In the interest of continuing dialogue about gun culture and politics as they relate to our campus, The S&B is publishing a series of letters exchanged in recent months between President Raynard Kington and a host of concerned alumni. With the exception of this first letter, all letters are presented in their original, unedited form. The first letter is a recent letter to the editor on the subject of gun violence from concerned alumni.
On June 2, we alumni sent President Kington the attached letter expressing our concern about Pete Brownell, the new president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), using strategic donations to institutions, including the College, to normalize the NRA’s agenda. We were appalled — and embarrassed — that Brownell used an NRA Explore article to cite his allegedly successful efforts to “offset the previous anti-gun sentiment” at Grinnell, in which he portrayed Grinnell as a place where professors “feel giddy” after shooting a handgun and pack when they head to New York City. We’ve since been told that all mention of Grinnell was recently expunged from this article.
We understand from our research that the donation came from Brownell family members and was not a corporate donation, but that is just an IRS detail. In his dual roles as Brownells CEO and, now, NRA president, Pete Brownell remains a very public figure and an unabashed promoter of the NRA’s “guns everywhere” philosophy.
In an interview with Ammoland, the “web’s leading shooting sports news service,” Brownell said: “… the NRA’s role in public safety is to ensure that law-abiding citizens maintain their rights to protect themselves and their families anywhere — at home, in the office, or out in public. This means we must continue for to push for a Shall-Issue requirement for those who wish to get a concealed carry permit in all 50 states. It also means we continue to fight for Castle Doctrine legislation in all 50 states.” A Shall-Issue requirement would compel the issuing authority to grant most requests for concealed carry permits, and the Castle Doctrine states that an individual may use reasonable force, including deadly force, to defend his person or property.
We were also told that the College would probably not accept funding from Big Tobacco — so we needed to ask why the school accepts funding from the gun lobby, which has thwarted every public health effort to address the country’s epidemic of gun violence. Despite the usefulness of Brownell’s donations to the Ignite Program, we find this relationship to be deeply troubling. Is the Mad Max-esque world promoted by the NRA, in which everyone is armed all the time, the socially responsible world Grinnell envisions for its students, graduates, and community?
We concluded that the acceptance of this donation was at odds with the College’s social justice values and occurred because of the inadequacy of Grinnell’s gift acceptance policy, so we asked that the policy be revised to address this issue and provided examples of other colleges.
In a June 27 response, President Kington acknowledged that “our policy does not currently address the refusal of gifts that are incompatible with Grinnell College’s mission.” To determine whether the College should develop a policy that would allow for the refusal of gifts, he proposed to conduct research over the summer and, possibly, involve the board on a proposed change early this fall.
Given the NRA’s increasingly virulent rhetoric, we urged him in a July 27 letter to disassociate the college from the NRA as quickly as possible. We also asked him to provide a liaison and timeline for the proposed process. But our follow-up letter was met only with silence. This despite the fact that the summer of planned research has been over for almost a month, and it is well into the time to involve the board.
The signers of this request (listed below) and the broader Grinnell community await a response and action by President Kington.
— Bruce Austin ’68, Ron Cogswell ’68, Chuck Connerly ’68, Sara Dreyfuss ’68, Jan Gleiter ’68, Janet Holton ’68, Kate Kramer ’76, Pat Miles Patterson ’68, Betty Brandis Rasmussen ’68, Amy Rossman ’68, Leida Schoggen ’68, Alana Smart ’68, Nicky Wernick ’68
The following letter was sent by alumni on June 2nd and was directed to President Raynard Kington. The above letter to the editor references this piece.
Dear President Kington,
We are writing to express our concern that the Grinnell Gift Acceptance Policy fails to address the issue of gifts that do not align with the College’s stated values, especially those related to social justice. This omission resulted in the college’s accepting funds from the CEO of Brownells for Grinnell’s Ignite Program. Our concern has nothing to do with the Second Amendment and everything to do with Pete Brownell, the new national president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), using strategic donations to normalize the NRA’s agenda. Brownell cites his allegedly successful efforts to “offset the previous anti-gun sentiment” at Grinnell in the attached NRA EXPLORE article. Do we really want Grinnell portrayed as a place where professors “feel giddy” after shooting a handgun and “pack” when they head to New York City? Brownell is a “Ring of Freedom” donor (a designation reserved for the NRA’s largest corporate donors) and an unabashed promoter of the NRA’s “guns everywhere” campaign. He sums up his attitude thusly:
“However the police cannot be everywhere at every time. Therefore, the NRA’s role in public safety is to ensure that law-abiding citizens maintain their rights to protect themselves and their families anywhere–at home, in the office, or out in public. This means we must continue for to push for a Shall-Issue requirement for those who wish to get a concealed carry permit in all 50 states. It also means we continue to fight for Castle Doctrine legislation in all 50 states.” (A Shall-Issue requirement would compel the issuing authority to grant most requests for concealed carry permits, and the Castle Doctrine states that an individual may use reasonable force, including deadly force, to defend his person or property.)
In addition to donations to Grinnell, Pete Brownell has made contributions to many Iowa arts and educational programs. But he uses Grinnell when it suits his purposes, as is clear from this statement on EXPLORE: “Brownell likes to point out that the college hasn’t always been a bastion of pro-gun sentiment, and this omission of pro-gun common sense presented Pete with an obvious hometown problem to rectify.” And it gets worse… Read on in the EXPLORE article about how “the majority of the faculty left Brownells’ property giddy with excitement over having actually fired a real handgun.”
The sale of firearms is less of a donor issue than the activist role played by Pete Brownell as the head of the NRA. Over 33,500 Americans die from the epidemic of gun violence every year, and the NRA’s only responses have been to quash research on gun violence, attempt to muzzle doctors, and advocate for more people owning guns. The NRA has fiercely opposed every gun safety measure aimed at reducing these tragic numbers, such as the comprehensive background checks supported by more than 90% of Americans.
We understand from our research that the donation which concerns us came from Brownell family members and was not a corporate donation, but that’s just an IRS detail. In his dual roles as Brownells CEO and now NRA president, Pete Brownell remains a very public figure. We were also told that the college would probably not accept funding from Big Tobacco—so we need to ask why the school accepts funding from the gun lobby, which has thwarted every public health effort to address the country’s epidemic of gun violence? Despite the usefulness of Brownell’s donations to the Ignite Program, we find this relationship to be deeply troubling. Is the Mad Maxian world promoted by the NRA, in which everyone is armed all the time, the socially responsible world Grinnell envisions for its students, graduates, and community?
We have reviewed Grinnell’s gift policy, and it does not appear to include any explicit wording to prevent accepting another contribution like this. So we ask that the policy be revised to address the issue. Other colleges have language in their gift acceptance policies about refusing gifts that are incompatible with the colleges’ missions and have designated special committees to undertake this kind of review. We urge you to update Grinnell’s Gift Acceptance Policy and, to this end, have included some examples for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Bruce Austin ‘68, Ron Cogswell ‘68, Chuck Connerly ‘68, Sara Dreyfuss ‘68, Jan Gleiter ‘68, Janet Holton ‘68, Kate Kramer ‘76, Pat Miles Patterson ‘68, Betty Brandis Rassmussen ‘68, Amy Rossman ‘68, Leida Schoggen ‘68, Alana Smart ‘68, Nicky Wernick ‘68
The following letter was sent in response to alumni by President Kington shortly thereafter.
Dear Concerned Alumni,
I have received your letter requesting that Grinnell’s gift policy be revised. As you pointed out, our policy does not currently address the refusal of gifts that are incompatible with Grinnell College’s mission.
When accepting gifts, the College operates under these two guiding principles:
1. Grinnell College seeks to only accept those gifts that have a reasonable expectation of ultimately benefiting the College.
2. Grinnell College seeks to only accept gifts that are in the philanthropic interest of the donor. Grinnell College shall not encourage any gifts that are inappropriate in light of the donor’s disclosed personal or financial situation.
The second principle is designed to avoid circumstances where, for example, an elderly alumnus donates all his money to the College, leaving himself nothing on which to live.
We are researching other college and university gift policies. If we determine that a change to our gift policy is in order, such a change may require involvement by the Board of Trustees. The board does not meet again until fall.
We anticipate researching gift policies and discussing the results of the research this summer. I will communicate with the board the results of our campus discussions in early fall.
Sincerely,
Raynard S. Kington, M.D., Ph.D
This letter was sent by alumni in response to Kington’s letter on July 27th after it was disseminated to all those signing onto the original letter.
Dear President Kington,
I have circulated your June 27 response to all signers of our June 2 letter and allowed time for feedback. (A recent three-week trip to Russia prevented me from forwarding your letter until mid-July.) We regard your efforts to consider a change to Grinnell’s gift policy as a good start. To determine whether the college should develop a policy which would allow for the refusal of gifts that are incompatible with Grinnell College’s mission, we understand that you plan to:
1) Conduct research this summer and 2) Possibly involve the Board on a proposed change this fall. Those responding thought it would be helpful to have a designated contact person at the college to keep us informed about progress on this process and a more detailed sense of the proposed timeline. Please let me know if this would be possible and whom I should contact.
A few signers expressed concern that the proposed time line will take too long. Given the NRA’s increasingly virulent rhetoric as evidenced by this recent recruiting ad, we believe it is in the college’s best interests to disassociate from this organization as quickly as possible, should you conclude such action is warranted. We continue to believe that if the requested policy had been in place, Grinnell would not have accepted the donation from Pete Brownell, President of the NRA Board, and encourage you to expedite this process as much as possible to protect the college’s reputation.
Given your background as a physician, I thought you’d also be interested in the enclosed policy statement by the leaders of eight national health professional organizations and the American Bar Association, which concludes that deaths and injuries related to firearms constitute a major public health problem in the United States.
We appreciate your actions to consider our concern.
Sincerely,
Bruce Auastin ’68, Ron Cogswell ’68, Chuck Connerly ’68, Sara Dreyfuss ’68, Jan Gleiter ‘68,Janet Holton ’68, Kate Kramer ’76, Pat Miles Patterson ’68, Betty Brandis Rassmussen ’68, Amy Rossman ’68, Leida Schoggen ’68, Alana Smart ’68, Nicky Wernick ‘68