Philip Anschutz, Producer and Promoter of "Won't Back Down" Philip F. Anschutz is a conservative patron and former oil and gas baron with an estimated net worth of $6 billion.[1] He operates one of the largest nonprofits in the United States, and has a variety of media holdings including Anschutz Entertainment Group, Walden Media and the daily The Examiner.[2] Given Anschutz’s ties to the extreme right—including the funding of homophobic groups, anti-union organizations, and climate and evolutionary science deniers—his recent foray into education reform is very troubling. Walden Media is the film production and publishing company behind the anti-teachers union movies “Won’t Back Down” and “Waiting for ‘Superman.’” Walden Media is owned by Anschutz, whose business partner has made clear that he wants the film company’s output to be “entertaining, but also to be life affirming and to carry a moral message.”[3] With “Won’t Back Down,” Anschutz continues his anti-union advocacy by underwriting a fictional film that misrepresents teachers unions and highlights controversial “parent trigger” efforts.
Helped fund the Discovery Institute through a $70,000 donation from the Anschutz Foundation in 2003. The Discovery Institute is one of the leading think tanks challenging evolutionary science. Greenpeace notes that media companies owned by Anschutz figure prominently in the denial of climate science and the promotion of climate-change skepticism. Anschutz supported Colorado’s 1992 anti-gay Proposition 2, which allowed private property owners and employers to discriminate against homosexuals and lesbians,[6] by donating $10,000 to the campaign. Between 2003 and 2010, the Anschutz Foundation gave $125,000 to the Media Research Center. The Media Research Center recently attacked various media outlets for covering protests against Chick-fil-A that stemmed from anti-gay statements made by Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy. Since 2008, the Anschutz Foundation has donated $175,000 to the Mission America Foundation, a far-right organization whose president considers homosexuality to be a “deviance”[9] and has railed against the removal of HIV-based travel restrictions, warning that “‘the U.S.’s liberal homosexual culture’ will attract HIV-positive immigrants.”
Backer of Corporate Interests in Public Education Anschutz’s Walden Media produced and promoted both “Waiting for ‘Superman’” and “Won’t Back Down.” A natural gas exploration company owned by Anschutz, the Anschutz Exploration Corporation, sued the town of Dryden, N.Y., over the town’s regulation of hydraulic fracturing,[11] or “fracking,” a process that has been blamed for severe environmental damage.[12] A judge upheld the town’s ban, but Anschutz’s lawyers have pledged to continue their claim. Anschutz Mining Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Anschutz Corporation, is the former operator of Madison County Mines in Fredericktown, Mo. Madison County Mines is an EPA Superfund site, contaminated with cadmium and lead. A Sample of Anschutz’s Donations Anschutz controls the Anschutz Foundation, the 60th-largest foundation in the United States.[14] Below is a list of donations made by Anschutz compiled by Ken Libby from IRS filings.
Donation total (1998 - 2008) Alliance for Choice in Education Association of American Educators Foundation Denver School of Science and Technology Free Congress Research and Education Foundation KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy Mountain States Legal Foundation National Right to Work Legal Defense Do you like this page? Justice in Public Education Poverty and Public Education Mark Anschutz serves Concordia University and The Center for Liturgical Arts as the managing artist. Mark has made a career of service to the church in the arts as a professor, designer and liturgical arts consultant. Mark has completed major commissions of stained glass windows at the Washburn University, Mulvane Museum of Art in Topeka, Kan, the Lutheran Center in Baltimore, Md., Concordia University Chapel in Seward, Neb., and a mosaic in the Welcome Center at Valparaiso University. Mark also serves Concordia as an instructor in the area of ecclesiastical arts where his students get involved in "real world" design implementation with churches in the United States.
M.F.A., Wichita State University M.A., Pittsburg State University BA, BS, Concordia University, Seward, Neb.You are hereHomeAlumniAlumni Board Jessica Anschutz, ‘07 M.Div. The University of Colorado School of Medicine is located at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado and is part of the University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus, one of the four University of Colorado institutions. It occupies the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center located on a square mile of land eight miles east of downtown Denver at the junction of Interstate 225 and Colfax Avenue. The school offers a four-year program leading to an MD degree.[1] Other programs include a child health associate/physician assistant (CHAPA) degree, a Masters of Medical Science in Anesthesiology Program (Anesthesiologist Assistant), a doctor of physical therapy degree and a medical scientist training program (MSTP). The graduate school offers various PhD programs. The school was founded in 1883, in Boulder, with two students and two professors.
In 1911, the school was moved from Boulder, Colorado to Denver, the Colorado state capital, to give students increased clinical learning opportunities. This move put the school ahead of three other contemporary Colorado medical schools (University of Denver medical college, Gross medical college and the Denver homeopathic medical college). The private medical schools objected and took the matter to court. The court ruled that according to the university's state charter, all teaching had to be done in Boulder. In 1912, however, an amendment to the state constitution allowed students to study in Denver in their third and fourth years. In 1924, the school moved from Boulder to a new campus near Colorado Boulevard and Ninth Avenue in Denver. A quadrangle of red brick buildings housed a medical school, a nursing school and a public teaching hospital that cared for the poor. In the 1990s, the school was outgrowing its facilities. In 1999, the Fitzsimons army medical center in Aurora closed.
Between 1999 and 2008, the school moved to this site, which was later renamed the Anschutz Medical Campus. Approximately 2,000 students attend the school (600 MD students; 352 in the physician assistant and physical therapy programs; and 975 in the graduate school).[4] About 3,147 doctoral and professionals' course students are enrolled in the graduate school.[5] The school received about 5,400 applications for the MD program for the 2012-13 academic year. Beginning in 2014, 184 students are accepted each year, including 24 assigned to the new Colorado Springs branch. Some departments within the school are ranked highly (family medicine, third; pediatrics, fifth; primary care, fifth; and rural medicine, seventh.) The curriculum is divided into four parts or phases[8] Woven through all phases are four threads of universal medical subjects:[12] culturally effective medicine; evidence-based medicine and medical informatics (clinical decision-making resources); humanities, ethics, and professionalism;
and medicine and society. The school offers several educational tracks including: The school is affiliated with the Children’s Hospital Colorado[18] and the University of Colorado Hospital.[19] Both hospitals are on the Anschutz campus. Other affiliates include Denver Health Medical Center, National Jewish Health, and the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, which is building an $1.7 billion facility adjacent to the campus. The new center is expected to open in 2018. See also: University of Colorado Denver § Academics and Research In the 2010-11 fiscal year, the school received more than $400 million in research grants. Research centers at the school include, Since its inception in 1887, the School of Medicine bylaws have required that women be accepted for admission on an equal basis with men. The school's first female graduate was Nelly Mayo who received her degree in 1891. From the 1970s to 2012, the percentage of women graduates increased. The school offers facilitated entry ("pipeline") programs for middle and high school students with diversity of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, residence and military service.
^ [1] University of Colorado website, programs. ^ [2] University of Colorado website, doctoral programs. Accessed 10 April 2012. ^ [3] University of Colorado, messages. ^ [4] University of Colorado website, graduate medical education. ^ [5] University of Colorado website, quick facts. ^ [6] University of Colorado website, admissions department. ^ [7] University of Colorado website, "U.S. News & World Report". Accessed 16 April 2012. ^ [8] University of Colorado website, MD program. ^ [9] University of Colorado website, core essentials. ^ [10] University of Colorado website, clinical core. ^ [11] University of Colorado website, advanced studies. ^ [12] University of Colorado website, threads. ^ [13] University of Colorado website, global health track. ^ [14] University of Colorado website, LEADS. ^ [15] University of Colorado website, research track. ^ [16] University of Colorado website, rural track. ^ [17] University of Colorado website, women's care track.
^ [18] Children's hospital website, ranking. ^ [19] University of Colorado hospital website, UCH ranking. ^ [20] Altitude research center website. ^ [21] University of Colorado website, Barbara Davis center for diabetes. ^ [22] University of Colorado website, cancer center. ^ [23] University of Colorado website, Charles C. Gates regenerative medicine and stem cell biology center ^ [24] University of Colorado, Linda Crnic institute for Down Syndrome. ^ [25] University of Colorado website, CCTSI. ^ [26] University of Colorado, human nutrition. Health and Wellness Center. ^ [27] University of Colorado, academic talent. ^ [28] University of Colorado, "Aurora Lights". ^ [29] University of Colorado website, summer health careers institute. ^ [30] University of Colorado website, rural health scholars. ^ [31] University of Colorado website, pre-collegiate health careers program. ^ [32] University of Colorado website, create health.