Schools Find Ayn Rand Can’t Be Shrugged as Donors Build Courses

John Allison, former chairman of bank holding company BB&T Corp., admires author Ayn Rand so much that he devised a strategy to spread her laissez-faire principles on U.S. campuses. Allison, working through the BB&T Charitable Foundation, gives schools grants of as much as $2 million if they agree to create a course on capitalism and make Rand’s masterwork, “Atlas Shrugged,” required reading. Seth Lubove and Oliver Staley, Bloomberg Markets Magazine, May 5, 2011