Donor Pulling $400K Gift to Arizona State U. Citing ‘Left-Wing Hostility and Activism’
“I regret that this decision was necessary, and hope that Barrett and ASU will take strong action to ensure that free speech will always be protected and that all voices can be heard”
This is how you hit a university where it hurts.
The College Fix reports:
Major benefactor pulls $400,000 annual donation from ASU, cites ‘left-wing hostility and activism’
A major benefactor is pulling funding from Arizona State University amid the firing of an ASU staff member who hosted an event featuring conservatives Charlie Kirk and Dennis Prager.
Tom Lewis of the T.W. Lewis Foundation previously helped fund ASU’s T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development, which is housed in Barrett, The Honors College, at ASU.
Lewis withdrew his support for the center in recent weeks, citing the visceral reaction to the February event featuring Kirk, Prager and author Robert Kiyosaki.
“After seeing this level of left-wing hostility and activism, I no longer had any confidence in Barrett to adhere to the terms of our gift, and made the decision to terminate our agreement, effective June 30, 2023,” Lewis wrote in a news release. “I regret that this decision was necessary, and hope that Barrett and ASU will take strong action to ensure that free speech will always be protected and that all voices can be heard.”
Lewis is CEO of the Scottsdale-based real estate business T.W. Lewis Company. He gave a $2.5 million gift in 2019, according to the Arizona Daily Independent. The Daily Press, ASU’s student newspaper, reported Lewis also gave annual $400,000 donations to support the center.
Lewis’s announcement came just a few weeks after Ann Atkinson, who served the executive director of the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development, publicly stated she was fired by ASU.
“ASU claims to value freedom of expression. But in the end the faculty mob always wins against institutional protections for free speech,” Atkinson wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month, alleging her firing was politically motivated.
Atkinson’s assertions were quickly denied by ASU, which claimed her position was being eliminated because Lewis pulled his support.
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