Conservative influence of donor foundation
The influence of the Smith Richardson Foundation, which supports the CCL, has made the organization somewhat conservative, DeVries believes. This conservatism reveals itself in CCL's efforts to improve the private sector, not to mention the fact that the organization was composed mainly of white males.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with David DeVries, November 23 and December 2, 1998. Interview S-0010. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
But I think of it as some
conservatism in terms of not necessarily politics but in somewhat trying
to stay with the status quo. I think of it as the jest that is often
used that a Southerner will be polite to you until he has to kill you.
But the reliance on civility and keeping things in a status situation is
I think one of the ways I would characterize a Southern institution. I
certainly would characterize the UNC-Chapel Hill as a Southern
institution.
- DAVID DE VRIES:
-
I think of it not so much as a Southern institution but it is clearly,
and has been from day one, a strong conservative influence on that
institution driven by the fact that its principal benefactors represent
a family that is one of the great industrial families of the U.S. And
also, a family that has sparked conservative thinking in the economic
and political domains over the decades. The Richardson Foundation, if
you look at who it's funded. All you have to
do is look at who got money from the Smith Richardson
Foundation over the years. And Irving Crystal I don't know if
you're acquainted with his work, but they sponsored work by
people like Irving Crystal in the 70's and 80's
that led, that that was the intellectual bedrock of the Reagan
administration. So the research and the conservative thinking and the
political and economic domain in the 70's and 80's
in part is due to the Richardson family. So whenever we would go in
front of the board, those assumptions just played out in the evaluations
they made of the work of the Center. Had we gone out early on and not
focused on corporate America, the board would have been disappointed.
One of the big coups, I remember one of the huge coups with the board
was a project in which we were supported by IBM. Three of us got IBM in
the late 70's to sponsor a research program. And my God, just
taking that to the board, that gave us at least a couple years breathing
space as an institution. So that was what they valued. They valued us
being connected with the mainline American corporations being seen as
legitimate and being able to be of use to those people. That was a value
set that was inculcated in us very early on. So if that's
Southern, I don't think it's so much Southern, but
it is conservative in the sense that our job is to promote the existing
institutions, particularly in the private sector. To prolong them and
make these important institutions even more effective. And I felt that
pressure regularly. Beyond that, you've got the reality that
these were basically, 95% of the people around us were white males and
that carried with it its own set of assumptions and prejudices and all
of that. So yeah, I mean, I doubt I could have been in the role I was in
had I been a female or an African-American, that's clear. We
were called by Bill Friday "the young turks." And that
had its own specific kind of image in their minds.