Right Wing Organizations


American Enterprise Institute

1150 Seventeenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
www.aei.org and www.theamericanenterprise.org (American Enterprise Magazine)

Established: 1943
President/Executive Director:Christopher DeMuth
Finances: $24.4 million (2000)
Employees: 50 resident scholars and fellows
Publications: Monthly newsletter, dozens of books and hundreds of articles and reports each year, and a glossy policy magazine, The American Enterprise.




American Enterprise Institute’s Principal Issues:


American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a think tank for conservatives, neoconservatives, and conservative libertarians.

Areas of interest include: America’s “culture war,” domestic policy and federal spending, education reform, neoconservatism, affirmative action, welfare reform.

President George W. Bush has appointed over a dozen people from AEI to senior positions in his administration. AEI claims that this is more than any other research institution.



American Enterprise Activities:


AEI sponsors and participates in debates and lectures on many issues.

AEI scholars have testified before Congress on a variety of issues.

Several AEI scholars have written articles in favor of government censorship of the arts.

Scholar Michael Novak has argued that prayer belongs in public schools and that it doesn’t violate the establishment clause.

AEI scholars have advocated federally-funded school voucher programs.



AEI's Background and History:


Most of AEI’s Board of Directors are CEOs of major companies, including ExxonMobil, Motorola, American Express, State Farm Insurance, and Dow Chemicals.

Big donors include the top conservative foundations, including Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Olin Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Corporate supporters have included: General Electric Foundation, Amoco, Kraft Foundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, General Motors Foundation, Eastman Kodak Foundation, Metropolitan Life Foundation, Proctor & Gamble Fund, Shell Companies Foundation, Chrysler Corporation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, General Mills Foundation, Pillsbury Company Foundation, Prudential Foundation, American Express Foundation, AT&T Foundation, Corning Glass Works Foundation, Morgan Guarantee Trust, Smith-Richardson Foundation, Alcoa Foundation, and PPG Industries.

Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron, was until recently on the board of trustees of American Enterprise Institute. Other famous former trustees include Vice President Dick Cheney.



AEI Fellows and Scholars List [partial list]:


Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House

Robert Bork, failed Supreme Court nominee

David Frum, a presidential speechwriter for President Bush, contributing editor to the right-wing magazine Weekly Standard

Christina Hoff Sommers, anti-feminist crusader, author of “Who Stole Feminism? How Women Betrayed Women”

Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, a book that asserted inherent intelligence differences between the races

Ben J. Wattenberg, host of PBS weekly show “Think Tank”