Hamilton Gazetteer / Entities / Alexander Hamilton Institute

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organization

Alexander Hamilton Institute

Overview

The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) is an independent think tank in Clinton, New York, founded in 2007. It is independent of Hamilton College. The AHI grew directly out of a failed attempt to establish a similar center on the Hamilton College campus; when that proposal was rejected by the faculty, its proponents founded the AHI as an off-campus, independent entity. It is named after Alexander Hamilton and is headquartered at 21 W Park Row, Clinton, NY (the Williams Mansion).

Abbreviation: AHI
Website: theahi.org
Revenue (2019): $270,788
Expenses (2019): $246,842

Founding and Circumstances

History professor Robert L. Paquette of Hamilton College led an attempt to create an “Alexander Hamilton Center” on the Hamilton College campus, but it was unsuccessful. A faculty vote voiced concern that the proposal to establish an alumni-financed center to study “capitalism, natural law and the role of religion in politics” would have an overt conservative political tendency and would not be subject to sufficient oversight by the school. The college’s decision not to proceed drew criticism from conservative commentators (including coverage in The New Criterion and the Wall Street Journal), and the institute was established as an off-campus, independent entity in 2007.

The first director of the institute was federal appeals court judge David Aldrich Nelson (1932–2010). Philanthropist Jane Fraser joined the board in the institute’s first year.

Mission and Programs

The AHI describes itself as dedicated to the study of Western civilization. Since its founding, it has continued to host numerous speakers and hold events on the Hamilton campus. It helps to maintain on-campus academic reading clusters and conservative organizations.

Key People

Relationship to Hamilton College

The AHI is explicitly independent of Hamilton College, having been founded precisely because the college declined to host the proposed on-campus Alexander Hamilton Center. Despite this independence, it maintains a presence in Hamilton’s intellectual community: it hosts events on campus, supports reading clusters, and has been involved in campus controversies.

Relevance to Research

The Alexander Hamilton Institute appears in the Spectator corpus in two key documented controversies. In December 1997, Professor Robert Paquette published a letter in the Wall Street Journal accusing the Hamilton administration of systematic liberal ideological bias; President Eugene Tobin and Dean of Faculty Bobby Fong both responded in the Spectator, making it one of the more extensively documented faculty-administration controversies of the 1990s. (Note: this predates the formal founding of AHI in 2007, but reflects Paquette’s long-running role as a conservative voice at Hamilton.) In fall 2013, during the “Real Talk” controversy — in which CDO Amit Taneja’s “people of color only” email invitation generated national media attention — AHI president Dean Ball ‘14 sent a counter-email to the campus and subsequently apologized. The AHI’s involvement in both episodes places it at the center of recurring debates about political diversity and free expression at Hamilton.