Friend, From new campaigns to updated reports and brand new resources, we’ve left a lasting mark on 2022. You’ve been with us through it all and we can’t wait to show you what’s coming up in 2023! 2022 Highlights Based on our research and analysis, we understood the impact of this year’s midterm elections. We created our 2022 Candidate Scorecard to inform voters about candidates’ values and equip advocates with content to supplement voter education campaigns. In addition to highlighting how much money, if any, candidates directly received from Charles Koch, we graded their stances on a number of important issues, including climate and environment, public education, voting rights, the right to protest, reproductive healthcare, criminal justice, and money in politics. We updated our Model University Funding report and templates. It is an invaluable resource for those looking to make lasting changes when it comes to donor transparency in higher education. Learn more about why more robust donor policies are needed in a new article for AAUP’s Academe publication, written by UnKoch’s Avital Nathman and organizer Jake Lowe: It is clear to academics familiar with the undue donor influence characteristic of Koch network funding that it violates the most basic tenets of intellectual freedom. Free inquiry cannot exist when a donor exerts financial pressure in hopes of reaching a particular research outcome. This is especially true for research centers, institutes, and other isolated units within a university that rely on external funding to survive. Our model institutional conflict of interest policy addresses this fundamental precariousness of Koch funding—offering a way for universities to acknowledge formally the potential for such conflicts and the need to avoid them—and highlights the importance of transparency and faculty input. We coordinated with Students Against Koch Influence (SAKI) at Brown University to create a grassroots organizing campaign to keep Koch money and influence off campus. The university now intends to adopt a more robust gift and grant acceptance policy, including not accepting money or business from organizations that spread science disinformation! In October, we hosted our annual National Day of Action, which included a well attended prep call featuring some of our coalition partners: Fossil Fuel Research, the American Humanist Association, Liberation in a Generation, and Big Money Out VA. We can't wait to continue stirring up good trouble together in 2023. Wishing everyone a peaceful end to 2022 and we look forward to organizing together in support of the common good next year. In Solidarity, The UnKoch My Campus team
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