Charles Koch Quotes
Anytime students shout down a speaker who says something different, this is not good.
Koch, Charles G. Interview by Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics Radio, WNYC, 4 Nov. 2015.
He was announcing that a lecturer Kevin Barrett would not be fired from the University. Barrett had taken the position with his students that the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center could not have been done by a handful of terrorists and it must have done by or with the complicity and help of forces inside the United States government. There had been outrage throughout the country with demands by many politicians for his ouster. The University did not bend to the political pressure even in the case where there was such an outrageous and incorrect view.
In some universities would sometimes protest the selection of a commencement speaker and demonstrate. On some of these occasions the school administration withdrew the invitation. In addition to the problem described by Beckel, the university sells out its basic intellectual commitment to hear all ideas and points of view—regardless of how repugnant or evil. Commencement speakers tend to create a bigger problem because of the custom of the university granting the speaker an Honorary Degree. Whereas it is against the academic tradition to censor a speaker and having a speaker does NOT associate the University, the faculty or the students with the views of the speaker. But the granting of the Honorary Degree does imply an institutional approval and admiration of the speaker, and that is fair game for student protest. However in the beginning of the 21st century some extreme left wing students succeeded in intimidating spineless university administrators and trustees into censoring speech and the ideas of the speaker. This was typical behavior of the right wing brownshirts of the 1930s when it was the Fascists who were prohibiting certain speakers—usually left wingers. 80 years later it was the left wing extremists engaging in this undemocratic behavior.
She was dealing with a serious campus situation where an invited speaker, Chief of Police Kelly of New York City was prevented from giving his p resentation on the controversial “Stop and Frisk” rules by student protesters who opposed the practice. Brown’s tradition of hearing anyone on the campus regardless of point of view had been broken to the distress of most students, faculty and alumni.
Charles de Ganahl Koch is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. As of April 2021, he was ranked as the 15th-richest person in the world on Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of $63.1 billion. Koch has been co-owner, chairman, and chief executive officer of Koch Industries since 1967, while his late brother David Koch served as executive vice president. Charles and David each owned 42% of the conglomerate. The brothers inherited the business from their father, Fred C. Koch, then expanded the business. Originally involved exclusively in oil refining and chemicals, Koch Industries now includes process and pollution control equipment and technologies, polymers and fibers, minerals, fertilizers, commodity trading and services, forest and consumer products, and ranching. The businesses produce a wide variety of well-known brands, such as Stainmaster carpet, the Lycra brand of spandex fiber, Quilted Northern tissue, and Dixie Cup.
