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“I would love to strategically map who these f—ers are, and figure out what the weaknesses are, and design a research agenda that just goes through them and tries to knock them out.”
That sentiment comes from Isaac Kamola, director of the American Association of University Professors’ Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, in comments obtained through a public records act request by City Journal’s John Sailer.
Kamola was referring to schools for civic and constitutional education that have been established in recent years at many universities nationwide. These centers often operate as a bulwark against leftwing progressivism on college campuses and provide students with a traditional classical liberal arts education.
AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom — funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — wants to bring them down, according to the agendas, records, and meeting audio recordings obtained by Sailer, director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
“Created in 2024, the CDAF owes its existence to a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. Per the center’s grant proposal, CDAF was designed to launch a public-relations campaign defending academic freedom. In practice, it seems to prioritize institutional autonomy above all—including, of course, viewpoint diversity,” Sailer reported.
In one audio clip, Kamola said he “would really love to see kind of a robust research project on these right-wing centers and individuals—like, naming and shaming and discrediting and undermining the legitimacy.”
“If we’re thinking about a five-year research agenda, I think unmasking, naming, and shaming, and just increasing the political costs and decreasing the legitimacy of these centers is going to be really important.”
Civic centers established in recent years include the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida, which has seen growth and popularity among students since its founding in 2022.
In Iowa, its three civic centers—the University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom, Iowa State University’s Center for Cyclone Civics, and the University of Northern Iowa’s Center for Civic Education—will soon provide students with an American history class and a U.S. government class required to graduate.
Its these types of centers the AAUP hopes to demolish, according to Kamola, who said in an audio recording obtained by Sailer that the Mellon Foundation may throw $10 million at the effort.
“Mellon took that seriously and came back and said that they—this is not public, so don’t share this anywhere, please—but that they have approved that or they’re in the process of approving it,” he said. “They’ve gotten a budget that looks like it may be something like $10 million to create a new organization that would do rapid response.”
Sailer, writing for City Journal, also called out Kamola for criticizing civics centers that fund independent-minded tenure-track professors for five years who then get picked up by the university.
“Kamola’s objection is ironic. As I’ve reported, the Mellon Foundation functions in a nearly identical manner, funding the initial hiring of faculty but leaving universities to support them long-term,” he wrote.
Kamola, professor of political science at Trinity College, is co-author of “Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War.” Kamola could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday evening by The College Fix.
MORE: Conservatives praise new Iowa law mandating U.S. history, government classes
