Open Letter to the Deerfield Academy Community

I write dismayed for Deerfield Academy and its tarnished legacy. I have recently learned that David Koch has been named a lifetime trustee of the Academy. Deerfield has never before granted such status. Unfortunately, this privilege has been given to a man profoundly unworthy of the honor.

I have long known of David Koch's political affiliations and business practices and felt uneasy about his looming presence on Albany Road. Mr. Koch is a billionaire who has made his fortune from oil and gas interests. He has many radically conservative ideas that insult not only the values and heritage of Deerfield, but of the United States. For years he has quietly funded "grassroots" organizations that co-opt the passion and anger of Americans who feel disenfranchised. Ironically, it is his own worldview that conspires to disenfranchise these Americans.

David Koch's flagship political group, Americans for Prosperity, has for decades quietly funded tea-party-esque rallies against health care reform, undermined the science of climate change, and pushed strongly for pro-business interests that will benefit his firm, Koch Industries. He denies the science of global warming, and argues against further regulating the very Wall St. firms that caused the recent financial crisis.

David Koch presents himself as a caring philanthropist. As Deerfield students know, everything he funds bears his name. This is true of his philanthropic projects everywhere. Yet his name rarely appears as the patron of political groups that work to undermine legitimate and necessary policy reform in health care, climate change, and financial regulation. He quietly sows the seeds of fear and hatred, yet publicly reaps applause and gratitude.

I encourage every Deerfield student and faculty member to research the real David Koch, and to ponder if he is a man worth emulating when you use the facilities bearing his name. For here is a man who has proven himself unworthy of Deerfield's heritage, and yet he has somehow managed to buy one of the highest honors in the Academy's history.