University of Texas at Austin finance professor Richard Lowery was emailing with a colleague in London last November when he was asked if it was true that the so-called “Liberty Institute failed to launch.”
Six months prior, UT-Austin had received $6 million in the state budget to launch a new think tank “dedicated to the study and teaching of individual liberty, limited government, private enterprise and free markets,” known as the Liberty Institute.
The project had hit some roadblocks after The Texas Tribune reported that the university was working with conservative donors and politicians to launch the center, sparking concerns among some students and faculty that the Legislature was “politicizing” the university.
