How The Morrill Act Gave Birth to Public Ownership of Private Intellectual Property in the USA.

How the "New England Idea" gave way to "the Communist Idea'

Justine Morrill/ Mathew Brady [Public domain]

I wrote this several years ago, Given the incoming administration's plan to axe the Department of Education, this is a good time to share it.

This post tells of the constitutional arguments surrounding the Morrill Act which established federal land grant colleges, including the University of Maine. The post follows the University's history up to the present including the University policy establishing itself as owner of the intellectual property rights of any project using the University-owned and tax-payer-funded facilities. The post is dated and so does not include the recent student strike to form a labor union to negotiate with the University for worker rights.

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Justin Morrill was a Vermont Whig and a self-made man who ended his formal education at age 15, made his success in the retail business, and retired at age 38. Thereafter Morrill entered politics t…