National Association of Scholars

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that advocates for right-wing, educational reform. Founded in 1987 "to confront the rise of campus political correctness," the organization has described itself as an "independent membership association of academic and others working to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debate in America's colleges and universities." NAS is known for its opposition toward multiculturalism and affirmative action, as well as its objection to "liberal bias" on college and university campuses.

NAS has been funded by several prominent conservative foundations, including the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Adolph Coors Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John William Pope Foundation, and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation.

News and Controversies

Attacks on DEI at Texas Tech

In February 2023, The Texas Tech Department of Biology came under fire by Stephen Balch, a former Texas Tech professor and founder of the National Association of Scholars. Balch has launched numerous efforts in the past to attack DEI initiatives supporting "considerable research on DEI efforts in universities to illustrate what it sees as an impediment to academic freedom." In a statement, Balch stated, "My quarrel isn't with people who think diversity, equity and inclusion are good things...My argument and the argument of the NAS is turning them into dogma and then using them to vet faculty members, graduate students, undergraduate students – creating aversive environment in which you feel you have to swear fealty to a particular creed. I think that's wrong."
The department was using DEI statements as a part of the broader hiring process, and when a candidate had a poor response in the DEI statements, the applicant would receive negative marks. While the college has since reformed its application process, this attack is one of many that NAS has sponsored.

Linked here is NAS'S Reports and Studies page on DEI.

Creating 'Educational' Resources so that Ohio Students can be Misinformed on Climate Change

In a recent bill proposed to the Ohio Senate, Senate Bill 83 would seek to police classroom speech including "climate change, abortion, immigration, and diversity, equity and inclusion." While the bill wasn't explicitly authored by NAS, Sen. Jerry Cirino did acknowledge that the bill drew many concepts from NAS and their research.

Attacks on AP U.S. History Framework

In a publication from NAS, the group herald a letter from the "Scholars Concerned About Advanced Placement History," in which "Dozens of academics published an open letter opposing the College Board's new framework for the AP U.S. History course, saying that it presents 'a grave new risk' to the study of America's past, in large part because it ignores American exceptionalism." The group's primary concern is the focus on the darker episodes of American history rather than figures like Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King. The College Board defended its framework, arguing that "the criticism is misguided because the framework is not not meant to include every historical figure and date but rather to set a broad structure that gives teachers space to develop their own lessons."

70% came from educational partnerships - Teaching American History (TAH)

In 2009, ~70% of Association funding came from "educational partnerships"; these reportedly involve providing teaching materials, speakers etc. to schools who contract with them, using monies from the U.S. Department of Education's "Teaching American History" program.

"The program supports competitive grants to local educational agencies.... Grants are used to improve the quality of history instruction by supporting professional development for teachers of American history. In order to receive a grant, a local educational agency must agree to carry out the proposed activities in partnership with one or more of the following: institutions of higher education, nonprofit history or humanities organizations, libraries, or museums."[1]

Science shift, from sanity to...

2006 and earlier, Science Insights

The association used to publish Science Insights, on science matters. It was edited by John Wenger, and before that, by Patricia Hausman. From the Form 990 filings, it appears to have stopped publication by 2007.

2003, Excoriating intelligent design

In a now-defunct publication called Science Insights , Paul R. Gross wrote a 2003 piece pointing out that intelligent design was bogus science.[2]

2003, Concerns about Bush censorship of climate scientists

John Wenger wrote in 2003, "Waxman...makes factual charges that, if true, are extremely serious and troublesome...if they are true, they document a shocking breach of the public faith."[3]

2010,2011: Dismissing climate science

As of 2010 and 2011, writings appearing under the byline of Association president Peter W. Wood have attacked sustainability, climate science, and recent efforts exposing the PR push to cast doubt on climate science.

Association member and climate scientist Kerry Emanuel objected to this effort in mid-2010, noting that "A true test of NAS’s commitment to reason and scholarship is whether it is prepared to take on an attack that this time is mounted largely from the Right."

Affiliate chapter heads' views: agreement with their President, or silence

A question arose: do the association's affiliate chapters share the national group's president's views on condoning and acting to protect outside political influence on climate science?

50 affiliate chapter heads were emailed an invitation to share their views on their president's climate writing. By 4 days later, three had weighed in on this topic, all to express agreement:

"I couldn't agree more with Dr. Wood's approach to the issue of global warming as presented in the academic environment." - Asia, AZ;

"I am sympathetic to Mr. Woods' view. The problem of ideology posing as science is real as is the demonization of those who do not accept revealed truth from the left." - Glamser, MS;

"Peter Wood's commentary ... is a lucid, brief, compelling and altogether logical essay." - Geshekter, CA.

Minorities and civil rights

1990, U of Texas course covering civil rights

"The association first gained notoriety in 1990 at the University of Texas, at Austin, where N.A.S. faculty succeeded in blocking the inclusion in an English course of civil rights readings that had been proposed in response to increasing racial and sexual harassment on campus. During the controversy, the faculty group also encouraged a right-wing student group to lead an ultimately successful campaign to defund the university's Chicano newspaper."

1996, U Mass minority enrollment

As of 1996, "More recently, the N.A.S. released an update of a 1994 report urging the University of Massachusetts system to abandon its goal of expanding minority enrollment to 20 percent of the freshman class, and to end a program that encourages the hiring of women and minorities. The report focuses on SAT scores to claim that minority students are below average, and therefore unfairly take the place of qualified white students. The University of Massachusetts chancellor countered that the practice is based on the philosophy that "the class should reflect the diversity of seniors graduating from the high schools."

1996 survey, back to basics

"The N.A.S. has also come out with a 1996 survey, heralded in a Wall Street Journal op-ed by William Simon, president of the Olin Foundation and major N.A.S. backer. The survey asserts that the decrease in core requirements at the top 50 universities and colleges since 1914 threatens "the common frame of reference that...has sustained our liberal, democratic society," according to N.A.S. president Stephen Balch. The N.A.S. fixes much of the blame on student activism in the 1960s "when the rage in higher education was a radical libertarianism based on notions of 'relevance.'"

History

Founding

The group was founded in 1987 by Herbert London and Stephen Balch with the goal of preserving the "Western intellectual heritage"., or perhaps in 1982 with Barry R. Gross and Peter Shaw, It was originally called the Campus Coalition for Democracy.

De jure independent, de facto right

Against political correctness

While the Association's mission statement says it is "an independent membership association of academics" working to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debate", a 1996 report by People for the American Way pegs the mission as "to unite right-wing faculty against 'politically correct' multicultural education and affirmative action policies in college admissions and faculty hiring that take race or gender into account."

1960s cultural shift threatening study of Western Civilization

"In addressing issues that are of academic concern across the political spectrum, the N.A.S. has recently been successful in attracting a small number of liberal and moderate faculty, but the overall thrust of the N.A.S. remains conservative. In lecture halls and on the op-ed pages of many prominent national papers, N.A.S. members across the country put forward the idea that multicultural education, gender studies and affirmative action policies are simply trendy endeavors or throwbacks to 1960s "radicalism." 112 Invariably, these programs are described as threats to the study of Western civilization. As of 1996, the organization has approximately 4,000 members (faculty and graduate students), with 38 state affiliates; it has representatives in the American Sociological Association, the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association."

Agnostic on - but participating in - climate science rejection

See "Actions" section below.

Core Financials

2022

• Total Revenue: $2,633,316
• Total Expenses: $2,501,741
• Net Assets: $4,236,708

2021

• Total Revenue: $2,975,459
• Total Expenses: $2,076,320
• Net Assets: $4,894,076

2020

• Total Revenue: $3,32,319
• Total Expenses: $2,038,355
• Net Assets: $3,749,166

2019

• Total Revenue: $32,184,880
• Total Expenses: $1,523,150
• Net Assets: $2,210,148

2018

• Total Revenue: $1,492,669
• Total Expenses: $1,489,883
• Net Assets: $1,274,752

2017

• Total Revenue: $1,254,632
• Total Expenses: $1,225,920
• Net Assets: $1,386,630

Funding

• A S and Elsie Hirshman Charitable Trust: $41,800 (2020-2023)
• Abbvie Foundation: $700 (2018-2019)
• Achelis and Bodman Foundation: $150,000 (2021-2022)
• Adolph Coors Foundation: $110,000 (2020-2022)
• Alliance Defending Freedom: $50,000 (2010)
• Apricity Foundation: $5,000 (2022)
• Arthur S and Marilyn Penn Charitable Trust: $9,000 (2019-2022)
• Bader Family Foundation: $115,000 (2016-2022)
• Ben May Charitable Trust: $37,500 (2020-2023)
• Bradley Impact Fund: $64,000 (2018-2021)
• C and A Johnson Family Foundation: $30,000 (2021-2022)
• Casillas Foundation: $2,500 (2017)
• Charles H Boyle Foundation: $5,000 (2023)
• Charles Koch Foundation: $60,000 (2015)
• Chicago Community Trust: $40,000 (2017-2019)
• Community Foundation Of Greater Memphis: $12,000 (2015-2022)
• Conru Foundation: $35,000 (2019-2021)
• Creigh Family Foundation: $19,000 (2019-2023)
• David Family Foundation: $18,000 (2017-2022)
• Dian Graves Owen Foundation: $55,000 (2020-2022)
• Diana Davis Spencer Foundation: $500,000 (2019-2021)
• Donors Trust: $40,820 (2020-2022)
• Einhorn Family Foundation: $8,000 (2012-2018)
• Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund: $707,091 (2017-2022)
• FM Kirby Foundation: $90,000 (2020-2023)
• Frankel Family Charitable Trust: $26,000 (2017-2022)
• Fred Maytag Family Foundation: $460,000 (2015-2022)
• G L Connolly Foundation: $16,000 (2020-2022)
• George E Coleman Jr Foundation: $4,000 (2013-2014)
• Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation: $25,000 (2020-2022)
• John William Pope Foundation: $250,000 (2021-2022)
• Ken W Davis Foundation: $5,000 (2020-2021)
• Leonard And Joan Horvitz Foundation: $2,500 (2022)
• Leonette M And Fred T Lanners Foundation: $21,500 (2017-2022)
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation: $250,000 (2020-2022)
• Mailman Foundation: $25,000 (2021)
• Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation: $10,500 (2020-2022)
• Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust: $50,000 (2020)
• National Philanthropic Trust: $755,280 (2019-2022)
• Philip M McKenna Foundation: $75,000 (2020-2023)
• Quantitative Foundation: $40,000 (2019-2022)
• R Keith Cullinan Family: $5,000 (2022)
• Redbud Foundation: $5,500 (2013-2017)
• Richard & Barbara Gaby Foundation Co Bridges & Dunn-Rankin: $20,000 (2019-2022)
• Richard Horvitz And Erica Hartman-Horvitz Foundation: $9,625 (2010-2021)
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: $37,250 (2014-2022)
• Sarah Scaife Foundation: $2,975,000 (2012-2022)
• Schulman Foundation: $45,500 (2016-2022)
• Schwab Charitable Fund: $135,965 (2020-2022)
• Seawood Foundation: $3,000 (2020-2021)
• Sharna & Irvin Frank Foundation: $3,000 (2021)
• T Rowe Price Program For Charitable Giving: $14,000 (2020-2021)
• The Chicago Community Trust: $80,000 (2016-2021)
• The Shepherd's Hand: $6,000 (2017-2021)
• The Stanton Foundation: $220,000 (2021)
• Thomas D Klingenstein Fund: $588,336 (2015-2022)
• Vanguard Charitable Endowment: $98,620 (2020-2022)
• Winiarski Family Foundation: $160,000 (2015-2022)
• Woodford Foundation: $4,000 (2012-2019)

Personnel

Staff

As of July 2024:

• Peter W. Wood, President
• Christopher Kendall, Director of Development
• Petru Kokora, Controller/Human Resource Director
• Chance Layton, Communications Director
• Teresa R. Manning, Policy Director
• David Randall, Research Director
• Glenn Ricketts, Public Affairs Director
• J. Scott Turner, Director of the Diversity in the Sciences Project
• Stanley Young, Director of the Shifting Sands Project
• Neetu Arnold, Research Fellow
• Louis Galarowicz, Research Fellow
• Mason Goad, Research Fellow
• Kali Jerrard, Communications Associate
• Ian Oxnevad, Senior Fellow for Foreign Affairs and Security Studies
• John Sailer, Senior Fellow and Director of University Policy
• Nathaniel Urban, Development Assistant
• Jared Gould, Managing Editor, Minding the Campus
• Carol Iannone, Editor-at-Large, Academic Questions
• Seth Forman, Managing Editor, Academic Questions

Former Staff

• Stephen Balch, President

Board of Directors

As of July 2024:

• Keith Whitaker, Chairman
• Stephen Balch, Founder
• Daniel Asia
• Jay A. Bergman
• Peter Berkowitz
• Ward Connerly
• George W. Dent, Jr.
• David Gordon
• Gail L. Heriot
• Joshua Katz
• Adam Kissel
• Thomas Klingenstein
• Wight Martindale
• Alexander Riley
• Richard Vedder
• Bradley C.S. Watson
• Amy L. Wax
• Elizabeth Weiss

Former Board of Directors

• Evelyn Avery
• Philip J. Clements
• Candace de Russy
• William A. Donohue
• Kenneth O. Doyle
• Norman Fruman
• Christina Jeffrey
• E. Christian Kopff
• Michael I. Krauss
• Dorothy Lang
• Barry Latzer
• Thomas K. Lindsay
• Herbert I. London, Chair
• John N. Mathys
• David D. Mulroy
• Anne D. Neal
• B. Nelson Ong
• Jeffrey J. Poelvoorde
• Edward A. Rauchut
• Glenn M. Ricketts
• Norman Rogers
• Michael Schwartz
• Philip Siegelman
• Barry Smith
• Sandra Stotsky
• Jeffrey Walllin
• Bruce Gilley

Advisory Board

As of July 2024:

• John Agresto
• Robert P. George
• Roger Kimball
• Leslie Lenkowsky
• Harvey C. Mansfield
• Christina Hoff Sommers
• Shelby Steele
• Stephan Thernstrom
• Virginia Thomas

Former Board of Advisors

• Paul Hollander
• Jacques Barzun
• James David Barber
• Walter Berns
• Edwin J. Delattre
• Eugene D. Genovese
• Gertrude Himmelfarb
• Irving Louis Horowitz
• Harry V. Jaffa
• Robert Jastrow
• Donald Kagan
• Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
• Irving Kristol
• Seymour Martin Lipset
• Richard D. Lamm
• Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones
• Nelson W. Polsby
• Willard V. Quine
• Leo Raditsa
• Milton J. Rosenberg
• Stanley Rothman
• John R. Silber
• Ernest van den Haag
• James Q. Wilson
• John Agresto
• John H. Bunzel
• Chester E. Finn, Jr.
• Robert P. George
• Eugene Hickock
• Mary R. Lefkowitz
• Leslie Lenkowsky
• Harvey C. Mansfield
• Christina Hoff Sommers
• Shelby Steele
• Edward O. Wilson

Contact Information

National Association of Scholars
420 Madison Ave, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10017

Web: www.nas.org
Phone: 917-551-6770
Email: contact@nas.org
Facebook: National Association of Scholars
Twitter: @NASorg
YouTube: @NAScholars

Articles and Resources

IRS Form 990 Filings

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

Related Articles

• Bottling Nonsense – Peter Wood and the National Association of Scholars, 34pp report by John Mashey, 2011-08-01
• IRS Form 990 filings, 2002-2009, accessed 2011-07-10
• Media Matters funding info for NAS, which for some reason it only shows NAS getting foundation funding from 2006 onward; trying the old MediaTransparency page will reveal the missing pre-2006 grants.
• People for the American Way, "Buying a Movement: Conservative University Programs and Academic Associations", 2011-09-11, accessed May 2004. (Used with the permission of People For the American Way (or People For the American Way Foundation).

Wikipedia also has an article on National Association of Scholars. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.