UNION SEVERS TIES WITH UNCF BECAUSE THE BLACK SCHOLARSHIP ORGANIZATION ACCEPTED A $25 MILLION DONATION FROM THE KOCH BROTHERS WHO LIBERAALS LOVE TO HATE

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees pulled out of the United Negro College Fund’s scholarship program that has been jointly run by the two groups

Last month, UNCF announced that it had received a $25 million grant from the Charles Koch Foundation and Koch Industries Inc. $18.5 million of the grant was designated for 3,000 merit-based scholarships for African-American students, and $6.5 million was designated for the general support of historically black colleges and universities and the UNCF.

Charles and David Koch, the conservative brothers liberals love to hate, kept news of the donation to themselves. But Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, went ape after the UNCF announcement. In a scathing letter to Michael Lomax, UNCF president, Saunders notified him Thursday that the union was severing its ties with the black scholarship organization, and saying:

We are doing this as a result of actions you have taken as president of the UNCF that are not only deeply hostile to the rights and dignity of public employees, but also a profound betrayal of the ideals of the civil rights movement.

Your decision to speak at a Koch brothers summit in California was a betrayal of everything the UNCF stands for. Your appearance at the summit can only be interpreted as a sign of your personal support and the UNCF's organizational support of the Koch brothers' ideological program.

Lomax responded by saying:

Criticism is a small price for helping young people get the chance to realize their dream of a college education, and if I've got to bear the brunt of someone else's criticism to ensure that we have the resources to help those students, then I can handle it, and I can take the heat.

UNCF has over 100,000 donors with a wide range of views, but they all have one thing in common: they believe in helping young students of color realize their dreams of a college education.

The AFSCME has been donating between $50,000 and $60,000 a year to UNCF. According to UNCF, the Koch brothers have been supporters of the black scholarship organization since 2005.

The hatred by liberals of the Koch brothers knows no bounds. To think that because Charles and David made a donation to UNCF, the union representing state, county and city employees, many of whom are black, would sever its ties to a black scholarship program is not only illogical and mindboggling, but it is downright mean-spirited. And it’s phony too because had UNCF not publicly revealed the donation, Lomax and his union would have continued to partner with UNCF, knowing all along that it had been accepting money from the Koch brothers since 2005.