"The Indoctrination Lobby" is a descriptive title that Discover The Networks has assigned to a coalition of more than 20 organizations that united in 2006 under the name Free Exchange on Campus (FEC). FEC was formed for a single purpose: to attack David Horowitz's newly published book The Professors. The book's critics consisted chiefly of tenured radicals in the academy as well as their apologists outside the academy. The Indoctrination Lobby, or FEC, falls under the latter designation.

Horowitz’s book, which sparked the ire of FEC, called attention to activist professors whose political mission: (a) abrogated longstanding principles of academic scholarship and academic freedom, and (b) resulted in an ideologically biased curriculum. In short, Horowitz advocated real academic diversity -- the kind of political and intellectual pluralism that would make a truly "free exchange" of ideas on campus possible. FEC, by contrast, was content to accept the status quo -- where leftist faculty, who outnumbered their conservative colleagues by an enormous margin on U.S. campuses from coast to coast, were free to indoctrinate their captive audience of 18- to 22-year-olds.

Consisting of teachers' unions and leftwing political action groups, FEC is funded in part by George Soros's Open Society Institute and the American Federation of Teachers. To read a comprehensive profile of FEC, click here.

Most of FEC's member groups are extremely well-funded and thus are able, in turn, to ensure that their overall coalition is financially sound. Below is a list of these member groups. In parentheses, next to the name of each group for which financial information is available, is a dollar figure indicating the organization's total assets:

• American Association of University Professors (2007 assets: $1,240,213)
• American Civil Liberties Union (2007 assets: $263,907,717)
• AFL-CIO (2008 assets: $88.3 million)
• American Federation of Teachers (2006 assets: $56,200,215)
• American Library Association (2006 assets: $37,034,686)
• Association of College and Research Libraries (financial information not available)
• Campus Progress (a project of the Center for American Progress) (2007 assets of Center for American Progress: $23,455,439; Campus Progress does not file its own 990 tax forms)
• Center for Campus Free Speech (no financial information available)
• Common Cause (2007 assets: $2,034,902; in addition, the Common Cause Education Fund, which is affiliated with Common Cause, had assets in 2007 totaling $1,319,097)
• Democracy Matters (2003 assets: $137,758; in addition, the Democracy Matters Institute, which is affiliated with Democracy Matters and shares its address, had assets in 2008 totaling $872,770.) 
• Free Press (2007 assets: $3,559,938; in addition, the Free Press Action Fund, which is affiliated with Free Press and shares its address, had assets in 2007 totaling $264,996.)
• Mobilize.org (2007 assets: $3,020)
• Modern Language Association (2006 assets: $15,877,028)
• National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups (2006 assets of US PIRG: $1,704,394; in addition, the US PIRG Education Fund, which is affiliated with US PIRG and shares its address, had assets in 2006 totaling $7,932,103.) 
• National Education Association’s Student Program (2006 assets of NEA: $124,929,640)
• National Women’s Studies Association (2007 assets: $752,718)
• National Writers Union (2007 assets: $305,186)
• People For the American Way (and its “Young People For” program) (2007 assets of PFAW: $1,599,617)
• Progressive States Network (2007 assets: $1,103,251)
• Roosevelt Institution (2006 assets: $93,644)
• United States Student Association (2006 assets: $329,553; in addition, the United States Student Association Foundation, which is affiliated with the USSA and shares its address, had assets in 2007 totaling $906,563.) 
• Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (financial information not available)