Historians and scholars have pointed out that the current, previously unthinkable assault on America’s Constitution–especially on Separation of Church and State–and the accompanying war on science and education aren’t sudden eruptions. Recent documentaries like “Bad Faith” have focused on those I think of as the “anti-Founders,” the men who began their theocratic and plutocratic efforts more than fifty years ago, willing to play the long game.
A game that is now bearing (rotten) fruit.
I was intrigued to come across a description of one strand of that long game, written in 2023 for Inside Higher Educatiion by Linda Stamato. Linda is an unusually perceptive scholar with whom I’ve become a sometime-email-correspondent, and her analysis focused on a much-discussed memorandum written by former Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell–a memorandum “credited” with triggering the long corporate war against the nation’s universities and public education.
There is significant recognition of the way Powell’s memo jump-started the war on public education via the so-called “privatization” of the nation’s public schools through the vouchers that send our tax dollars to private, overwhelmingly religious, schools. In this essay, Stamato focuses on the less widely recognized influence of that memo on the current, ferocious assault on higher education.
As she wrote,
The “war” on higher education in the U.S.—and the status it once held as a public good—has been going on for decades. This war no doubt has many points of origin. One can be found in a once-obscure, intended-to-be-confidential document, written for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1971 by Lewis F. Powell Jr., shortly before he ascended to the nation’s highest court.
Decidedly conservative, and dead set against the academy, the Powell memo, titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” placed higher education in its crosshairs.
Powell’s manifesto—the focus of this essay—laid the groundwork for much of what we now see in the efforts to undermine tenure, to prohibit faculty from appearing as expert witnesses to share their professional knowledge in legal proceedings and to undermine the autonomy of institutional governing boards, not to mention the explosion of bills and laws emanating from state legislatures that would dictate what is to be taught in college and university classrooms.
Powell’s memo began with the thesis that “the American economic system is under broad attack,” and he outlined what Stamato described as “a comprehensive, coordinated counteroffensive on the part of the American business community in response.” That response singled out “the Campus” as a source of those attacks.
Powell saw “bright young men,” from campuses across the country,” who were seeking “opportunities to change a system which they have been taught to distrust … if not, indeed, despise.” They sought these opportunities to challenge free market ideology through employment in “the centers of the real power and influence in our country”—namely the news media; in government, as staff and consultants; in elective politics; as lecturers and writers; and on the faculties of educational institutions.
Stamato describes Powell’s prescriptions for battling what we might now call a “woke” ideology–measures that we can now see in a variety Red state efforts to “balance” faculty ideologies and monitor what can be taught in America’s academic institutions.
As Stamato reports, Powell’s memo prompted corporate interests to take up the challenge, and college campuses have been targets ever since.
Richard Vedder, writing in Forbes, lays out the conservative campus movement—and it is that—as taking “at least four forms: entire schools where conservative or traditional values dominate campus life, national organizations promoting conservative ideas, foundations which support conservative or libertarian enclaves on campus, and non-university think tanks and research centers which provide conservative analysis of the world outside the traditional Ivory Tower.”
The article describes the ways in which the rise of conservative think tanks have influenced not just educational institutions, but the courts–and their success in creating language that obscures their ideological intent. Terms such as “intellectual freedom” and “viewpoint diversity” are used to justify restricting intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity. (One thinks of Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland: “When I use a word, it means what I say it means…”)
The article is well worth your time to click through and read in its entirety.
The Powell memo, along with racism and fundamentalist hysteria over the growing secularization of society, spawned the current resistance to “elitism”–i.e., knowledge and expertise. America’s current dysfunctions and the elevation of dangerous and embarrassing ignoramuses to positions of authority are rooted in efforts that began a long time ago.
You really need to read the whole essay.
When we lost the Supreme Court to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s “The Long Game” of stacking the deck from within the United States Senate, he created today’s turnover from Presidents from all parties following democracy, Rule of Law and upholding the Constitution of the United States of America to one man’s dictatorship destroying it all.
“America’s current dysfunctions and the elevation of dangerous and embarrassing ignoramuses to positions of authority are rooted in efforts that began a long time ago.”
McConnell was obviously early on “woke” to the possibilities of building America’s future on what is still referred to as the “conservative” party of Republicans. They have done nothing to “conserve” any faction of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (and safety) for Americans, including their own constituents who are beginning to “boo” them out of public appearances. But…Republicans are well known for their own “Long Game” of voting for anyone and anything claiming to be Republican so those who “boo” today cannot be counted on as being “woke” to what is going on when election day come around.
We are only beginning our EIGHTH MONTH of Trump/Musk/MAGA administration; we have a very long time ahead which is in no way a game to survive as America and will NEVER AGAIN be the global leader of democracy and peace in this world.
“The long game” is being played every day by Hoosier Christian nationalists–embodied in LG Micah Beckwith–who are readying a campaign to take over Indiana’s school boards, thanks to the passage of SEA 287. If you want to control a school’s curriculum, if you want to control what textbooks are required, control the school board. If you want to teach that the separation of church and state is a “myth,” control the school board.
JoAnne, we haven’t been “the global leader of democracy and peace in this world” since shortly after Bretton Woods, post-WW2.
Once we became the world’s police, corruption escalated as everyone sought to serve in high places within the government. Now, it’s just a quick way to become a millionaire since the oligarchy pays top dollar to those in high places.
I just watched a clip of a late 90s movie, The Rainmaker, with Matt Damon interviewing Jon Voight, and asking him, “Do you remember exactly when you sold out?”
The Powell Memo must have appealed to the Kochs because they have been attacking higher education for a very long time. If you want examples, look at the Ball State University Business Department, primarily the Economics Department. Michael Hicks gets some love occasionally for pointing out flaws in Trump’s regime, and lots of hate from Indiana’s MAGA country. He’s a Libertarian like most of the business department. He attended Koch’s economic gatherings, sitting next to Art Laffer, the ridiculed economist of the Laffer Curve.
All the “conservatives” had to do was use funding to control the university system, which I believe was started under the corrupt Reagan administration who had destroyed the California system of free college. By cutting funding, it forced higher institutions to look for private donors. The last I checked, the Kochs basically control 150 US universities through their private donations. Many of the university presidents are businesspeople or politicians instead of seeking academicians. It’s all about the “foundations” and fundraising.
There have been many smaller universities that have filed for bankruptcy in the last couple of years, and under Trump, I expect there will be more forced consolidations. When the universities have to start paying college athletes, the landscape will be all about generating money. I expect the landscape will change even more than it has in the past several years.
Powell has got his wish with the help of many wealthy Libertarians.
What an utter mess. When one looks at the human condition around the world, it’s clear that we are not in any way related to or the spawn of some imaginary god. The pressure for another blow-up is building. On 1 September 1939, Hitler’s armies invaded Poland to pop the bubble that had been building since the “end” of WW I. That invasion kicked off the conflagration of WW II.
It’s probably just me being me, but I sense a very dramatic series of events about to send global humanity into another tragic spin. It seems that history tells us this is what we do to one another. Tribalism, in its most virulent form …
Thanks, Sheila. An “interesting” side story to this: The Ford Foundation was ready to invest heavily in public interest law and, recognizing it would face criticism and a threat to its tax exempt status (the IRS tried but lost), it was assembling a group of ABA past presidents, etc., to advise and add legitimacy and ‘status’ to the investment in public interest law. Powell was invited to join; he declined. Not something most folks invited to advise a Ford undertaking would do…..He was in the process of writing his memo and used some of the information he gained from discussions at Ford regarding what the foundation was trying to do—give voice and support to the voiceless—as he wrote that memo, without a word to those at Ford who were asking him to serve. He joined the Supreme Court some months later. The corporate community was significantly motivated and mobilized, as the “Long Game” details, and received huge support from the Koch and Olin foundations, among others….and then some. Out of his effort came the many organizations, Heritage among them, that serve the corporate big wigs and the Trump agenda.….
Howard Zinn probably showed the Patterns most cohesively/significantly. Starting in the 20th Century – samples – The Treaty of Versailles – War Reparations – “Germany at Fault 100%” – where was Germany’s Money to pay to come from? “Reagan” Economics – of Hoover in the 1920’s, Eugenics – was “scientific” in such days, The U of Michigan – my father was a Math Instructor at – in The McCarthy Era – was a bastion of – Elite – white, male, Protestants – coming from NYU – he was “An Eastern Jew”, The Math Department he came to at Purdue in 1956 – had been “built up” after WWII – to “be economical” – by hiring (white, male) high school math teachers – get them Master Degrees – and then they could teach as many lower level math classes as possible- perhaps in earlier eras – the larger World (Western Europe only mattered generally) was more isolated from us -(Great Britain had been “The Power” not the U.S.) – Education – was intended to train most – to be factory workers and of course to keep poorer white folks – hating Poor Black People – Today – we have the danger of The Destruction of the World – literally …..
As Todd points out, and rightly so, the Koch folk have been playing the long game since at least the ’70’s, taking the lesson from their father, who held out for an eventual victory of some sort, and got it.
Vernon, I am afraid that you are right, unfortunately.
The long game has taken us to Trump, and he has arranged to tighten the bonds of our adversaries…what a guy!
The “long game” is at odds with history, which unfolds in a universe that changes at all timescales and frequently, especially in human affairs. Changes, especially now, define us.
Since Powell wrote his infamous memo, there has been an explosion in human knowledge and the tools required to use it productively. Higher education is the only game in town that allows a country to maintain a prominent position in the world. Without it, our country would be one of Trump’s “shithole countries.”
The corporate battle against American Higher Education will turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory. That which corporations are fighting is the same as that which makes them wealthy.
I call it, “Be careful what you wish for…”
Already, universities in Europe (especially the UK) are realizing the opportunity to syphon off our best and brightest scholars and scholars-in-training. When that activity is complete, American Exceptionalism will mean something quite different. It will mean, “all over the world, except in America.”
I am too old to move now. But I have been contacted (by individuals who are not aware how old I am). Many others are moving. And, all I can do is wish them well.
Everything my conservative parents and grandparents thought is now being turned on its head. “What is good for General Motors…” is not even good for General Motors.
Mildly related: Can someone tell me what the story is with this private citizen Laura Loomer woman’s leverage?: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/us/politics/senator-warner-laura-loomer.html
It seems as if she farts Trump, and co., bow down.
Union busting comes to mind with the long game strategy. When I was still in grade school back in the 1950’s, I remember a union member electrician neighbor heading down to demonstrate at the statehouse in Indy, telling his family that he expected violent suppression at the event. That was also after the McCarthy hearings. Unions were being attacked by business as “commie” strongholds. The tactics used are well documented.
Business leaders have used violence to suppress working class people forever. “The Women Of Copper Country” by Mary Doria Russell is based on the life of one woman who fought back. It is a guide book to suppression of the working class by the wealthy, white aristocratic class of the time..
I believe that underlying the 20 years of GOP dominance in the Indiana General Assembly is a drive to take down teacher and government workers unions’ pension plans, both of which have been and continue to be underfunded. Remember the myth of using lottery money to fund education? What kind of education was never discussed. Now we see private religious schools thriving on public tax money, starving public schools of funds for staff, faculty and resources.
The goal of “trades” education is a thinly veiled attempt to allow private business to avoid the overhead cost of job training in order to maximize profits for the passive shareholders/owners. But what to do about the trade unions that dominate the real job world? How will they be eliminated remains to be seen. All to make pension obligations disappear into the abyss of tax breaks for those driving the bus.
Unwritten in all of this, but certainly in Indiana, is racism, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia, selling the lie of white racial entitlement.
Beckwith counts on all of the above to spread his viciousness and religious hypocrisy, banking on the willful ignorance of the mostly white, rural populace to boost his image for his future political ambitions. He, Rokita and Morales, counting on Braun’s disinterest in governing in any real way other than MAGA, are playing the long game to the detriment of us all.
Also known as “while we were napping”.
Of course they have been playing the long game and the rest of us were asleep.
Republicans have been putting up the most conservative justices and the Democrats have said “no liberals, just some solid centrists” — of course the shifting Overton Window made them into “Liberals”, just none like Justice Douglas. Kudos to Biden for Justice Jackson. [follows an observation by retired Judge Richard Posner that all Justices appointed since Nixon, by either party, were more conservative than the ones they replaced – Biden’s appointment of Justice Jackson appears to have broken that rule]
Finally, can we stop calling the Heritage Foundation, et al “Think Tanks”. Think Tanks study an issue and try to find answers; the “Justification Shills”, like Heritage, have answers and try to justify how theirs is the only solution.
I watched that “Bad Faith ” video in its entirety on YouTube. I liked the preacher who said Jesus was about “love, justice, and mercy”. What a powerful affirmation!
But yeah… things are crazy here in the USA! I can only hope that my generation (child of the 80’s) and those that came after can meet the moment soon without having anymore bad things happen.
We desperately need smart young leaders who can energize the base with good policies that help the everyday American no matter their race, sex, disability, religious affiliation or no affiliation, or how much money they have or don’t have.
Years ago my wife Tomi and I visited Washington and Lee Law Library to examine the archives of Lewis Powell, a prominent tobacco lawyer before his ascent to the U.S.Supreme Court. The papers included a copy of the FBI report on Powell following his nomination for the Supreme Court by President Nixon—the standard report for use by the Senate during its confirmation hearing. I was surprised to see that this FBI report made no mention of The Powell Memo: I knew that Powell had already written said memo at the request of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and sent it along to the Chamber. How had it escaped the notice of the FBI? Had it escaped the notice of J. Edgar Hoover, who still headed the agency?
Much later I wondered whether the famous Memo ever came up during Powell’s Senate confirmation hearing, chaired by Senator Birch Bayh. I labored through the thick transcript of the hearing and found no trace of the Memo. I wondered: Was that why only one Senator voted against Powell’s confirmation? The one dissenter was Oklahoma’s Fred Harris, who thought Powell might be too patrician for the people’s Supreme Court. Columnist Jack Anderson finally broke the Memo story months later, too late to grab much attention.
There’s more.
In 2010 Powell was long gone when the Supreme Court, in Citizens United, handed down the decision that released the continuing flood of dark money into our elections by equating the freedom to spend with the freedom of speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. This finding rested partly on a Powell ruling years before, Boston v. Bellotti . There the Court decided that it was okay for corporations to spend money not on elections for public office, but on elections for public measures, such as public initiatives.
Powell’s papers for that period reveal considerable elation when he and his clerk finally figured out how to admit corporate power into American elections. Imagine their celebrations over Citizens United.