Byron Dobson

Democrat senior writer

Three programs at Florida State University have been awarded more than $800,000 in grants from the Charles Koch Foundation, the university announced Wednesday.

Collectively, the grants are expected to advance FSU’s contribution to research related to beliefs about “free will, victimhood, personal control, and moral cultures as well as the impacts of economic, political and social institutions on the marketplace and also efforts to modernize Florida’s criminal justice and prison system," the university said in a release.

“Florida State University’s distinguished faculty conducts research that is internationally renowned,” said Sally McRorie, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “The importance of supporting high-quality researchers and programs to advance that research and increase the institutional standing of FSU cannot be overstated.”

FSU's acceptance of money from the Charles Koch Foundation goes back to 2008, when the university started receiving payments on a $1.5 million pledge. The university later accepted $1.65 million in pledged gifts from the foundation.

That association has not been without controversy on the FSU campus. Student activists associated with the Progress Coalition have charged that the billionaire’s contributions came with stipulations that the foundation would have a say in who was hired to teach economics at FSU and that is was able to influence curriculum.

Critics said it put FSU in a position to embrace the Koch brothers’ beliefs in fewer government regulations, unfettered free enterprise and similar economic philosophies.

The second pledge was used primarily for graduate fellowships. That brings to $3.15 million the university received. By comparison, George Mason University in Virginia has received $24 million from Koch or the foundation since 2005, according to published reports.

Former FSU President Eric Barron ordered a review of FSU’s policies involving donors and some revisions were made, but the controversy didn’t stop, as critics also made the acceptance of Koch money an issue when current President John Thrasher was hired. FSU also has been targeted by the national advocacy group, “UnKoch My Campus.”

Thrasher, with the support of former FSU Faculty Senate President Gary Tyson, has maintained that under those previous gifts, the Koch Foundation did not dictate who gets hired or fired, nor did it influence how economics classes are taught.

Faculty Senate President Susan Fiorito said she was unaware of the latest grants, but said the announcement doesn’t seem to indicate that the Koch Foundation would have influence in what was being taught or in curriculum issues, which had been a concern among some faculty in the past.

“But this doesn’t sound like that,” she said. “The Faculty Senate doesn’t want to stifle any research. I don’t think we have any issues at all.”

The bulk of the money to be dispersed over five years, or about $539,000, will go to the L. Charles Hilton Jr. Center for the Study of Economic Prosperity and Individual Opportunity. The center is based in the university’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy.

The money will be used to pay for a post-doctoral fellow, three Ph.D. students over five years, and research in the area of markets and institutions.

The center is directed by Shawn Kantor, whose research focuses on how institutional arrangements, rules and customs determine a nation’s wealth, the distribution of that wealth and its rate of growth, according to FSU.

“The mission of the Hilton Center is to study how legal, social and political institutions influence economic prosperity not just in the U.S. but across the world,” Kantor said. “We are very grateful for this funding, which will help support students and faculty as we work to make FSU’s Hilton Center an international leader in this critical area of economic research.”

In its announcement, FSU said the Koch grants are directed at three concentrations: psychology, economics and criminal justice.

For instance, $120,000 will go toward researching public beliefs on freedom, inequality, and responsibility, said Roy F. Baumeister, Francis Eppes Eminent Scholar and professor of psychology.

The psychology grant of approximately $120,000 will support a postdoctoral fellow, Cory Clark, to conduct research on individuals’ moral beliefs regarding freedom, inequality, and responsibility.

Baumeister said Clark was interested in working with him on post-doctoral research on free will and beliefs about free will, in relation to moral judgment. The two already have published a paper on the topic.

They decided to apply after getting interest from the Koch Foundation on supporting research in psychology, which they had not done in the past.

Clark received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Irvine and is completing post-doctorate studies at the State University of New York, Buffalo. She will come to FSU in July to begin her two-year stint conducting research.

Baumeister, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, recently was named one of the top 30 psychologists of the modern era by a journal of the American Psychological Association.

“We are delighted to receive this research grant from the Charles Koch Foundation,” Baumeister said. “Our research on free will, free choice, and free speech resonated with the Foundation.”

Receiving an award of $150,000 is the Project on Accountable Justice, a non-partisan organization housed within the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy.

It will provide salaries for graduate research assistants and undergraduate interns for one year. Those students will analyze Florida prison data, help to establish a clearinghouse of ideas on how to reform Florida’s criminal justice system, and create a web-based application where the public can help influence policy reforms.

“We, very gratefully, participated in the foundation’s open and ongoing competitive grant process which furthers our interest in providing independent research and analyses intended to add to the public deliberations and discussions on modernizing our criminal justice systems and improving societal outcomes,” Project Director Deborrah Brodsky said.

“This allows us to directly engage with graduate assistants and undergraduate interns within the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Brodsky said. “It is a tremendous opportunity to develop and encourage the next generation of leaders in criminal justice research and policy. The U.S. criminal justice system is broken and, among states, Florida is a major contributor to our national failure, with an incarceration rate higher than that of 40 other states.”

Contact senior writer Byron Dobson at bdobson@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @byrondobson.