BB&T under attack for supporting Atlas Shrugged in the classroom

[Rule of Reason Blog]

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

According to Inside Higher Ed, some professors at Marshall University believe that a donation to the university that requires that Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged be taught in a course supported by the donation is an assault on academic freedom (Hat tip: OActivists).

"Atlas Shrugged can be taught. It's the required part that is problematic," said Jamie Warner, director of undergraduate studies in political science. Under this precedent, she said, "you could see neo-Nazis giving money and saying that you have to teach Mein Kampf."

The gift in question was $1 million to Marshall’s business school, from the BB&T Foundation, the charitable arm of the BB&T Corporation, a financial holdings company. The press release announcing the gift last month said that the funds would support a lecture series and an upper level course that would focus on the principles of

Atlas Shrugged

and also Adam Smith's

The Wealth of Nations

. Much of the discussion has focused on

Atlas Shrugged

because that was the key requirement of the gift.

The BB&T Foundation has given a series of large gifts to universities generally to support programs involving business, ethics and philosophy.

So here we have a successful and respected private company offering a charitable gift to a university with the caveat that the university includes a specific text in a class funded by the gift. The book is a long-time bestseller that directly relates to the gift-giver's corporate mission in support of American free enterprise—the very raison d'etre behind why the university has been offered its gift in the first place.

The university freely accepts the gift, plainly implying that it had no problem with the terms and that they had a faculty member willing to fulfill them, yet once other members of the faculty learn of it, they nevertheless equate the terms of the gift with an assault on academic freedom and Neo-Nazis pushing Mein Kampf.

While I have my own issues with BB&T's choices in gift giving (primarily that they have bankrolled libertarians at my alma matter who write garbage like this while simultaneously failing to support the faculty on campus who do expose students to Ayn Rand's ideas in the classroom), this attack at Marshall University is beyond the pale. BB&T is being condemned because it chooses to attach specific conditions to its gift to Marshall. Why shouldn't it? Why should it be expected to meekly write blank checks with no say or interest with what is taught in the classrooms made possible by its largess?

I am reminded of when I was an undergraduate student publishing an Objectivist campus newspaper at George Washington University. The experience was excruciatingly bitter and disheartening, primarily because I had to work ten times as hard as my non-Objectivist peers in order to secure even a modicum of student funding, and this despite a product that competed head to head with the larger and more heavily supported campus newspaper. I was condemned to the ends of the Earth for being an Objectivist by my professors and it was made abundantly clear that there was no place in the university for me and the kind of study that I was interested in. All the while, students who supported environmentalism, multiculturalism, or "mandatory volunteering" were showered with money in support of their programs and full-ride scholarships in support of their educations.

I vowed then that it would be a cold day in hell before I gave any university one red cent of my money for any endeavor that I didn't have direct oversight. BB&T's experience at Marshall bears me out. A bank has the audacity to encourage the study of capitalism and the works of one of capitalism's premiere defenders and it gets slimed by the vermin who can't even stand the mere thought of it.

If Marshall University's faculty doesn't want BB&T's support, BB&T should take its money elsewhere. I can think of a hundred better places to spend that money than at Marshall.

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/archives/003344.html

[adrock3215]

I am reminded of when I was an undergraduate student publishing an Objectivist campus newspaper at George Washington University. The experience was excruciatingly bitter and disheartening, primarily because I had to work ten times as hard as my non-Objectivist peers in order to secure even a modicum of student funding, and this despite a product that competed head to head with the larger and more heavily supported campus newspaper.

The Hatchet? What a piece of garbage that journalism is. Funny how that works. But I would question your decision to attend GW. The campus is nice, but the school itself is WAY overhyped and particulary outrageously overpriced. You got kids attending the most expensive school in the country, and you still have to deal with this garbage? Elite liberal idiots attacking the sources of their own success and good fortune? I know how bad it is there; I used to work two blocks from GW campus serving food to the drunken idiots.

[DarkWaters]

The criticism that accepting money to teach Atlas Shrugged is no different from accepting money to teach Mein Kampf or The Communist Manifesto seems to assume that everyone has no principles and is willing to do anything to make a few extra dollars. The reason why this is different is because clearly Atlas Shrugged is overwhelmingly good while the other two works are overwhelmingly evil. Furthermore, to insinuate that Atlas Shrugged and Mein Kampf are comparable morally takes an incredible amount of intellectual dishonest. This article is truly disgusting.

Moreover, academics accept external grants all of the time to supplement their research endeavors on a particular topic. I do not see why grants to influence curriculum initiatives is any different. If something is worth researching then it should be worth teaching to others through some medium.

[DragonMaci]

The requirement of teaching AS is no more an assault on academic freedom than a venture capitalist setting requirements on the funding he gives is an assault on business freedom. Both are voluntary exhanges. Voluntary exhanges are not assults on freedom.

[softwareNerd]

Another source carried the story, providing more a more positive perspective on BB&T's programs. Interestingly, the issue seems to have come up in the West Virginian senate. According to the article:

Last week, the disagreement extended to the state Senate floor, where Sen. Frank Deem praised BB&T for the gift and the course, enthusiastically discussing the merits of Rand's book.

"To me, this book shows what happens when the liberals take over," the Wood County Republican said.

Edited March 4, 2008 by softwareNerd

[softwareNerd]

This story has moved up the food chain, from college papers, to local papers and now to Bloomberg. Hopefully the metro papers will pick it up too... maybe even the NYT.

[softwareNerd]

This story is really getting traction. Yesterday, it popped up on a blog hosted by the Wall Street Journal. Also, no less an idiot that Paul Krugman blogged about it on an New York Times hosted blog.

This is really cool!

Edited April 13, 2008 by softwareNerd