POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

Writing for Vox, Sean Illing interviews Joshua Hunt, a reporter for the New York Times and author of University of Nike. These are the opening paragraphs to the article, which provide the background to the book and the interview:

In 2014, the New York Times sent an investigative reporter to the University of Oregon to cover a disturbing sexual assault case involving three basketball players.

 What he found, ultimately, was a university culture thoroughly corrupted by its entanglements with corporate America—the school’s questionable handling of the rape allegations was just the tip of the iceberg.

 In this case, the corporate sponsor was Phil Knight, the co-founder and chair of Nike, one of the biggest companies on the planet. An alumnus of the University of Oregon, Knight has become the school’s most prominent donor, giving almost $1 billion to the university since 1994. His donations are largely responsible for transforming Oregon’s athletics program into a national powerhouse.

The NYT investigative reporter, Joshua Hunt, wrote a book about what he discovered at Oregon, titled University of Nike. But the book is not just about Knight and Oregon; it’s about how public universities are compromising themselves in exchange for endorsement deals and financial partnerships — and about what happens when universities become shills for their billionaire benefactors. It’s also, crucially, about the consequences of states defunding higher education, which has created the space for corporations to step in and foot the bill.

Illing’s complete article, including a transcript of his interview of Joshua Hunt is available at: https://www.vox.com/2018/11/14/18042478/higher-education-corporate-cash-universities-joshua-hunt.