A High-Dollar Koch Habit: Should Defense Lawyers Accept Money From The Koch Brothers?

Why can't more organizations place the needs of the people they serve over partisan stubbornness?

This week, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) announced that it accepted a hefty donation from Koch Industries. According to NACDL, the grant will fund an initiative to better train indigent defenders and study best practices of current state-level, indigent-defense delivery systems. The organization points out that over 80 percent of criminal defendants must rely on indigent-defense systems for representation, though the systems are “chronically underfunded and overburdened and, as result, in many instances are unable to effectively deliver adequate representation.” NACDL Executive Director Norman L. Reimer also said, “[W]e are honored that while Koch is providing this significant funding to support NACDL’s efforts, Koch is deferring to NACDL’s expertise in this arena for the grant’s effective deployment.”

Koch Industries is, of course, the Kansas-based, privately-held corporation of Charles and David Koch, often known to their many liberal critics as “the Koch Brothers.” (Sort of like the Wachowski Brothers but with more money and without the transitioning.) Critics such as Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid and increasingly agitated AlterNet writers decry the Kochs, who are reportedly each worth $36 billion, for their donations to the GOP and conservative causes.

So, should we be skeptical of the Kochs’ recent gift to help poor folks get adequate legal representation? After all, how could a Google search for “Koch Brothers Evil” turn up so many seemingly pertinent results, if they were up to any good? So, how can an organization like NACDL accept money from the ne’er-do-well billionaires who funneled money into such ultra-conservative, oligarchy-preserving causes as . . . the United Negro College Fund?

There’s no denying the Kochs’ generosity to the GOP. The brothers are hardly closeted conservatives. However, they have established a formidable track record of donating to causes that buck liberal expectations. In June, for example, the Kochs gave a $25 million grant to UNCF. Most of the money ($18.5 million) will go toward a scholarship program. The other $6.5 million is provided for general support to historically black colleges and universities, $4 million of which will be set aside for loan assistance.

The gift ignited outrage and debate over whether the UNCF should accept the Kochs’ money (probably in that order). After UNCF accepted the gift, AFSCME, the largest public services employees union in the country, cut its partnership with UNCF and urged “all affiliates and other progressive institutions to also withdraw from any existing partnerships with UNCF.” The union resolved to “continue to work in partnership against the Koch Brothers’ efforts to distort America’s values.”

Folks were not happy about the possibility that conservative Koch Industries would influence the students who received Koch-funded scholarships, which aimed to support students studying “how entrepreneurship, economics, and innovation contribute to well-being for individuals, communities, and society.” On this point, the Daily Kos quipped, “[C]an you say ‘well-funded effort to train up black conservatives’?”

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According to this line of thinking, it’s evil to fund scholarships to encourage black kids to study econ and possibly become conservatives, because the conservative movement doesn’t help the black community. Yet, funding scholarships with UNCF seems like something that helps the black community.

So, wait. Would liberal critics like to see conservatives donate more money or less money? Does donating to UNCF make conservative donors evil, or is donating the conduct required for them to show that they are not evil?

Inside Higher Ed ran a piece on the critical response to the UNCF gift. The article cites Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher education and director of the Center for Minority-Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania:

She said that she didn’t doubt that many individual students might benefit from the scholarships and that the UNCF “does need money” to help its member colleges. But she said that it was “wrong” to take these funds.

Koch organizations have been “deeply affiliated with the Tea Party,” which has repeatedly tried to undermine the interests and political activities of African Americans and institutions that support them, she said. “I think it is very, very important to think about who you are taking money from,” she said. “Yes, that money can do a lot of good for students. But it allows that organization to have quite a bit of influence,” she said.

According to the union and Gasman, UNCF should not have accepted the Kochs’ grant because the Kochs are bad. Why are the Kochs bad, you might ask? They are bad because they, and the movements they affiliate with, don’t support the interests and activities of African Americans. What might supporting the interests and activities of African Americans look like, you ask? Donating money to aspiring black students and historically black institutions, for example? How can they do that, though, if the organizations won’t accept money from donors like them?

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There’s more from the same IHE article:

To the extent the Koch organizations want to significantly reduce the scope of state and federal governments, they have the right to promote those views, Gasman said, but she asked if the UNCF should be associating with Koch in light of these efforts. Programs such as Pell Grants, student loans, Head Start and others have helped countless Americans, of all races and ethnicities, she said.

The criticism here implicates an entire approach to civic participation. Gasman suggests that organizations should not accept charitable funding from donors who advocate minimizing government spending. Organizations and individuals who advocate such cuts typically argue that private generosity, rather than public coffers, ought to fund most social programs. Liberal opponents might reply that cutting government spending and increasing reliance on private charity is a bad model for society because people in need won’t be taken care of by private charity. Rejecting private charity that is available seems like a lousy way to be right, though. Sure, you are eliminating your conservative opponents’ opportunity to prove you wrong, but you are also eliminating a way to achieve the humanitarian outcomes that we all purport to share.

To NACDL’s credit, the organization accepted the Kochs’ gift, as the UNCF ultimately did as well. We should thank Charles and David Koch for their generosity, but we should also be grateful to the NACDL leadership for placing the needs of the people they serve over partisan stubbornness. Apparently, that’s something not everyone is willing to do when a high-profile conservative donor is the one trying to help out.


Tamara Tabo is a summa cum laude graduate of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the school’s law review. After graduation, she clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She currently heads the Center for Legal Pedagogy at Texas Southern University, an institute applying cognitive science to improvements in legal education. You can reach her at tabo.atl@gmail.com.