John Tomasi, director of Brown University’s Political Theory Project, was the subject of a recent anonymous critique published at UnKochMyCampus. The piece describes the PTP as a “Koch venture” that is part of a massive covert plan to infiltrate American Universities and spread “extremist” and “radical right-wing” thought, “indoctrinating” students with libertarian ideology.

Yesterday, John Tomasi published his response to these allegations in the Brown Daily Herald. It’s a stirring defense of intellectual pluralism, which Tomasi describes as the essence of Brown but which I would hope would be the essence of any liberal education.

The Political Theory Project, according to Tomasi, is based on the idea that students are responsible adults who can be trusted to encounter both sides of controversial debates and think through the issues themselves.

PTP events routinely feature not just one but two speakers, presenting students with dueling perspectives. For example, our Chomksy event was on America’s relationship with Israel, so we paired him with Ambassador Dennis Ross, who provided counterpoints. When the PTP brought Bill McKibben to Brown to discuss coal divestment, we also brought James Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy. For an event on human rights and torture, we brought together Larry Cox, the executive director of Amnesty International, and John Yoo. When Catharine MacKinnon spoke about gender equality, we paired her with Harvard’s Harvey Mansfield (the author, for better or worse, of a book entitled “Manliness”).

And what about the charge that the PTP is secretly paid for by “Dark Money”?

The PTP is committed to transparency. Indeed, we have a long-standing policy of listing our major donors on our website, even though Brown does not require us to do so. (Brown also discloses donor information in its Annual Financial Report.) What’s more, the PTP publicly states the principles of philanthropic partnership on which we are willing to accept financial support. The main principle, closely modeled on Brown’s own policy under President Christina Paxson P’19, is what we call “Programming First.” The PTP allows donors no input regarding any of our activities. Programming First is a kind of public contract: If any donor wishes to support the PTP, they must do so entirely on our terms.

Anyone who has been to an event hosted by the Political Theory Project, or seen the videos online, can see for themselves the kind of Programming to which Tomasi is committed. Is it sometimes challenging, or unsettling? Perhaps. But only in the way that the best liberal education ought to be. Rather that attempting to indoctrinate students by comforting them with the false idea that there is one set of right answers to all social questions, the Political Theory Project challenges orthodoxies on all sides of the aisle and gives students the freedom, and the responsibility, to think for themselves. This is liberal education in its true, liberating, sense.