Posted on 06/26/2014 6:51:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
No Koch Bros wanted at B.C.
Brooklyn College, part of the disastrous and dysfunctional City University of New York sinkhole, has a $60 million endowment. A drop in the bucket compared to CUNY’s horrifying $3 billion budget.
46% of its wildly inflated budget comes from New York State. New York City taxpayers kick in another 10%.
With so much taxpayer money, involuntarily extracted, they just aren’t in need of any dirty Koch Brothers cash.
Brooklyn College’s liberal politics are keeping grants and progress from faculty and students, one frustrated CUNY professor told the Observer.
The CUNY college has turned down a $10 million grant offer from the Koch brothers, said business professor Mitchell Langbert — who called the decision by School of Business Dean William Hopkins a knee-jerk reaction to the mega-rich industrialists’ support of Republican causes.
This isn’t the first time that liberals have tried to stop Charles and David Koch from doing good with their combined $100 billion fortune.
Activists from the NAACP and the hospital-employee union SEIU Local 1199 in March protested their $100 million donation to build a new wing for cancer patients at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
“I have never seen a dean not interested in a $10,000 grant, much less a $10 million one,” Langbert said.
“There have been these ongoing quarrels, and they often take the form of the political doctrine that you have to adhere to,” business professor Mitchell Langbert said.
Mr. Langbert attempted to convince Mr. Hopkins and the school of the potential benefits of the grant, which could have reached $10 million, but feels he was blown off. Upon sending the dean information on United Negro College Fund’s acceptance of a large Koch brothers grant, Mr. Langbert was met with resistance and was sent an attachment citing the deal’s fallout.
School of Business Dean William Hopkins told Mr. Langbert to “cut bait” on the proposal.
“Given the shocking suppression—the almost total absence—of anyone who does not agree with far-left ideology at Brooklyn College, saying that there might be controversy because there’s a Koch grant is like saying that you will not tolerate any conservative viewpoint to be expressed here,” Mr. Langbert responded.
Mr. Langbert says that this isn’t the only time he or his few conservative colleagues have felt the pressure. After a proposal to change the hiring policy at Brooklyn College, Mr. Langbert said the university “wrote a vicious letter about me.”
In another instance, one history professor was allegedly denied a promotion because of “a disagreement in ideology,” he said.
The money would have gone to waste anyway considering that Brooklyn College students, like most CUNY students these days, need a much more basic education in things than economics.
Here’s a sample of life in the Brooklyn College Economics Department.
I have not yet been notified of the nature of the complaint, but I have reason to believe that it was filed by the student who threatened to urinate on the classroom floor during my Wednesday afternoon math class. I have also heard that the student claims to have a video recording of the incident.
Also, if you are in possession of such video recordings, have you or anyone else shared them with Dean Hopkins? If so, then what in those recordings led Dean Hopkins to conclude that my behavior was inappropriate? Do the recordings show the student’s behavior? Or do they only show my response?
Do the recordings contain the student’s threat to urinate on the classroom floor? If so, then does Dean Hopkins believe that professors should encourage their students to urinate in the middle of a crowded classroom?
At CUNY, urinating in crowded classrooms is an important form of self-expression.
Maybe Koch’s should learn a lesson from TEA Party conservatives. When the GrOPe and RNC crapola’s all over us and then hounds us for $$ for their ‘good will’ why then nothing but big fat circles are returned and perhaps with a few stray teabags included now and then.
Legalization of pot is a conservative position just as Prohibition was opposed by conservatives of the day.
if he would give enough to fix my truck i would say thank you,and shake his hand.
He has a bright future in the EPA: EPA Workers ‘Told To Stop Pooping In the Hallways’.
“I have read that public schools in NY are now graduating a much higher percentage. Good for them. The problem is that they were just never given much of an education. I am sure Brooklyn College can do the same for them.”
I graduated from BC in the mid 70’s and at that time it was a very good school. I went back for a visit 25 years later and the campus was a wreck. Open enrollment had changed the composition of the student body to minorities and Russian immigrants. It was sad.
I am familiar Brooklyn College.
I recently heard that the public school system in NY has been bragging that they’re graduating a higher percentage of their students. The problem was that none of the could read or write.
It’s a shame what the left is doing to our schools.
If the Kochs want to hand out money, why not give them suggestions?
There may be method in their madness. Knowing that such schools as BC may decline their offers, they are looking like good nonpartisan citizens in making the offers. On the other hand, if they donate to Hillsdale or other (perceived) conservative institutions they should just keep quiet about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.