts. By stacking the courts with right-wing, anti-choice judges who will help the Koch network’s agenda with corporate-friendly decisions, they’re also ensuring that those most at risk will have a much harder time succeeding in numerous ways, including limiting access to the reproductive healthcare they may need.
COVID-19. Criminal Justice. K-12
The Koch network has funded the American Legislative Exchange Council(ALEC), which has pursued a regressively damaging policy agenda for decades, including supporting reckless efforts to quickly reopen states in the midst of this pandemic, a scourge that has killed more than 200,000 Americans. They’ve also been tied to funding the Great Barrington Declaration, which promotes a herd immunity approach to solving COVID-19 -- a scientifically unsound and deadly idea. That is in addition to the decade Koch has spent attacking the Affordable Care Act in countless ways. When someone on “the bottom” is infected with COVID-19, the groups that Koch funds push policies that make it a lot more difficult, costly, and life-changing than for the richest few. The Koch network has also opposed the extension of benefits for workers harmed by the pandemic, many of whom are still going into their low-wage jobs whose pay and benefits have been stunted by the groups and politicians Koch and his network have backed.
Through “model” bills voted on by legislators and corporate lobbyists at ALEC meetings, the Koch network has pushed “tough on crime” legislation that has often prolonged individual’s capture by for-profit prisons through mandatory minimums, “three strikes” laws, and so-called “truth-in-sentencing” laws. With Koch financial support, ALEC also helped spread “stand your ground” laws that have been used to justify numerous shootings of Black people. These policies have impacted Black people, people of color, transgender people, women, queer people, families, workers, and the poor the most. Although Koch and his groups have sought to distance themselves from this damaging legacy through “First Step” measures, Koch has done nothing to get numerous ALEC measures, like stand your ground laws, repealed in all the states where they were enacted.
Despite the fact that underfunded public schools educate the majority of our country’s youth, Charles Koch has spent his money to push private and charter schools, despite the lack of oversight when it comes to charter schools, and he has even tried to have allies of his special interest groups take over whole school districts. In addition, many students are being taught curriculum he has funded in their public schools via partnerships with Koch-funded university centers and other initiatives.
Reproductive Justice
Charles Koch has helped consolidate tens of millions of dollars in front groups like the Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR) and via political donor operations and activities (which include the organization known as Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, which is now the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, along with Americans for Prosperity and other arms). These groups have helped elect anti-choice candidates, contributing to the the rash of anti-abortion laws that flooded the agendas of state legislatures across the nation since the 2010 mid-terms. This too has harmed people across the country, including those most at risk, as some now have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain abortion and other reproductive care, costing them money they may not have had and making it more difficult for them to exercise their rights.