INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCUMENTS
Kochs Off Campus! has requested and received thousands of documents about the Freedom Center. In the pages that follow, we analyze the most revealing of those documents and let the reader know where to find the relevant passages. They show that the Freedom Center has an intent to indoctrinate students into accepting libertarian ideology. They reveal the many millions of dollars pouring into the Freedom Center from both extremely wealthy right-wing private donors and the Arizona State Legislature - as well as how the private donors clearly intended to direct and help it achieve its goals. They reveal that the Freedom Center director appears to be more loyal to these donors than to the University. We also found documents that divulge how Big Money flowing into the Freedom Center has corrupted course syllabi, hiring practices, and even the UA Administration in general.
The Freedom Center – and the Koch network in general – operate in secret as much as possible. But since the Freedom Center is within a public institution (the University of Arizona), we have the right to know what they are doing. Although we have that right, the UA has never responded to our public records requests promptly, as required by law. Instead, UA typically takes six months to respond, and they still have not finished responding to our April 26, 2019, public records request. Could it be that the UA and the Freedom Center are holding up the process by following the advice given at the 2016 APEE conference? (page 17): "…Every time a bully knocks on the door, we’re not just gonna give them what they ask for….They’re going to [have to] file lawsuits."
