The Grand Rapids Business Journal invited a front group for the Koch family to speak in Grand Rapids recently

Last Friday, the Grand Rapids Business Journal posted a Guest Column by David J. Bobb, who is president and CEO of the Bill of Rights Institute.

Bobb’s guest column was not particularly compelling, but it was based in part on his visit to Grand Rapids on Election Day in November 2022. The president and CEO of the Bill of Rights Institute was speaking to “business and community leaders” (none were identified) on the importance of civics education. 

In the article, Bobb talked about why it is important for business owners to hire people who have what he called are “soft skills,” such as having a functioning understanding of how government works and the basic principles and values that the United States was founded on. In fact, most of the article provided information about a, “2021 report from the Association of American Colleges and Universities asked employers which education skills they highly value.” 

In many ways, the column by the president and CEO of the Bill of Rights Institute seemed odd and just left me with lots of questions. Within minutes, my suspicions about the Bill of Rights Institute were confirmed. What the Guest Column in the Grand Rapids Business Journal did not reveal to readers, was the fact that the Bill of Rights Institute was founded and financed in 1999,  by the Charles G. Koch Foundation, which is a Virginia based nonprofit launched by Koch Family Foundations that promotes a teaching a conservative interpretation of the Constitution in schools, according to the site SourceWatch. 

Now the Guest Column from the president and CEO of the Bill of Rights Institute begins to make sense. Of course it makes sense for far right groups like the Koch Family Foundations to create a fund groups like the Bill of Rights Institute, because it provides a great cover to share a slanted view of civics and promote aspects of US history that fit a particular ideology framework.

If you look at who makes up the three member Board of Directors for the Bill of Rights Institute, you can see how how deeply involved the Koch Brothers are. The three board members are:

• Mark Humphrey, Senior Vice President of Koch Industries
• Ryan Stowers, Director of higher education programs at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
• Todd Zywicki, Professor of Law at George Mason University

It should be noted that Todd Zywicki, besides being a board member of the Bill of Rights Institute, also is involved in other far right institutions such as the Federalist Society, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Goldwater Institute, and the Hoover Institution. 

In many ways, one could argue that the Bill of Rights Institute is an Astroturf organization. Astroturf refers to apparently grassroots-based citizen groups or coalitions that are primarily conceived, created and/or funded by corporations, industry trade associations, political interests or public relations firms.

It’s unfortunate that the Grand Rapids Business Journal was not transparent about the fact that the Koch Brothers are using the Bill of Rights Institute as front group to promote their own ideological agenda. However, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Grand Rapids Business Journal even invited the Bill of Rights Institute to present to an audience of business owners, since Capitalism and a right-leaning/conservative worldview go hand in hand.