BY DANIELLE SLAUGHTER

Miguel Cardona
Secretary, US Department of Education

Dear Secretary Cardona,

My name is Danielle Slaughter, and I’m an independent scholar, digital organizer, and mother of two young children. In 2017, I made the difficult decision to transition out of academia. I was pregnant with my second child, and, after the struggles I faced during my first pregnancy, I knew that there was no way for me to be the type of parent I wanted to be while still being accepted completely in academia. Now that I’m preparing to enroll my youngest child in public school, I’m also considering reentering the academy as an English teacher. However, I’m still not sure if higher ed is the right place for someone like me, but for different reasons this time. Over the last four years, I’ve watched former colleagues censor themselves on social media because of the ways in which  the academy makes it hard for those who vocally oppose white supremacy and capitalism to feel safe sharing these facts with their students.

It is not lost on me that many of my former colleagues have chosen to “sanitize” themselves since Turning Point USA started their Professor Watchlist site. This same watchlist is why I’m reluctant to reenter the academy. In 2020, after writing an article about the George Floyd protests, Kellie Carter Jackson, associate professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College, was placed on the Campus Watchlist and began receiving hate mail in her email inbox. Carter Jackson didn’t allow this to force her out of the academy, but it doesn’t mean that she’s not worried about what happens when someone takes their hateful rhetoric beyond the computer screen. Professors from marginalized communities have enough challenges in academia. We don’t need to open our inboxes and see hateful messages or death threats as well.

I loved teaching college writing, and my courses included a heavy focus on identity and culture. In my last few years of teaching, I spent a lot of time asking my students to consider how the privileges—or lack thereof—that came with their identities allowed them to fulfill the “American dream.” Our classroom discussions pushed everyone out of their comfort zones, and while they might not have landed me on the watchlist back then, I’m sure the public work I’ve done since my departure would open the door for my nomination.

Organizations like Turning Point USA—and their Professor Watchlist project—are able to find support for their work because of the dark money in our education system. They receive donations from the Koch network and other right-wing donors, but their nonprofit status means that they don’t have to disclose who finances their organization. It allows dark-money donors to support harmful organizations without anyone knowing it’s them. Secretary Cardona, I’m writing to ask you to address the proliferation of dark money in our education system. It’s time for you to have the Department of Education do a thorough audit of the ways in which the Koch network has wormed its way into our education system both on the collegiate level and in the K–12 sector.

Billionaire Charles Koch and his dark-money network have used their wealth to manipulate higher education to advance their poorly supported and regressive political agenda. Investigative research has shown that in exchange for “philanthropic” donations,  the Koch network has wielded influence over curriculum (including textbooks chosen and courses offered), faculty hiring and firing, undergraduate and graduate fellowship selections, and even think tank and research priorities and outcomes.

Charles Koch himself admits that his funding of hundreds of universities across the country is intended to mainstream anarcho-capitalist ideas and approaches to public policy that support the Koch network’s political goals at the state and federal level. Koch-funded universities are housing think tanks—like George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center—that produces climate-change denial research and commentary that has impacted federal and state policy. Colleges and universities that accept Koch funding are endorsing the Koch network’s harmful political agenda and acting to launder its image.

In 2019, Charles Koch’s university funding totaled $112,044,071. This is an increase of $23.9 million from 2018. This one-year total is over $100 million more than Koch foundations spent annually on universities a decade ago, at $10.5 million in 2009. As a scholar, I know that if you continue to allow dark money to exist in our education system, we will see our universities become spaces where misinformation is allowed to go unchallenged by scholars who look or teach like me.

As you can see, the Koch network funded Turning Point is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the issue of dark money in our country’s education system. Corporate greed is replacing student welfare, educator support, and academic freedom at an alarming rate. We saw how dangerous these organizations are to our democracy on January 6, 2021. It’s time for you to take a stand and remove dark money from the education system.

In solidarity,
Danielle Slaughter

Danielle Slaughter is an independent scholar and a digital organizer at UnKoch My Campus.