Chapman University

Higher Education Institution

The Or Initiative

In February 2025, Chapman University announced a new civil discourse program called the “Or Initiative.” According to this Chapman news article from September 2025, “The [Or] initiative will equip young people with tools to navigate contentious issues—especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and related U.S. antisemitism—through evidence-based, innovative approaches.” Following this same theme, the initiative’s winter 2026 report states, without citing evidence, that after Oct. 7, 2023, there was “a sharp surge in antisemitism from extremists on both the political right and left.” The five listed funders on the initiative website include four billionaires and one centimillionaire—all of whom have invested heavily in pro-Israel advocacy groups (see “Notable funders,” below).

Notable People

Vikki Katz

Founding director of the Or Initiative

Vikki Katz is the Fletcher Jones Foundation Endowed Chair in Free Speech at Chapman. The Fletcher Jones Foundation has also funded conservative/libertarian think tanks, including the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (an advisory board member to the far-right “Project 2025”), Institute for Humane Studies (a libertarian group closely tied to Charles Koch), and the Hoover Institution (see Stanford University entry).

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

Guest speaker in November 2025

Alkhatib is founder of “Realign for Palestine” (RFP), a project housed within the Atlantic Council, whose Israel Project calls for “strengthening bilateral US-Israel relations across the full range of military, intelligence, and diplomatic issues.” Alkhatib strongly opposes the BDS movement and similar efforts that are favored by other Palestinian solidarity groups. He has also described some supporters of the Israel boycott as “BDS cultists.”

Simon Cullen

Guest speaker in February 2026

Cullen is the co-creator of the controversial AI civil discourse program, “Sway.” Refer to the “Disagree Wisely” entry for details on Cullen and his collaborator, Nicholas DiBella, along with the conservative and pro-Israel funders that have supported their work.

See also: Disagree Wisely.

Notable Funders

Samueli Foundation

$1.85 million (2025)

Founded by billionaires Henry and Susan Samueli. The Samuelis’ Giving Pledge statement explicitly notes their interest in “supporting the state of Israel” and they are major donors to Zionist organizations like Birthright Israel, American Israel Education Foundation (an affiliate of AIPAC), American Friends of LIBI (which supports the Israel Defense Forces), and Israel on Campus Coalition (which the Center for Constitutional Rights describes as an organization that “coordinates anti-Palestinian advocacy groups”). For reference, see their tax filings for 2024, 2023, and 2022.

Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation

$150,000 (2024)

Established by billionaire Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank. The Blank Foundation has supported a number of pro-Israel and Zionist organizations, including Birthright Israel and the Anti-Defamation League. For reference, see the Blank Foundation’s tax filings for 2024, 2023, and 2022.

Covenant Foundation

Amount not identified; funding relationship documented here

Founded by billionaire Susan Crown, via funds from Crown Family Foundation, a major donor to the staunchly anti-BDS Jewish United Fund (which Palestine Legal has described as “a group with a documented history of funding anti-Muslim hate groups”). Similarly, Covenant Foundation makes grants to multiple Israel advocacy organizations such as OpenDor Media (an organization with documented ties to the far-right Clarion Project, which SPLC has described as an “anti-Muslim” group). For reference, see Crown Family Foundation’s tax filings for 2025 and Covenant’s tax filings for 2025 and 2024.

Einhorn Collaborative

Amount not identified; funding relationship documented here

Founded by hedge fund billionaire David Einhorn, a former Cornell trustee. In a November 2023 op-ed for The Cornell Daily Sun, Einhorn urged Cornell to subject certain pro-Palestinian protest speech—particularly “From the river to the sea,” which he characterized as “antisemitic” and “eliminationist”—to the university’s discrimination and harassment policies, and argued that Cornell should act on complaints to “disincentivize” such speech. David Einhorn is the son of climate change skeptic Stephen Einhorn, who was a member of the advisory council for Turning Point USA as of April 2026. Stephen and his wife Nancy Einhorn also make large donations to the right-wing Bradley Impact Fund. According to a report by The Grio and One Wisconsin Now, Stephen and Nancy were accused of involvement in voter-suppression campaigns in Wisconsin during the election cycles of 2010 and 2012. (They denied any wrongdoing.) David Einhorn’s 2007 book is dedicated to his parents and describes how they furnished more than half of the funds with which he launched his hedge fund. (In June 2026, a representative for Einhorn Collaborative told The Guardian: “Einhorn Collaborative and the Einhorn Family Foundation are separate entities that hold different missions and opinions. A lot of our work is recognizing that people can have different opinions and to be able to respectfully disagree.”) For reference, see Einhorn Collaborative (established by David Einhorn) tax filings for 2024, 2023, and 2022; separately, see Einhorn Family Foundation (established by Stephen and Nancy Einhorn) tax filings for 2025, 2024, and 2023.

The Diane & Guilford Glazer Foundation

Amount not identified; funding relationship documented here

Founded by the late Guilford Glazer and his wife, Diane Glazer. The foundation has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Israel advocacy organizations such as Birthright Israel, Israel Policy Forum (which has been accused of platforming anti-Palestinian views and downplaying the deaths of Palestinian civilians), and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (which was spun off from AIPAC). For reference, see the Glazer Foundation’s tax filings for 2024, 2023, and 2022.

Partnerships

Disagree Wisely (“Sway”)

Chapman’s Or Initiative hosts a collaboration called “Civil Discourse Accelerator” with Simon Cullen’s Disagree Wisely (“Sway”). Refer to the Disagree Wisely entry for details about the organization's leadership and funders.

Campus Policy Context

In May 2024, Chapman Students for Justice in Palestine established a Gaza solidarity encampment and demanded that the university divest from companies supporting Israel, disclose its investments, and call for a ceasefire. After two weeks, SJP agreed to dismantle the encampment in exchange for an opportunity to present a formal divestment proposal to the Board of Trustees’ Investment Committee. On September 10, 2024, students presented the proposal; the next day Chapman announced that the committee had “declined to divest from its investments,” citing its fiduciary responsibility and the need to make investment decisions based on risk and return.

After the encampment, Chapman revised its campus-use rules to prohibit encampments and restrict amplified sound. In spring 2025, the university used the amplified-sound policy to discipline five students who had participated in a March protest over the university’s DEI office and protections for immigrant students, prompting faculty and students to accuse the administration of selectively enforcing its protest rules. Asked about the disciplinary action, a Chapman spokesperson told Voice of OC that the university welcomed diverse viewpoints and supported peaceful protest: “We encourage and nurture civil discourse.”

In August 2026, Chapman introduced a new face-covering policy requiring campus demonstrators (and all individuals accessing Chapman property) to comply with requests to “temporarily remove or lower face coverings for identification purposes.” (Demonstrator face-covering restrictions have been promoted by conservative and right-wing groups such as ACTA, The Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and the Trump administration, as well as Israel advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League; by contrast, representatives of the ACLU and its New York chapter have argued that peaceful protesters may wear masks as protection from surveillance and doxxing—and similar concerns about restrictions on protesters’ use of masks have been raised by the U.N. Human Rights Committee, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.)