Not long after “Who Is Carl Barney?” appeared on ARI Watch the leadership of the Ayn Rand Institute doubled down associating themselves with their most generous donor.  ARI’s Annual Report for 2017 featured, to the left of its table of contents, a photograph of Barney along with a statement by him saying that ARI is fighting the good fight, followed by the attribution “Carl Barney, ARI contributor since 1985, on why he’s been a major contributor since the beginning.”  In February 2018 ARI uploaded a video of a talk he had given at OCON 2016, titled – believe it or not – “The Objectivist Ethics Applied to Life and Business.”  At OCON 2018, on July 3rd he was part of the Entrepreneurship and Business Leadership Panel. [1]

By that time the leadership of ARI must have known Barney’s true history, a history rather different from what he pretended to have. Yaron Brook knows of ARI Watch because he mentioned it on one of his podcasts. Mentioned it without mentioning it you might say. While discussing Trump’s belligerent attitude toward media criticism Mr. Brook says that he himself never gets upset when people criticize him. Why just:

Mr. Brook is being a little narcissistic here. ARI Watch examines all of ARI’s output not just Mr. Brook’s, but because he is ARI’s spokesman he does get a lot of ink. He seems to think that a website dedicated to reviewing ARI is reprehensible and that being meticulous is a defect.

Perhaps he pines for the good old days when there was no Internet. Imagine what ARI would be getting away with today if the Internet did not exist. True, they use it to spread their lies and fallacies but at least you can talk back to them on webpages they don’t themselves control.

Another reason the leadership of ARI knows the truth about Barney is that Yaron Brook and most of the others are active on Twitter and they have received dozens of tweets about Barney along with a link to ARI Watch. The tweets, which the recipients suffer in silence, point out that Carl Barney was a Scientologist for at least 12 years and a top executive in the Church of Scientology for nine of them, during which he ran five Church missions. And he didn’t leave on his own, L. Ron Hubbard kicked him out for alleged financial improprieties. The tweets also point out that Barney’s current success and wealth depend on the poorly managed federal student loan program; the federal government is the source of 90% of his tuition revenue, which money he gets to keep even if a loan goes into default. The tweets point out that Barney’s switch to a nonprofit was a way to continue getting federal subsidies after a change in the law. That he lied to Patricia Cohen of the New York Times in her May 2016 interview. That Yaron Brook has no business giving lectures on integrity when he allows Barney on the board of the “Ayn Rand Institute” and when he in turn is on the board of Carl Barney’s “Center for Excellence in Higher Education.” [Update]

Finally, Andrew Bernstein, who was a member of ARI for many years, has stated that he had known of Barney’s Church of Scientology connection for “30 years.” Considering the date he was writing, that was since about 1990. [3]  Wouldn’t he have told others at ARI?

Either (1) ARI is ignorant of Carl Barney’s deceit about his past and of his current questionable business practices, or (2) ARI knew about these things all along but believed no one else did.  In either case, now – after the exposé here on ARI Watch – they know, and they know that you know.  You would expect a public explanation from them.

Set aside Barney’s cargo cult colleges for the moment and focus on his past. Why does the Ayn Rand Institute continue to associate itself with Carl Barney though aware of his long and extensive work for L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology?

Followers of ARI who hoped to find out when Yaron Brook answered a question about Scientology during his podcast of 26 April 2018 were sorely disappointed. He never mentioned Barney, at least not out loud. He begins by reading the question: [4]

Mr. Brook continues with the second part of the question:

That concludes Mr. Brook’s answer, about as shallow an analysis as is possible. He himself doesn’t think too deeply about the world.

The important thing to observe is that Mr. Brook completely ignores the elephant in the ARI boardroom, Carl Barney. But Barney must have been in the background of Mr. Brook’s thoughts because, as we argued, Mr. Brook must know about Barney’s Church of Scientology past. Given this opportunity to speak about it on his radio show, why didn’t he ?

In a way perhaps he did. The purpose of Mr. Brook’s whitewash of Scientology might have been to excuse Carl Barney. The next time Mr. Brook opens himself up to uncensored questions, questions that he cannot choose himself, in a forum where the audience can respond with another question, ask him about Carl Barney. Ask Mr. Brook about Barney misrepresenting his past, about the complaints against his business practices both in lawsuits and from students on college review websites. Ask Mr. Brook what he was doing on the boards of Barney’s Center for Excellence in Higher Education and CollegeAmerica (one word).

Likewise for Barney. The next time he speaks of Objectivist ethics applied to life and business ask him about his past association with the Scientology racket. Ask him how he got the money to invest in real estate and then colleges. Ask him if his CEHE enrolls homeless bums so long as they can get a federal guaranteed loan.

UPDATE:  That was then, when Barney was ARI’s largest donor. Now, when Barney no longer donates to ARI, Mr. Brook has modified his views.  On his podcast of 24 October 2020, when again asked about Scientology it has inexplicably changed: [7]