March 31, 2004Cat Warren, N.C. State English professor, wrote a piece published in the Independent Weekly entitled “Mainstream Media.” It deals with the media uproar about UNC – Chapel Hill student “Tim” whose civil rights were allegedly infringed upon by his professor Elyse Crystall. Warren wrote that the event became misrepresented by the conservative agenda, naming the Pope Center for Higher Education as one of the entities trying to shut conversation down while claiming to endorse free speech.
April 7, 2004George Leef, the director of the Pope Center, responds to Independent Weekly’s coverage of the Elyse Crystall scandal. He remarks that Warren is wrong in her assumption that students cannot reach conservative beliefs without being “manipulated by evil outsiders.”
June 14, 2004N.C. State News Services announced that the Pope Foundation has given the economics and political science programs a $511,500 grant over five years to “explore the relationships between economics and politics in free societies.”
October 6, 2004Barbara Solow reports in the Independent Weekly about the controversy at UNC – Chapel Hill surrounding the creation of a Western civilizations program. Administrators at the University approached the John Pope Foundation about a grant for the new program. The University received an initial research grant of $25,000 to create a plan for the program. Faculty responded very negatively to the University’s dealing with the Foundation because of its funding of the John Pope Center, because the Center published multiple studies and papers that negatively represent the school and its faculty.
March 30, 2005Melana Zyla Vickers published a study for the Pope Center entitled “An Empty Room of One’s Own: A Critical Look at the Women’s Studies Programs of North Carolina’s Publicly Funded Universities.” The study sheds a negative light on all of the State’s women’s programs, stating that “these programs are unpopular with women students, intellectually brittle and drain on the Universities’ taxpayer-funded budgets.”
In response to this study, Cat Warren wrote a letter to the then-director of the Pope Center about the study’s demerits. She wrote that “the entire tone of the report itself is itself unscholarly and ideological,” pointing out inaccurate numbers in the budget and enrollment.
The Pope Center stands by the study.
December 6, 2006Bob Geary wrote an article published in the Independent Weekly that stated Toby Parcel approached the Pope Foundation when she heard the $25 million the Foundation slotted for UNC-CH’s Western civilization program had become available, and the response of the faculty to her request. Parcel wanted money for study abroad and French and German scholars, and some faculty responded that they don’t want money from an organization that funds an anti-academic, anti-intellectual agenda, such as the Pope Center. Geary reported that Smith-McCoy said, “Their conclusions are always aimed at denigrating women, minorities, and academic freedom. I wouldn’t take money from the KKK or the Nation of Islam [either].”
McCoy later tells Technician that this is a misquote.
December 15, 2006Shelia Smith-McCoy, professor and Director of diversity at NC State, wrote an open letter to the North Carolina State University Community about the events that had taken place between the faculty and the Pope Center and Foundation. She addresses that attacks had been over the phone, email, letters and editorials calling for the resignation, dismissal or demotion of faculty by the Pope Center, The Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the Pope Foundation. She also defended her statement that referred to the KKK.
“Among other examples, I reminded those present that faculty across the nation had called for institutions invested in South Africa to divest because of the egregious attack on diversity and plurality that apartheid represented,” she wrote. “Analogously, I indicated that I expect that the college would not seek funding from any organization that does not value diversity such as the KKK – because of the organization’s obvious approach to race — or the Nation of Islam – whose leadership has often failed to embrace gender equality.”
The last point of her letter addresses the importance of discussion before making a decision, and that there could be professors at the University who could benefit from Pope Foundation money.
January 17, 2007Jane S. Shaw, the current executive vice president of the Pope Center, submitted an article to the Independent Weekly explaining the center’s purpose. She wrote that the Pope Center has brought productive change, such as a report by the center that 13 college campuses’ speech codes would not stand up to the law – and one school changed their policy.
February 2007Some N.C. State Student Senate members propose and sponsor a resolution to host a town hall meeting to discuss the Pope Foundation grant and issue an apology on behalf of the faculty. The University Affairs Committee postponed the resolution and the clause about an apology was removed. The committee members rewrote the bill and the Senate approved it. The town hall meeting date will be set March 20.
