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The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (renamed in 1981 from the International Center for Economic Policy Studies) is a conservative American think tank established in New York City in 1978 by Antony Fisher and William J. Casey. The organization describes its mission as to "develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility". Its message is communicated through books, articles, interviews, speeches, op-eds, and through the institute's quarterly publication City Journal. According to the 2014 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report and Policy Advice (Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, University of Pennsylvania), the Institute is number 39 of the "Top 60 United States Think Tanks".

Divisions

The Institute is arranged into the following divisions:

• Center for the American University
• Center for State and Local Leadership
• Center for Legal Policy
• Center for Medical Progress
• Center for Energy Policy and the Environment
• e21 (the institute refers to e21 as its "economics portal")

Center for the American University

The Center for the American University (CAU) was created to bring attention to the issues placed upon the universities in America, such as the increase in costs or a lack of substantial education for the attending students. Different initiatives have been set forth in order to assist with the restoration of traditional liberal education throughout the American university campuses.

Minding the Campus

Minding the Campus is the CAU's web magazine, that promotes a free exchange of views, through its daily commentaries, original essays, and blog. John Leo, former U.S. News & World Report columnist is the magazine's editor.

Adam Smith Society

A nationwide group of business school students with the intention of arguing for greater de-regulation, neoliberal agenda items, and free market economics. By holding discussions and debates, the society is trying to put forth this idea on campus and among business leaders.

Veritas Fund for Higher Education Reform at Donors Trust

Created in 2007, the VERITAS Fund at DonorsTrust is a donor-advised fund that searches renowned universities for professors that are committed to bringing intellectual pluralism to their institutions. With the cooperation of these professors, the fund aims to create centers of academic excellence within the universities, in order to provide students with a broader perspective than what is already available to them, especially in the main issue areas, western civilization, the American founding, and political economy. The fund was created in order to provide more information in the areas that have been neglected on the campus, and to assist the existing educational areas and make them better.

Center for State and Local Leadership

The Center for State and Local Leadership focuses on the areas of public financing, public education, and the delivery of public services with the intention to improve and to create new approaches in them through the hosting of events, publishing of books and launching initiatives:

• Public Sector Reform: with unaffordable promises made by the government to the public employees, and due to the lack of funds, drastic measures have been taken into consideration. The center looks at the questions that this crisis has put into view, and is working together to find positive responses to help the American taxpayer.

• Policing: in order to make city streets safer, and to cut back on crime, the Manhattan Institute fellows have put into place a series of reforms, such as the social order policing combined with management programs such as CompStat, which are being implemented in various police departments in America.

• Prisoner Re-Entry: through a pilot project with the city of Newark, New Jersey, the center was able to help create and put into place strategies for a model prisoner-reentry program.

• Education Reform: due to decreasing educational achievement of America's children, even with the increase in public spending, smaller class sizes, and continual improvements to the schools infrastructures. The center looks at the many education policy issues, teacher quality, curricular standards, school accountability and also school choice.

• Public Housing: the center looks into the public housing policies in order to reinvent them so that they improve the economic, social and emotional well-being of the citizens in their cities.

• Infrastructure: in order to stay competitive, implement economic growth and maintain the quality of life, improvements and expansions of the infrastructure are critical for the United States. The center is working to achieve this by continual creation of new proposals to attain America's infrastructure goals.

• Immigration: the center follows the assimilation of immigrants in American cities in order to find ways to ensure the best opportunities for all Americans. Through better understand of economic, civil and cultural progress of immigrants, the United States is able to define how other government polices impact their social fabric.

• Public Services: with the decrease in city and state budgets, the center searches for ways to help improve the effectiveness and efficiency of governments. Each year the center holds an award competition, the Urban Innovator, which honors a policymaker that developed a way to bring value to taxpayers.

Center for Legal Policy

The Center for Legal Policy wants to promote ideas about civil justice reform to decision-makers. The center’s fellows have written books, and published articles in a number of newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. They also make television, radio and public appearances. The fellows also manage various websites with information on legal reform, including Pointoflaw.com, ProxyMonitor.org, and TrailLawyersInc.com.

• The Litigation Industry: the center focuses on the way that trail attorneys in the U.S. create profits out of the business in the main areas, such as taking in profits from traditional profit areas (e.g. asbestos-lawsuits), searching for potential growth markets (e.g. lead paint-lawsuits), and creating new products (e.g. fast food-lawsuits). So plaintiffs' lawyers use media means in order to aggressively pursue clients, and the money collected by U.S. plaintiffs' bar done through tort litigation grosses approximately $50 billion a year. According to the center the litigation industry invests its earnings to block legal reform through leading public relations and government relations lobbies in America.

• Regulation through Litigation: with the known division of governmental authority in the three areas of, legislative, executive, and judiciary, the responsibility for enacting policy is placed upon the elected representatives, which can easily be replaced when the public is unsatisfied with their decision, judges have taken a back seat role in the areas of litigation, and given more ability to attorneys to influence policy due to the fear of being held accountable. The center analyzes and documents this process.

• Class Actions: the center looks into the abuse and use of class action filings and searching for solutions. According to the center, class action lawsuits have increased by 300% in federal courts and 1000% in state courts since 1990, with the large number of claimants coming together since as individuals they do not have enough injury to file a claim. By coming together in a class action, specific details about each individual are dissected and only the common points then used in the case, sometimes they are not even in the least bit similar, but are placed together in the class action in order for the outcome to be beneficial for all parties.

• Employment Law: for the center todays work environments are a setback on economic opportunities because of employment litigation: employers are supposed to watch over their employees, or else be sued due to a "hostile work environment", and with the lawsuit from one employee the way the entire industry works could be affected. The center works to identify the failures in this area of the American legal portrait.

• Medicine and the Law: the center has been researching the many ways that litigation effects the medical systems in America. They believe that the research that is being done could be being used in more efficient ways, when the risks of being sued would be diminished - as no drugs are sick affect free and there is never a guarantee that a surgery will go without any complications.

• Products Liability: the center has been researching into the problems of the modernized products liability in American for a long time, and is continuously searching for new ways to create reforms.

• Judicial Selection: through research and writings, the center is looking to find the answers to the judicial election and selection problems. Trying to provide fair, honest judges in order to enforce the law is crucial.

• Reform Proposals: not only does the Center research and identify the problems in American law, they also put forth proposals for reform. They have put forward various reform ideas, including reforms of America’s class action system. The center is looking for positive solutions to the litigation crisis in America.

Policy positions

Law enforcement

The Manhattan Institute is perhaps best known for its influence on law enforcement methods. In particular, the Institute is widely credited with pioneering community policing methods and more specifically quality-of-life policing, also known as "broken windows theory" after the landmark 1982 Atlantic Monthly article "Broken Windows" by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. Broken Windows posits that dealing more effectively and comprehensively with low-level quality of life crime would reduce more high-profile violent crime. Broken Windows policing was put to its first major large-scale test in the mid-1990s after the election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor of New York City. Giuliani was an outspoken advocate of community policing, frequently citing the influence "Broken Windows" had on his thinking as mayor. Giuliani appointed Kelling’s intellectual collaborator William J. Bratton as New York City Police Commissioner in 1994, saying, "I chose Bill Bratton because he agreed with the Broken Windows theory."

A follow-up book by Kelling and Catherine Coles published by the Manhattan Institute in 1996 led to further interest in community policing methods, leading some municipalities to adopt quality-of-life and community policing as official policy. Giuliani-era New York City Police Commissioner Bratton took these methods to Los Angeles on being appointed Los Angeles Police Department chief of police. Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker has been lauded for his Broken Windows-based approach to crime since taking office in 2006.

Senior fellow Heather Mac Donald argues that crime prevention statistics from the 2008–2009 recession improved as a result of efficient policing, high incarceration rates, more police officers working, data-driven approaches such as CompStat which helps commanders target high-crime areas, and a policy of holding precinct commanders accountable for results. She contends the decline of American cities, beginning during the 1960s, was a result of crime "spiraling out of control".

However, the results of these policies resulted in infamous repercussions in New York City. Police arrests of nonviolent violators, particularly African-American males, led to a dramatic increase in the prison population. Incidents of police brutality were cited by a 1996 Amnesty International report, such as the beating of Abner Louima and the death of Amadou Diallo, whose body had 41 bullets fired at it. Furthermore, instances of First Amendment violations against street artists, sidewalk art vendors and performers rose dramatically, despite multiple court rulings that such groups were protects under the First Amendment and were not required to obtain a permit.

Welfare reform

The Manhattan Institute was one of the key institutions that pressed for reform of the welfare system in the mid-1990s. Charles Murray's Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980 (1984) argued that the welfare state had fostered a culture and cycle of dependency that was to the detriment of both welfare recipients and the United States as a whole. Critics have argued this type of argument is both targeted towards minority and low-income populations and the results fail to alleviate poverty or lift the populations out of their circumstances.

A 2009 Washington Post opinion piece written by Peter Edelman and Barbara Ehrenreich stated

When President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law, he didn't just end welfare as we knew it. For all practical purposes, it turned out, he brought an end to cash help of any kind for families with children in much of the country. While welfare reform was long ago declared a success in some quarters, it was deeply flawed from the beginning…ome advocates of welfare reform seemed to consider poverty a voluntary condition, one curable with a quick kick in the pants and the opportunity to work for minimum wage. There were not enough jobs even then, but, blinded by the economic boom of the 1990s, the authors of TANF seemed to think that the business cycle had been abolished and that prosperity would take us only onward and upward. In the rapidly expanding service economy of the 1990s, many former welfare recipients did find jobs, but most did not escape poverty, and a significant number were pushed off the rolls without finding work. Research showed that one in five former recipients ultimately became disconnected from any means of support: They no longer had welfare, but they didn't have jobs. They hadn't married or moved in with a partner or family, and they weren't getting disability benefits. And so, after a decline in the late 1990s, the number of people living in extreme poverty (with an income less than half the poverty line, or below about $9,100 for a family of three) shot up by more than a third, from 12.6 million in 2000 to 17.1 million in 2008.

Charter schools and vouchers

Former senior fellow Jay P. Greene’s research on school choice was cited four times in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, which affirmed the constitutionality of school vouchers.

Charter schools have been criticized by education and teaching groups based on a variety of reasons, including charges of trying to bust the historic teacher unions, diverting funds away from student populations in public schools in dire need of funds, and failing to maintain standards of learning, safety, and teaching environments. K12 Academics said the following

Critics feel that it is unacceptably difficult to enforce the provisions of the charter, which they say makes charter schools essentially accountable to no one. The basic concept of charter schools is that they exercise increased autonomy in return for this greater accountability. They are accountable for both academic results and fiscal practices to several groups, including the sponsor that grants them, the parents who choose them, and the public that funds them. Charter schools can theoretically be closed for failing to meet the terms set forth in their charter, but in practice, this can be difficult, divisive and controversial. One example was the 2003 revocation of the charter for a school called Urban Pioneer in the San Francisco Unified School District, which first came under scrutiny when two students died on a school wilderness outing. An auditor's report found that the school was in financial disarray and posted the lowest test scores of any school in the district except those serving entirely non-English-speakers. It was also accused of academic fraud, graduating students with far fewer than the required credits.

In 2011, the documentary The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman was released by a coalition of public school teachers, parents, students, and community activists in New York City. On the website it is stated that

A group of New York City public school teachers and parents from the Grassroots Education Movement wrote and produced this documentary in response to Davis Guggenheim’s highly misleading film, Waiting for “Superman.” Guggenheim’s film would have audiences believe that free-market competition, standardized tests, destroying teacher unions, and above all, the proliferation of charter schools are just what this country needs to create great schools. The film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman highlights the real life experiences of public school parents and educators to show how these so-called reforms are actually hurting education. The film talks about the kinds of real reform–inside schools and in society as a whole–that we urgently need to genuinely transform education in this country.

Medicare

The Institute's Center for Medical Progress opposes allowing the federal government to negotiate prices in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program and believes that drug price negotiating has adverse effects in the Veterans Administration.

Hydraulic fracturing

The Manhattan Institute is a proponent of the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) method of extracting natural gas and oil from underground deposits. Opponents have been critical of the method owing to concerns that the chemicals involved in it lead to water contamination. In response to calls to ban fracking in parts of New York, the Manhattan Institute released a report in 2011 projecting that allowing fracking could "inject over $11 billion into the state economy".

Criticism

RightWingWatch.org, a website run by People For the American Way, identifies the Manhattan Institute as the following

The organization has attacked minority-focused policies including affirmative action, civil rights initiatives, and immigrant support programs as obstacles to full social integration and to the benefits of the market system.

Former fellows of the institute include Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, a volume that argued there was a correlation between intelligence and ethnicity. Bob Herbert, writing for The New York Times, described the book as "a scabrous piece of racial pornography masquerading as serious scholarship."In his book The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America, Steven Fraser writes that "by scrutinizing the footnotes and bibliography in The Bell Curve, readers can more easily recognize the project for what it is: a chilly synthesis of the work of disreputable race theorists and eccentric eugenicists".

The Center for Race and Ethnicity, now phased out of existence, argued in favor of de-funding government programs that are predominantly beneficial for minority low income families and individuals such as Welfare, Food Stamps/Electronic Benefit Transfer, and Medicare, claiming that these programs act as barriers toward fostering a greater sense of individual responsibility and entrepreneurial spirit within minority communities.

Funding

The center receives funding and support Exxon Mobil, Chase Manhattan, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lilly Endowment, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Roe Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.

Events

The institute holds several annual events including

• The Wriston Lecture series
• William E. Simon Lectures on Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship
• The Hayek Prize and Lectures
• The Alexander Hamilton Award

People currently affiliated with the Manhattan Institute

• Brian C. Anderson, editor, City Journal
• Herman Badillo, senior fellow
• Theodore Dalrymple, contributing editor, City Journal
• Richard Epstein, visiting scholar
• Edward Glaeser, senior fellow and contributing editor, City Journal
• David Gratzer, senior fellow, Center for Medical Progress
• Peter W. Huber, senior fellow, Center for Medical Progress, Center for Legal Policy, Center for Energy Policy and the Environment
• Howard Husock, vice president, Policy Research
• Kay S. Hymowitz, senior fellow and contributing editor, City Journal
• George L. Kelling, adjunct fellow, Center for Civic Innovation
• Roger Kimball, Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
• Andrew Klavan, contributing editor, City Journal
• Bill Kristol, Board of Trustees member
• John Leo, senior fellow, Center for the American University
• Heather Mac Donald, senior fellow and contributing editor, City Journal
• Myron Magnet, editor-at-large, City Journal
• Steven Malanga, senior fellow and senior editor, City Journal
• James Manzi, senior fellow
• John McWhorter, senior fellow, Center for the American University
• Judy Miller, adjunct fellow and contributing editor, City Journal
• Fred Siegel, senior fellow, Center for Civic Innovation and contributing editor, City Journal
• Guy Sorman, contributing editor, City Journal
• Harry Stein, contributing editor, City Journal
• Sol Stein, senior fellow and contributing editor, City Journal
• Rick Baker, former mayor of St. Petersburg, FL
• Lester Brickman, visiting scholar
• Robert Bryce, senior fellow, Center for Energy Policy and the Environment
• Victor Davis Hanson, contributing editor, City Journal
• James Piereson, senior fellow, director, Center for the American University
• Luigi Zingales, contributing editor, City Journal

Funding sources

The Manhattan Institute does not disclose its corporate funding, but the Capital Research Center listed its contributors as Bristol-Myers Squibb, ExxonMobil, Chase Manhattan, Cigna, Sprint Nextel, Reliant Energy, Lincoln Financial Group Foundation, and Merrill Lynch. Throughout the 1990s the tobacco industry was a major funding source for the institute.

Foundations which have contributed over $1 million to the Manhattan Institute include John M. Olin Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Searle Freedom Trust, Smith Richardson Foundation, William E. Simon Foundation, the Koch-controlled Claude Lambe Foundation, the Gilder Foundation, Curry Foundation, and the Jaquelin Hume Foundation.

References

• Fred Kaplan, Conservatives plant a seed in NYC Boston Sunday Globe, Sunday February 22, 1998
• Janny Scott, "Turning Intellect Into Influence: Promoting Its Ideas, the Manhattan Institute Has Nudged New York Rightward", New York Times, Monday May 12, 1997
• Jennifer Medina, "A Reversal on School Vouchers, Then a Tempest", New York Times, Feb. 13, 2008.

Notes

1. "Charity Rating". Charity Navigator. Also see "Quickview data" (PDF). GuideStar. Total Revenue: $13,085,748; Total Expenses: $14,284,045
2. James G. McGann (Director) (February 4, 2015). "The Global Go To Think Tank Report, 2014". Retrieved February 24, 2015.
3. "Manhattan Center for Policy Research". Retrieved 13 November 2014.
4. "About Us". e21 - Economic Policies for the 21st Century. Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
5. "Center for the American Universities". Manhattan Institute. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
6. "Minding the Campus". Manhattan Institute. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
7. "Adam Smith Society at the Manhattan Institute". Manhattan Institute. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
8. "The VERITAS Fund for Higher Education Reform at DonorsTrust". Manhattan Institute. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
9. "Center for State and Local Leadership". Manhattan Institute. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
10. "Center for Legal Policy". Manhattan Institute. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
11. "http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983960-2,00.html
12. Blankstein, Andrew; Therolf, Garrett (2006-12-27). "L.A. crime decreases for 5th year – Los Angeles Times". Articles.latimes.com. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
13. "Los Angeles Police Chief Faces a Huge Challenge". Nytimes.com. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
14. Jacobs, Andrew (2007-05-27). "Newark Battles Murder and Its Accomplice, Silence". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
15. Steven Malanga (2007-04-26). "Cory Booker's Battle for Newark by Steven Malanga, City Journal Spring 2007". City-journal.org. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
16. A transcript of the weekend's program on FOX News channel – Paul Gigot, Heather Mac Donald (February 8, 2010). "Hey, Big Spender". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2010-11-04. Mac Donald: It is extraordinary. And I credit the spread, ultimately, of efficient policing and incarceration. But this is exactly the opposite of what criminologists were hoping for—really gleefully hoping for—that the crime drop began in the '90s nationally would finally reverse itself ... {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
17. Heather Mac Donald (July 15, 2008). "Cities You Can Believe In". Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-11-04. Many American cities began their decades-long decline in the 1960s, when crime started spiraling out of control. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
18. Giuliani Time. Dir. Kevin Keating. Perf. Rudy Giuliani, Wayne Barrett, David Dinkins. Cinema Libre Studio, 2005. DVD.
19. Institute articles on welfare
20. "Losing Ground by Charles Murray", Conservative Monitor
21. Peter Edelman and Barbara Ehrenreich -- Why welfare reform has failed. Washington Post Opinions. Sunday, December 6, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120402604.html
22. Miller, John (June 28, 2002). "What's Next for School Choice? Lots of possibilities, but also plenty of problems". National Review. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
23. http://www.k12academics.com/alternative-education/charter-school/criticism-charter-schools#.VOwMy0KG6bI
24. http://theinconvenienttruthbehindwaitingforsuperman.com/about/
25. One-Size-Fits-All Rules Will Hurt Drug Quality, Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2007
26. Older Drugs, Shorter Lives?: An Examination of the Health Effects of the Veterans Health Administration Formulary
27. Hargreaves, Steve (1 July 2011). "New York set to lift fracking ban". CNN Money. New York. Retrieved 5 July 2011. A report last week from the conservative Manhattan Institute said allowing drilling in New York could inject over $11 billion into the state economy in the years ahead.
28. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/manhattan-institute-policy-research
29. Herbert, Bob (1994-10-26). "In America; Throwing a Curve". The New York Times.
30. The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America Book by Steven Fraser; Basic Books, 1995. ISBN 0-465-00693-0.
31. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/manhattan-institute-policy-research
32. "Manhattan Institute for Policy Research". SourceWatch. 2011-08-11. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
33. "Top Supporters of Manhattan Institute for Policy Research". Conservative Transparency. American Bridge 21st Century Foundatio. Retrieved 19 August 2014.

External links

• Official site
• The Center for the American University
• Organizational Profile – National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute)
• Minding the Campus

40°45′15″N 73°58′39″W / 40.754275°N 73.97747°W / 40.754275; -73.97747

• Political and economic think tanks in the United States
• Organizations established in 1978
• Conservatism in the United States
• Universities and colleges accredited by the Council on Occupational Education