Our Giving Principles 
 
 An open letter to our current and future university partners from the Charles Koch Foundation: 
 
 A recent report raised questions about how the Charles Koch Foundation structures our grants to universities. Most recently, the publication of old and inactive grant agreements from 2006-2009 with George Mason University has raised questions about the relationship between funders and the schools they support. We want to address those concerns openly so that our current and future university partners have all the facts on hand. 
 
 First, it’s important to note that while our grant agreements have evolved over time, we have always been committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and freedom. In all of our grants and interactions with universities, our role has been to provide funds to support the vision of a professor or her students. Those who have personally interacted with us—be they professors, university administrators, or other donors, know from experience that we have the utmost respect for the independence of the scholars we support. 
 
 These old grant agreements at George Mason University did not allow us to cause the university to hire certain professors, nor did they allow us to make decisions regarding the curricula or research that professors pursued. These agreements did allow us to have a say in recommending candidates who were considered for the faculty positions we supported. Once the candidates were proposed, the standard university hiring procedures began, and the faculty were free to approve or reject candidates (and they did approve some and reject others). 
 
 It was not unusual for universities to offer donors this type of input at the time—and, especially where named and chaired professorships are being created, this is still something that many universities do today. 
 
 This is not something, however, that the Charles Koch Foundation does today, nor do our current grant agreements include these provisions. 
 
 We removed these clauses from our grant agreements because they were unnecessary given the high quality of candidates the universities we support attracted without our involvement, and we realized they could easily be used to mischaracterize our intent. To be clear, we champion academic freedom and do not seek to influence the hiring practices of university departments nor have input on curricular or research decisions. Our giving principles spell this out in detail and are posted, here. 
 
 Many of our recent grant agreements, including those for recent gifts to GMU, have been published and you can see some examples. You can also see our standard grant template here. 
 
 We took criticism of our agreements seriously when similar concerns were raised about a grant we made in 2008 to Florida State University. This grant agreement followed standard university procedure at the time and provided for a donor representative to review candidates for the faculty positions we pledged to support. We did not exercise that option and always respected university governance; however, in light of those concerns we invited outside academics to review our grant agreements and suggest improvements. 
 
 From these suggested changes we rewrote our standard grant agreement to reinforce our long-standing commitment to academic freedom. Our current grant template has now been in use for many years and has provided a good roadmap to create productive agreements with numerous universities. 
 
 We take the concerns raised seriously and have made changes to better reflect our intent and giving principles. 
 
 However, this should not distract from the incredible work that our grants support, and to the benefits they provide the universities, the professors, the students, and society—whether through breakthroughs in research on criminal justice reform, foreign policy, or economics. 
 
 The professors that George Mason University hired with the support of the Charles Koch Foundation are among the most productive at the school—they have won teaching awards, gained international recognition for their research, and helped to grow a thriving student fellowship program. 
 
 The agreements at GMU are from 2006-2009 and they have been obsolete for years. There are no current grant agreements between the Charles Koch Foundation and any university that include provisions for selection or advisory review. 
 
 Our commitment to academic integrity and intellectual freedom remains strong. And we hold ourselves to a high standard for we believe the freedom of faculty and students to pursue their vision is paramount. 
 
 While those who disagree with some of the ideas engaged by the professors we support will use this to amplify criticism of us, we’d ask that you consider your experience with us, or the experience of someone you know, in evaluating things. And if you have questions or challenge for us, we’d welcome those. 
 
 John Hardin 
 
 Director, University Relations ||||| The newly released documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Samantha Parsons of UnKoch My Campus, a group that seeks to expose the influence of the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch over colleges and universities. 
 
 “The biggest lesson we’ve learned is that Koch really demonstrated the way in which any big donor could have influence over academia if the university is willing to agree to those terms,” Ms. Parsons, a former George Mason student, said. 
 
 In a Friday message to the university faculty and staff, Mr. Cabrera said that he had just learned that the university had entered into agreements with donors from 2003 to 2011 that gave them the right to participate in faculty selection and evaluation. “Except for the most recent one, these agreements have expired,” he said. Mr. Sandler said the one that had not expired had been voided. 
 
 “All but the earliest of these agreements explicitly stated that the final say in all faculty appointments lies in university procedures,” Mr. Cabrera said. 
 
 His message came as UnKoch My Campus publicized agreements regarding Koch-funded professorships in economics that it had received through the Freedom of Information Act. Mr. Cabrera did not specifically name the Koch Foundation as the donor he was referring to, but Mr. Sandler confirmed that it was. ||||| FILE - In this May 22, 2012, file photo, Charles Koch speaks in his office at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kan. A sure sign of policy success for the sprawling conservative network funded by the billionaire... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this May 22, 2012, file photo, Charles Koch speaks in his office at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kan. A sure sign of policy success for the sprawling conservative network funded by the billionaire Koch brothers is Democratic pushback. With regulations being rolled back and huge tax cuts, Democrats... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this May 22, 2012, file photo, Charles Koch speaks in his office at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kan. A sure sign of policy success for the sprawling conservative network funded by the billionaire Koch brothers is Democratic pushback. With regulations being rolled back and huge tax cuts, Democrats... (Associated Press) FILE - In this May 22, 2012, file photo, Charles Koch speaks in his office at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kan. A sure sign of policy success for the sprawling conservative network funded by the billionaire... (Associated Press) 
 
 FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — Virginia's largest public university granted the conservative Charles Koch Foundation a say in the hiring and firing of professors in exchange for millions of dollars in donations, according to newly released documents. 
 
 The release of donor agreements between George Mason University and the foundation follows years of denials by university administrators that Koch foundation donations inhibit academic freedom. 
 
 University President Angel Cabrera wrote a note to faculty Friday night saying the agreements "fall short of the standards of academic independence I expect any gift to meet." The admission came three days after a judge scrutinized the university's earlier refusal to release any documents. 
 
 The newly released agreements spell out million-dollar deals in which the Koch Foundation endows a fund to pay the salary of one or more professors at the university's Mercatus Center, a free-market think tank. The agreements require creation of five-member selection committees to choose the professors and grant the donors the right to name two of the committee members. 
 
 The Koch Foundation enjoyed similar appointment rights to advisory boards that had the right under the agreements to recommend firing a professor who failed to live up to standards. 
 
 Cabrera emphasized in his note to faculty that the "agreements did not give donors control over academic decisions" — an apparent reference to the fact that the Koch Foundation did not control a majority of seats on the selection committees. 
 
 A university spokesman said Cabrera was unavailable for an interview. On Monday night, Cabrera issued a statement saying he is ordering a review of all the university's donor agreements that support faculty positions to "ensure that they do not grant donors undue influence in academic matters." 
 
 Cabrera's admission that the agreements fall short of standards for academic independence is a stark departure from his earlier statements on the issue. In a 2014 blog post on the issue, he wrote that donors don't get to decide who is hired and that "these rules are an essential part of our academic integrity. If these rules are not acceptable, we simply don't accept the gift. Academic freedom is never for sale. Period." 
 
 In 2016, in an interview with The Associated Press, he denied that the Koch donations restricted academic independence and said Koch's status as a lightning rod for his support of Republican candidates is the only reason people question the donations. 
 
 The documents were released to a former student, Samantha Parsons, under a Freedom of Information Act request she filed earlier this year after years of having similar requests rejected. 
 
 Parsons, who now works for the activist group UnKoch My Campus, said the documents are strikingly similar to agreements the Koch Foundation made with Florida State University that caused a similar uproar. 
 
 She said provisions giving the foundation a say in which professors are chosen are especially alarming. 
 
 "The faculty is supposed to have the independence to choose the best-qualified candidate," she said. 
 
 The Koch Foundation issued a statement saying the agreements with Mason are "old and inactive" and that newer agreements contain no such provisions. 
 
 "We took criticism of our agreements seriously when similar concerns were raised" about the Florida State deal in 2008, the foundation's director of university relations, John Hardin, said in the statement. 
 
 Mason, which has developed a reputation over the years as a conservative powerhouse in law and economics, has received increased scrutiny about its connections to the Koch Foundation since 2016, when Mason renamed its law school for conservative jurist Antonin Scalia. A 2016 analysis by the AP found that Mason received more money from the foundation than any school in the country. 
 
 UnKoch My Campus released documents on Monday that spell out some of the details of the donation leading to renaming of the law school for Scalia, which occurred in conjunction with a $10 million donation from the Koch Foundation and $20 million from an anonymous donor. 
 
 The newly released emails are heavily redacted and do not expose the donor, but they do show that Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society, is described as a representative of the donor. 
 
 Emails between Leo and the Mason law school's dean, Henry Butler, show Leo inquiring on behalf of law school applicants and expressing approval of faculty hires. 
 
 In one email, Butler informs Leo of a unanimous faculty vote in favor of hiring a new member of the law school faculty, to which Leo replies "Great!" The faculty member later went on leave to join the Trump administration. 
 
 In a 2015 email, Leo informs Butler about a student prospect who has been working at RAGA, the Republican Attorney General Association, and who is looking to apply to Mason's law school. Leo asks if Butler will meet the prospect and Butler replies, "Absolutley! (sic) I will work with the admissions office to make sure we get together." 
 
 Bethany Letiecq, president of the American Association of University Professors at GMU, said in a statement that the Scalia school documents confirm what many faculty have suspected for years. 
 
 "Private donors have been provided influence over faculty affairs at our public university," she said. "This is a violation of the public trust." 
 
 Del. Marcus Simon, a Fairfax County Democrat who helped lead a petition effort in 2016 to block the name change, said he is not surprised to see the level of influence granted to the donors in these agreements. 
 
 "The idea that the Kochs are giving money without anything expected in return always seemed a little absurd," he said. 
 
 He said the university should release all of its agreements with the Koch Foundation, including its most recent ones. ||||| 1. The March 2016 Grant Agreement with an Anonymous Donor Designated a Third-Party Beneficiary Which Has Been Revealed to be the Federalist Society 
 
 Emails before the change in the name of the Law School show that there was already a relationship between Scalia Law Dean Henry Butler (who was appointed in April 2015), and Leonard Leo, Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society. Mr. Leo is best known for his role in recommending conservative judges, including now-Justice Neil Gorsuch, to the Trump Administration. In September 2015, the two exchanged emails about fundraising, with Dean Butler sharing his “Five-Year Plan for Mason Law” with Mr. Leo, for which Mr. Leo provided his “wise counsel” (pp. 11-36). 
 
 In late February 2016, less than two weeks after Justice Scalia’s untimely death, an anonymous “donor ... approached” Mr. Leo, “a personal friend of the late Justice Scalia and his family,” about renaming the Law School (p. 225). Mr. Leo in turn approached Dean Butler, who immediately told GMU Vice President Janet Bingham at 6:40 am on February 26, 2016 that the “deal came together last night” (p. 59). The next day, Dean Butler pronounced this a “game changer for Mason Law” and said he was “Off to Cabo for a week of R&R” (p. 60). Two weeks later, Mr. Leo met with the Scalia family to secure their approval, saying “I am spending the weekend with Scalia family and will be making sure they are good with the naming” (pp. 65-66). Less than one month after Dean Butler’s pre-dawn text to Vice President Bingham, March 31, 2016 Grant Agreements were finalized with the Charles Koch Foundation and the anonymous donor. The Koch Foundation agreement provided for grants to the GMU Foundation totaling $10 million over a five year period. The agreement with the anonymous donor provided $4 million per year for five years, conditioned on yearly determinations by the donor and a “third party beneficiary” in their “sole and absolute discretion,” based on “written proposals” prepared by the George Mason Foundation, that the Law School is fulfilling a defined “Mission.” That “Mission” is to “[r]etain focus on the study of Law & Economics…which furnishes the faculty with a common culture” and to “[d]evelop additional related areas of concentration and intellectual leadership such as…constitutional studies, administrative law, and the relationship between law and liberty,” including a new “Center for the Study of the Administrative State” and “Center for Liberty & Law.” The Grant Agreement deemed Dean Butler a “critical part of advancing the School’s Mission,” and requires immediate notice to be given to the donors and third-party beneficiary “if the individual holding the Dean position changes” (pp. 150, 152-53). 
 
 George Mason University initially redacted the name of the third-party beneficiary when the Grant Agreements were produced to BuzzFeed News in late April 2016. But in response to repeated FOIA requests from Ms. Pienta, GMU finally produced a version of the Grant Agreement in August 2017 that identified the third-party beneficiary as the “BH Fund,” a “501(c)(4) Virginia nonstock corporation” (p. 150). As the third-party beneficiary in the Grant Agreement, the BH Fund has been given “the right to enforce all of the Donor’s rights in th[e] Agreement,” including the right to “terminate th[e] Agreement” if “in its sole and absolute discretion” the Law School “is no longer principally focused on the School’s Mission.” The BH Fund was also given the right to “review and approve ... proposed publicity about the conversion to the School Name” (p. 153). 
 
 Further research by Ms. Pienta in the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s registry and annual reports revealed that the BH Fund’s President is the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo and that its Secretary-Treasurer is Jonathan Bunch, Vice President of the Federalist Society. The BH Fund was organized by the law firm of Holtzman Vogel Josefiak & Torchinsky in Warrenton, VA, whose named principal, Jill Vogel, was the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in November 2017. Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News confronted Mr. Leo with the connection to the BH Fund and he confirmed that he is “responsible for making sure that the law school remains true to its principles over the course of the gift.” He added, “Those principles are not all that different from what you would expect from any academic institution: a commitment to academic freedom and a due respect for intellectual diversity and the freedom of expression. And in particular a commitment to excellence.” 11/20/2017 BuzzFeed article. In an April 4, 2018 speech at the Christian conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, Mr. Leo expressed the darker view that there can be “no mistake” that “law school teaching” has only “tipped its hat” to covering the “originalism and textualism” that Justice Scalia advocated because “political” and “external forces have been brought to bear” like holding “a Federalist Society meeting on it at 4 pm that same day.” Link to YouTube video of speech (beginning at 29:08). 
 
 The New York Times has further uncovered that a Virginia-based entity called the BH Group whose ownership is “difficult to discern” made a $1 million contribution to the Trump Inauguration in December 2016. 4/20/2017 New York Times article. While the names of the individuals associated with the BH Group are not public information, the individual listed as the BH Group’s “Organizer” in its Articles of Organization is the same individual listed as the Organizer of the BH Fund. Any suggestion that the BH Fund may be an unauthorized project of Mr. Leo and Mr. Bunch is dispelled by the presence of Eugene Meyer, the Federalist Society’s President, on an April 28, 2016 email to Mr. Leo (pp. 432-33). 
 
 Following the law school’s announcement of the name change in a press release reviewed and edited by Mr. Leo (p. 130-31), multiple emails were transmitted between Dean Butler to Mr. Leo, including one where the anonymous donor’s email was redacted, about media stories on the controversial name change (pp. 432-34, 452-58, 460-62, 495- 99). On 5/6/16, Dean Butler sent a summary of media stories to Mr. Leo along with Reginald J. Brown of the WilmerHale law firm (formally, Wilmer Cutler Hale Pickering & Dorr LLP) (p. 496). Mr. Brown, who is a former member of George Mason University’s Board of Visitors and a prominent member and funder of the Federalist Society, acknowledges that he helped “with the effort to get the law school name changed” while denying that he or his law firm represented the BH Fund or the anonymous donor. 
 
 In accordance with the Federalist Society’s new oversight rights, George Mason University gave the Federalist Society a leading role in at the dedication of the Antonin Scalia Law School which took place on October 6, 2016 with six Supreme Court justices attending. Following the dedication, a formal luncheon hosted and paid for by the Federalist Society was given for a select group of attendees (p. 662). At that luncheon, which was never disclosed to the students or the public, Mr. Leo gave toasts on behalf of “the donor” and told the attendees, including Supreme Court justices, that the Federalist Society, not George Mason, was footing the bill for their expensive lobster luncheon (p. 662). That same evening, Mr. Leo served as co-chair of the “Tribute to Justice Antonin Scalia” fundraising dinner held at Union Station where former Vice President Dick Cheney was a featured speaker and “Honorary Committee” member (p. 690) and Supreme Court justices were again in attendance. During the dinner, GMU President Angel Cabrera thanked Mr. Leo personally for making the $20 million donation possible. Seating charts show that Mr. Leo and his wife sat at Justice Thomas’ table, and that there was also a table for the “Anonymous Donor,” where Jonathan Bunch sat, along with Trevor McFadden, who was confirmed in October 2017 as U.S. District Court Judge in the District of Columbia (p. 672). Videotape of the dinner shows former Vice President Dick Cheney bragging during a panel discussion that Justice Scalia never tried to persuade him “to change his views,” instead, “it would be the other way around.” ||||| 
 
 The statue of George Mason at George Mason University in 2015. (Pete Marovich For The Washington Post) 
 
 The president of George Mason University has called for a review of active financial gift agreements that support faculty positions, days after acknowledging that some of arrangements did not meet academic independence standards. 
 
 “Given the discovery of problematic gift agreements . . . I have requested a thorough review of all active donor agreements supporting faculty positions throughout the university to ensure that they do not grant donors undue influence in academic matters,” George Mason President Ángel Cabrera wrote Monday night in an email to the university’s faculty and staff. 
 
 Cabrera said that he wanted to ensure that the university’s polices and practices provided strong protection for its academic independence. He said that if officials did find active agreements or flag policies that compromise that independence, the university would take “swift and transparent corrective action.” He did not specify what that action would be. 
 
 University officials had not decided how the review would be conducted, George Mason spokesman Michael Sandler said Tuesday. 
 
 “This is going to be a collaborative process where faculty is brought in, and at some point, we’ll know who is leading it, and that will be clear,” he said. “But we’re in the process now of talking with faculty about how this is going to look and what this is going to be.” 
 
 [George Mason president: Some donations ‘fall short’ of academic standards] 
 
 Monday’s email from Cabrera followed a note sent days earlier, in which the university president said some financial gift agreements that had been accepted by George Mason “fall short of the standards of academic independence” and raised questions about donor influence. 
 
 The acknowledgment came as some at George Mason have pushed for greater transparency surrounding private donors, an effort that has been focused on the school’s ties to billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, a backer of conservative political causes and a major donor to universities. 
 
 Cabrera on Friday did not indicate which gift agreements were troubling, but a George Mason spokesman confirmed that the email was related to funding from the Charles Koch Foundation, among other donors. 
 
 “The agreements did not give donors control over academic decisions, and all but the earliest of these agreements explicitly stated that the final say in all faculty appointments lies in university procedures,” Cabrera wrote on Friday. “Yet these agreements fall short of the standards of academic independence I expect any gift to meet.” 
 
 Those gifts agreements, accepted by George Mason between 2003 and 2011, supported faculty positions in economics and “granted donors some participation in faculty selection and evaluation,” he said. All of the agreements except one had expired, he wrote. 
 
 On Monday, Cabrera said the donor for that lone agreement had agreed to void it and allow the remaining money that had been pledged, about $68,000, to transfer to George Mason for “general support.” Cabrera has been president at George Mason since 2012, so the agreements he mentioned in his email on Friday were reached before his arrival. 
 
 On Tuesday, Bethany Letiecq, an associate professor of human development and family science at George Mason, called Cabrera’s response to the matter “woefully inadequate, given the severity of the breaches of trust.” 
 
 “He really needs to do quite a bit more to satisfy the faculty, students and the public at large,” said Letiecq, who is president of George Mason’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. 
 
 All gift agreements at George Mason should be made public, “so that we can fully discern the extent of the breach,” Letiecq said. “Where is this going on? How many faculty are involved? How many different entities and different donors are involved?” 
 
 The Washington Post on Friday night obtained a batch of agreements from a George Mason spokesman. Several of those agreements involve the Mercatus Center, a free-market research group that is based at the university but is an independent organization. 
 
 The scrutiny at George Mason has been unfolding at the same time as a legal challenge from Transparent GMU, a student group that has been seeking access to private donor agreements. Transparent GMU has sued the George Mason University Foundation in a case that explores whether that foundation is a public body. 
 
 [George Mason gets Koch money. Now, this group wants to know more.] 
 
 The matter in Fairfax County Circuit Court was still pending Tuesday, said Samantha Parsons, who is an alum of George Mason and a staff member of UnKoch My Campus, an organization that focuses on the Koch family and its influence on higher education. 
 
 Parsons said she was “troubled” by Cabrera’s announcement of a review, because he has previously said that there were not problems with donor agreements. 
 
 “President Cabrera should not have been able to give those assurances if he had not already reviewed these gift agreements,” Parsons said. “The fact that he’s now calling for a review proves that he commented, or gave faculty and students assurances, when he actually had not done due diligence to look into the agreements already.” 
 
 In 2016, the Koch Foundation’s ties to George Mason garnered attention when $10 million from the foundation was among the gifts that led the university to rename its law school for deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. 
 
 In March, George Mason ­announced a $5 million Koch Foundation donation to the economics department that will be used to create three faculty positions. That is a gift that Chris Kennedy, an associate professor in the environmental science and policy department at the university, believes George Mason should reject. 
 
 “There should be a moratorium on gifts from any donor that is associated with any troubling language in a gift agreement, any gift from these donors that is restricted in nature,” he said. 
 
 Kennedy, who is a member of the Faculty Senate at George Mason, said it would be fine if those donors wanted to contribute to the university’s general fund. 
 
 “If their charitable intent is in line with the purpose of our university, they should still be willing to do so,” he said. “But given what’s been revealed, they shouldn’t be able to direct their funds to any unit at the university for the foreseeable future. That’s my personal opinion.” 
 
 Concerns about Koch funding are not unique to George Mason. On college campuses across the country, others have questioned whether generosity from the foundation constrains academic freedom. 
 
 The Charles Koch Foundation on Friday addressed questions about grant agreements involving George Mason that were reached from 2006 to 2009. In a letter published online, John Hardin, the foundation’s director of university relations, wrote that the agreements have “evolved over time.” 
 
 “These old grant agreements at George Mason University did not allow us to cause the university to hire certain professors, nor did they allow us to make decisions regarding the curricula or research that professors pursued,” Hardin said in the letter. “These agreements did allow us to have a say in recommending candidates who were considered for the faculty positions we supported.” 
 
 The foundation does not enter into donor agreements with that level of input anymore, he wrote. 
 
 “To be clear, we champion academic freedom and do not seek to influence the hiring practices of university departments nor have input on curricular or research decisions,” he wrote.
– The Charles Koch Foundation donated millions to George Mason University, and newly released documents reveal that in exchange, the conservative foundation was granted some influence over the hiring and firing of professors. After the revelation, the president of the university ordered an inquiry into the school's gift acceptance policy, the New York Times reports. "Given the discovery of problematic gift agreements ... I have requested a thorough review of all active donor agreements supporting faculty positions throughout the university to ensure that they do not grant donors undue influence in academic matters," Ángel Cabrera wrote in an email to faculty and staff Monday night, per the Washington Post. Though he did not specifically name the Koch donations in the email, a university spokesman confirms to the Times that's what he was referencing. Per the AP, the documents reveal agreements in which the Koch Foundation endowed"a fund to pay the salary of one or more professors at the university's Mercatus Center, a free-market think tank," and got the right to name two of the five members of each selection committee to choose the professors. The foundation reportedly had similar rights when it came to the committees formed to recommend a professor's dismissal. The documents were obtained after the group UnKoch My Campus filed a Freedom of Information Act Request. After the news broke, the Koch Foundation released a statement downplaying its influence and noting its current grant agreements do not include the same provisions. Cabrera also noted that all the agreements in question, which were made between 2003 and 2011, had expired except one, which has now been voided.