William Simon Takes Over Olin Foundation, Targets Universities and Law Schools

Former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon became president of the John M. Olin Foundation in 1977, after Olin chose him to lead a strategic shift toward funding conservative scholars, law schools, and journalists. Simon argued in his 1979 book Time for Truth that business funds must "rush by the multimillions" to ideologically aligned academics. Over the next 28 years, Olin disbursed more than $370 million, much of it seeding the law-and-economics movement and conservative campus programs.