The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation contributed $2 million to the Alliance for Higher Education, a group working against government intervention in universities, according to a November 12 investigation by the Manhattan Institute published in City Journal. The conservative think tank's higher ed policy director, John Sailer, argued that the Alliance was Mellon's "brainchild" and claimed the foundation is "quietly bankrolling a political alliance" to oppose conservative higher education reforms. When the Alliance launched in January under former Delta College President Mike Gavin, it didn't disclose its donors because Gavin worried they'd face backlash.
Sailer obtained his information primarily through an open-records request for Gavin's emails at Delta, a public Michigan community college. Mellon confirmed it gave the Alliance $2 million through the National Center for Civic Innovation, its fiscal sponsor, but said the Alliance emerged from conversations involving many higher education and democracy organizations. Gavin told Inside Higher Ed that Mellon is one of several funders, including the Knight Foundation, George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a collaborative of multiple higher education funders. Mellon reported awarding $145 million in "humanities higher learning grants" last year alone, saying its Alliance and AAUP funding represents "a tiny fraction" of its overall higher education spending. The foundation has given the American Association of University Professors roughly $3 million, including more than $1.5 million to establish the AAUP's Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom in 2024.
The Alliance has spent its first year issuing guidance on responding to the education secretary's controversial "Call to Action," criticizing new Trump administration accreditation standards, and urging the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education to reject the Republican governor's push to eliminate tenure at public community colleges and regional universities, according to the report. Sailer published what he said was a recording of Isaac Kamola, director of the AAUP's Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, discussing targeting conservative-leaning civics centers on public university campuses. In the clip, Kamola allegedly says he'd "really love to see a kind of robust research project on these right-wing centers and individuals" with the goal of "naming and shaming and discrediting and undermining the legitimacy." Mellon's vice president for programs and higher learning, Phillip Brian Harper, stated that "we believe that higher education plays a crucial role in supporting pluralism in our diverse and democratic society."
The Manhattan Institute's investigation fits a broader pattern of conservative criticism alleging that Mellon uses its resources to advance liberal activism in academia. Sailer has published more than half of his 15 City Journal articles this year focused on Mellon and the programs it supports. Gavin accused Sailer and the Manhattan Institute of using open-records requests "to enact fear" in faculty and staff who believe "black, brown, and LGBTQ students and Americans matter," and said Manhattan uses "mainstream media to smuggle in right-wing narratives that they know are false." Mellon said it "has been the target of bad-faith attacks for years" and will defend its right to direct resources toward projects matching its mission and values. Sailer countered that his reporting shows Mellon "supercharged academia's turn toward scholar-activism," adding that "many have argued that this activist vision undermines the basic mission of higher education" without requiring one to be "far right" to hold that view.