Consistent with Koch operations nationwide, the Freedom Center has been less than transparent when dealing with the UA Faculty Senate. The Freedom Center did not explain it intended to indoctrinate students when it asked the Faculty Senate to approve first a BA major in PPEL (Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law) and then a PPE Masters Degree. In between those two requests, the Freedom Center asked the Senate to approve a new department, and then tricked the Arizona Board of Regents into changing the name of the department.

Below is documentation of the Freedom Center’s interactions with the Faculty Senate. To read a document, click on the blue link.

how the camel got its nose in the tent

• The Freedom Center Proposed its PPEL BA Degree as a Consent Agenda Item - The Faculty Senate votes Consent Agenda Items up or down with no discussion. All the discussion (if any) happened in the Undergraduate Council that reviewed the proposal at this link. When the Freedom Center gave the proposal to the Undergraduate Council, did they tell the Council that the PPEL BA Degree would diverge sharply from the existing PPE degree at Oxford University–which requires students to consider a wide variety of ideas–and push free-market fundamentalism as the “correct” view?

• The UA Faculty Senate Unanimously Approved PPEL BA Degree Consent Agenda Item With No Discussion - See page 6 at this link, Agenda Item 8, and page 10, Motion 2009-10/46

HOW THE FREEDOM CENTER GOT THE FACULTY SENATE TO APPROVE A NEW DEPARTMENT AND THEN SUBVERTED THE SENATE BY ADDING “POLITICAL ECONOMY” TO THE NEW DEPARTMENT’S NAME AND WITHDRAWING ITS FUNDING

• 5/23/17 SBS Proposal to Create a Department of Moral Sciences - The Freedom Center, through UA’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), proposed to create a new Department of Moral Sciences to 1) house the Freedom Center, 2) administer the new PPEL BA degree, 3) offer a dual-credit high school course, and 4) offer a PPE Masters Degree to be proposed in the future. This proposal says the new department would be primarily funded by direct line-item money coming to the Freedom Center from the Arizona State Legislature. [The Freedom Center later withheld the legislative funding from the department after UA moved the Freedom Center to the Office of Research, Innovation & Impact in 2019.] The proposal also says the name of the Masters degree would not use the words “political” or “economy” without permission from UA’s Economics Department and School of Government and Public Policy. (See the bottom of page 2.)

• 8/28/17 Faculty Senate Agenda re Approval of the Department of Moral Sciences - See Agenda Item 11 in this link.

• 8/28/17 The Faculty Senate Passed the proposal to create the Department of Moral Sciences - with 9 abstentions (!) - Freedom Center Director David Schmidtz did his best to obscure what the new department would teach. You have to read it to believe it! (See Agenda Item 11.)

• 9/27-29/17 ABOR Agenda re Approval of the Department Of Moral Sciences - On 9/27/17, UA asked the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) to “approve its new Moral Sciences academic unit.”

• Request to ABOR for Approval of a Department of Political Economy & Moral Science [PEMS] Executive Summary of Request for PEMS Approval - In this Executive Summary, the request for ABOR’s approval is reframed as an amendment to the name of the new department – which allowed the Freedom Center to insert the words “Political Economy” into the name of the new department. This ploy angered two dozen UA faculty members who do research in political economy, but who were not consulted about the name change. Page 2 says funding for the new department would come from the State and donors, but does not specify which donors (despite the fact that in this link the form requests the “source”). On page 3, Professor Schmidtz states that Adam Smith favored free markets and public schooling because they would both help the poor. In reality, libertarians want to privatize public schools.

• ABOR Academic & Student Affairs Committee Recommends Approval of PEMS - See bottom of page 3 and top of page 4 in the link.

• ABOR Approval of PEMS - The deed was done.

THE FACULTY SENATE APPROVED A PPE MASTERS DEGREE AFTER BEING TOLD, INCORRECTLY, THAT NO KOCH MONEY WAS INVOLVED

• PEMS Alleged That Koch Had Retracted its Grant - so that the Faculty Senate Would Approve PPE Masters Degree - These March 2021 Faculty Senate minutes document a heated discussion of PEMS' proposal to create an MA Degree in PPE. Senators and faculty members expressed concern about academic corruption by Koch money. (See paragraphs 1 and 4 under Agenda Item 4, as well as Agenda Item 6.) Vlad Tarko (head of the new Department of Political Economy and Moral Science [PEMS]) replied that Koch had retracted its grant, “so the worry is based on something that no longer exists.” The Faculty Senate then voted electronically to approve the PPE Masters Degree.

• Koch Granted PEMS $414,500 in 2020; No Indication They Retracted It - UA did not release this document until September 2021 -- when students had already enrolled in the PPE Masters Degree program and were taking classes. One suspects that UA waited that long because the Faculty Senate had approved the PPE Masters Degree in March 2021 on the assumption that Koch had retracted its grant.