Koch Gift Creates Quandary for Historically Black Colleges

Financially struggling black colleges face a hazardous choice over taking grants from Charles and David Koch’s $25-million gift to the United Negro College Fund, one that pits student needs against liberal and civil rights groups’ view that the billionaire industrialists’ political actions hurt African-Americans, the Associated Press writes.

The Koch brothers’ network of nonprofit political groups has spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing conservative candidates and causes. Some progressive activists contend the Kochs are pursuing an implicitly racist agenda, citing their support for voter-ID laws that Democrats view as tools to dampen minority turnout. The powerful union AFSCME severed ties with the College Fund over its Koch affiliation.

A Koch spokeswoman said the brothers “have devoted their lives to advancing tolerance and a free society.” Supporters of the voter-ID laws say they are about eliminating fraud at the polls, not preventing minorities from voting.

Dillard University in New Orleans received some $50,000 from the College Fund gift to provide financial aid for needy students. Dillard President Walter Kimbrough said he disagrees with much of the Kochs’ political agenda but added, “I’ll still fight for things important to the African-American community, and I’ll use their money to do it.”