Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

According to the Media Transparency website:

With over $700 million in assets1 (down to $489 million in 2002), the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the country's largest and most influential right-wing foundation. As of the end of 1998, it was giving away more than $30 million a year [The Bradley Foundation 1998 Annual Report].

Its financial resources, its clear political agenda, and its extensive national network of contacts and collaborators in political, academic and media circles has allowed it to exert an important influence on key issues of public policy. While its targets range from affirmative action to social security, it has seen its greatest successes in the areas of welfare "reform" and attempts to privatize public education through the promotion of school vouchers.[1]

Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privitization of government services. As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who's Who of the U.S.Right. Bradley money supports such major right-wing groups as the Heritage Foundation, source of policy papers on budget cuts, supply-side economics and the Star Wars military plan for the Reagan administration; the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, which provides funding for right-wing research and a network of conservative student newspapers; and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, literary home for such racist authors as Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) and Dinesh D'Souza (The End of Racism), former conservative officeholders Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and William Bennett, and arch-conservative jurists Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia.

Other Bradley grantees include the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation; the Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace; and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.There are the major conservative publications, such as The Public Interest, The National Interest,and The American Spectator. And there are organizations set up to play specific roles in promoting the right-wing agenda, such as the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that promotes privatization and deregulation, and the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, a vehicle for building support for privatization in low-income communities.[2]

Funding decisions

• Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights According to a 1996 report in the Wisconsin State Journal.

Leo Strauss archives

The John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy helped obtain funding from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation for the microfilming of the Leo Strauss archives at the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library.

European grants

The following is a list of donations made by the Bradley Foundation to European individuals, organisations and programmes taken from its 990-F filings.

2000

Committee for Cultural Collaboration - $95,000 – to support scholarships

European Foundation Centre - $10,000

Institut fur die Wissenchaften vom Menschen - $50,000

Keston Institute - $75,000 – to support general operations

Social Affairs Unit - $20,000 – To support a study of friendship as a social institution

Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation - $20,000

Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue - $19,000 To support the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies’ Bradley Lecture

2001

The Mont Pelerin Society, London – $25,000 to support fellowships for the 2002 General Meeting

2002

Committee for Cultural Collaboration – $30,000 to support the meeting fund and the scholarship program for Bulgarian Orthodox students

Council for Inter-Relgious Dialogue - $20,000 to support the meeting fund and the Bulgarian Othodox scholarship fund

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace - $25,000 to support a conference on Czestochowa, Poland on “Social Thought and Action of the Church in Central and Eastern Europe

Pontifcal Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies - $25,000 to support the Bradley Lecture and general program activities

2003

Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue - $30,000 to support the meeting fund

Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies - $20,000 to support The Bradley Conference 2003 and general operations

Prieure de l'Union des Eglises ASBL - $15,000 to support Bulletin Europaica

Stonyhurst College – $20,000 to support general operations

2004

Committee for Cultural Collaboration (Rome, Italy) - $35,000 to support educational and other program activities related to the promotion of ecumenical dialogue with Russian orthodoxy.

Council for Inter-Relgious Dialogue (Rome, Italy) - $30,000 to support student scholarships and publications

Pontifcal Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies - (Rome, Italy) - $20,000 to support The Bradley Conference 2004 and general operations

2005

Committee for Cultural Collaboration (Rome, Italy) - $50,000 to support general program activities related to promoting contact between Eastern and Western Christians

Pontifcal Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (Rome, Italy) – $20,000 to support the Bradley Lecture and the Institute’s academic programming

2006

Committee for Cultural Collaboration (Rome, Italy) - $90,000 to support educational and other program activities related to the promotion of ecumenical dialogue with Eastern orthodoxy. $1,000 to support general operations.

Pontifcal Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (Rome, Italy) - $25,000 to support the Bradley Lecture and the Institute’s academic programming

2007

Committee for Cultural Collaboration (Rome, Italy) $70,000 to support general program activities related to promoting contact between Eastern and Western Christianity.

Pontifcal Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (Rome, Italy) - $25,000 to support the Bradley Lecture and academic programs.

Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas (Rome, Italy) - $25,000 to support general operations

2008

Committee for Cultural Collaboration (Rome, Italy) - $55,000 to support general program activities related to promoting contact between Eastern and Western Christianity.

Consilium Conferentiarum Episcoporum Europee (St. Gallen, Switzerland) - $140,000 to support a forum on the family.

Benedictus Foundation (Munich, Germany) - $35,000 to support the Institute for Business Anthropology at the University of Munich.

Saint Adalbert Center of Instruction (Budapest, Hungary) - $35,000 to support meetings and conferences.

International Theological Institute for Studies in Marriage and the Family (Gaming, Austria) - $75,000 to support the MTS degree program and a symposium

Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas (Rome, Italy) $25,000 to support general operations

Pontifcal Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (Rome, Italy) $150,000 to support various activities in interfaith dialogue. $25,000 to support the Bradley Lecture and academic programs.

People

The Board of Directors

• Michael S. Joyce - President & CEO

A former high school teacher from Cleveland, Joyce holds degrees in history and philosophy and a Ph.D. in politics and education. He spent six years with the Educational Research Council of America before heading up the Goldseker Foundation in Baltimore and the John M.Olin Foundation in New York. Served on President Reagan's transition team and various other presidential commissions during the Reagan-Bush years [The Feeding Trough].

• Andrew "Tiny" Rader - Chairman of the Board3

President of the Allen-Bradley Company from 1970-1984. Originally from British Columbia, Canada, Rader was hired in 1956 as sales manager of the Allen-Bradley plant in Galt, Ontario. Moved to Milwaukee to head the company's Industrial Controls Division. Promoted to executive vice-president and a board member in 1969 [The Bradley Legacy, by John Gurda].

• Allen M. Taylor - Vice Chairman

Senior partner in Foley & Lardner, the state's oldest, largest, and most influential law firm. Foley & Lardner was founded in 1842 by William Pitt Lynde, maternal grandfather of Lynde and Harry Bradley [The Bradley Legacy.]

• Wayne J. Roper - Secretary Attorney

[The Bradley Legacy]

• Michael W. Grebe

Since 1994, Chairman and CEO of Foley & Lardner. Grebe concentrates on corporate and financial law and is listed by Law Journal Extra as one of the country's 100 most influential attorneys. He is a Republican National Committeeman for Wisconsin; former Chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin (1990); and was a member of the National Steering Committee to elect Ronald Reagan in 1980. Former President of the Board of Regents for the University of Wisconsin; President Emeritus and Trustee of the University School of Milwaukee (1980-1988); past Chairman of the Board of Visitors for the United States Military Academy; Director, Oshkosh Truck Corp.; Member, Cancer Center Advisory Board of the Medical College of Wisconsin; also served as a civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army (1992-1995) [Foley & Lardner web site.]

• J. Clayburn La Force

A director of the Rockwell International Corp. Since 1981, a Director of the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company of Indianapolis, IN. [The Eli Lilly Foundation is a major funder of the Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute, leading force in the design of Wisconsin's welfare reform program,W-2.] From 1978-1993, Dean of the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA. Former Chairman of UCLA's Economics Department. A director of BlackRock Funds, Imperial Credit Industries,Inc., Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., Payden and Rygel Fund, Provident Investment Counsel Funds, and The Timken Company. Reputed to be an expert on Latin America. [SecInfo web site.]

• Brother Bob Smith

Originally from Chicago, Brother Smith has been a member of the Order of Friars Minor-Capuchin since 1979. Among other degrees, he holds a BS in criminal justice from Wayne State University and formerly worked as a parole officer with the Michigan Department of Corrections and as a juvenile detention home chaplain. Principal of Messmer High School in Milwaukee from 1987-1997. Presently the school's first President [Grants to Messmer High School.] Messmer is the city's only predominantly Black Catholic High School. The school is heavily funded by Bradley and is often used as the site of press conferences promoting school vouchers. Although all other Catholic high schools in the area are predominantly white, using Messmer as the background for a photo op leaves the mistaken impression that expanding vouchers would primarily benefit Black students. Brother Smith was the first African American on the foundation's board since its founding in 1942. His appointment was announced weeks after the 1997 publication of the report The Feeding Trough, which exposed Bradley's roles in attempts to overturn affirmative action and in the development of Wisconsin's welfare reform program, W-2.

• Reed Coleman

A Madison, WI business executive and civic leader [The Bradley Legacy.]

• David V. Uihlein, Jr.

Architect, and Harry Bradley's grandson [The Bradley Legacy]

Also:

• Terry Considine, Mitchell Daniels, Thomas L. Rhodes.

Notable former members include

• William Bennett

As Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Education, Bennett made headlines attacking bilingual education and multicultural curricula. As Reagan's Drug Czar, he presided over one of the most repressive- and racially selective - crackdowns on drug use in the country's history, a development that led to a six-fold increase in the state and federal prison population. A leading figure in the neo-conservative movement, he is a co-founder and co-director of the Republican advocacy group Empower America [The Feeding Trough].

• George Stigler

Nobel Laureate in economics from the University of Chicago; a leading member of Milton Friedman's "Chicago School" of economics, working "primarily in the area of industrial organization and public regulation" [From a May, 1989 interview with Stigler in The Region.] Economists from the Chicago School played the leading role in transforming the economy of Chile after the CIA-led overthrow of President Allende, a Marxist. As a result of their intervention, Chile's ruling class profited handsomely, while workers and the poor saw their standard of living plummet amid brutal political repression.

• Frank Shakespeare

Former head of the U.S. Information Agency; former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican; former director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. (Radio Free Europe, established in 1949, and Radio Liberty,1951, were created to broadcast news and current affairs programs to the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe. They were funded principally by the U.S. Congress, through the Central Intelligence Agency [From the official Radio Free Europe web site.]

• W. H. Brady, Jr.

Owner of a Milwaukee printed tape products company. "He had also spent considerable time as the junior member of a circle of conservative Milwaukee industrialists, Harry Bradley among them, who sponsored lectures, funded anti-communist programs, and provided early critical support for [William F.Buckley's] National Review. In 1956 Brady had established his own foundation to support, however modestly, public policy initiatives" [The Bradley Legacy].

• Sheldon B. Lubar

Milwaukee venture capitalist; founder & chairman, Lubar & Co., Inc.; president, Business Advisory Council; former president, Marine Capital Corporation; chairman and CEO of Mortgage Associates (1966-1973); president and chairman of the executive committee of Midland National Bank(1975-1977); chairman and CEO of Christiana Companies Inc. Also, former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration; director of the Federal National Mortgage Association; and commissioner of the White House Conference on Small Business. In 1991, he was appointed a regent of the University of Wisconsin System. In 1987 Lubar became a director of the UWM Foundation and served as its president from 1988 to 1990 [University of Wisconsin web site].[3]

Resources

• Rightweb Bradley Foundation