Near the end of a 922-page plan for an ultra-conservative takeover of the federal government is a name that some Michigan State University students might find familiar.
Adam Candeub teaches several introductory courses in MSU's School of Law and is the director of its intellectual property, information and communications law program.
He also wrote the final chapter of Project 2025, a roadmap for major upheavals to the government if a Republican is elected president this November.
The project proposes radical changes to each federal agency in an attempt to "rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left," according to The Heritage Foundation , the conservative think tank behind the project.
It's taken heat in recent weeks for its aggressive stance on LGBTQ protections, immigration, climate change and access to abortion healthcare.
Democrats across the nation have condemned the plan, saying it's a glimpse of another Donald Trump presidency. Trump and some conservative groups have tried to distance themselves from the project.
President Joe Biden recently called it the "biggest attack on our system of government and on our personal freedom that's ever been proposed in the history of this country."
Candeub's chapter, which calls for changes to the Federal Trade Commission, has so far flown under the radar. As the more extreme portions of the project spark outrage, his comparatively mild proposals have been largely free from backlash or scrutiny.
But the professor himself hasn't escaped criticism.
Some university law students called it "demoralizing" to see Candeub's name attached to the project, arguing his work is at odds with university policies.
Candeub declined an interview for this story, saying he's received "hostile and threatening emails from strangers" and wanted to avoid subjecting himself to further scrutiny through the media.
"Given recent events, I think we all should act responsibly and try to lower the temperature," Candeub wrote.
Who is Adam Candeub?
Before starting as a professor at MSU in 2004, Candeub worked in various legal positions in Washington DC and San Diego. In 2020, he broke his two decade teaching streak to work as Deputy Associate Attorney General for the Trump Administration's Justice Department. He unsuccessfully ran for the Okemos School Board of Education in 2018.
While Candeub is known for his right-leaning beliefs, "he's not in your face about it," said a law school graduate who took Candeub's criminal law class their freshman year. The former student asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.
"He's been very open and willing" to have his ideas challenged, the former student said.
Torence Witherspoon, a law student who took Candeub's criminal law class in 2022, said that despite having personal disagreements with Candeub's political history, he thought Candeub was engaging and fair as a professor.
"He didn't make things more political than necessary," Witherspoon said.
Candueb is "certainly an interesting or quirky character in his teaching approach," Witherspoon added.
Online, some students praise Candeub for his edgy wit.
"Candeub is very sarcastic and has a somewhat dark sense of humor, but if you don't take everything he says to heart you will thoroughly enjoy the class," one student wrote on Rate My Professor.
"Snowflakes stay home," wrote another.
In recent years, Candeub has made comments that "you really can't say in class," said the former student.
"A couple times he has used inappropriate, or, you know, 'non-PC language,' as he would say," the former student said. "Overall, as a professor, I liked him. But I do know that his politics are kind of insane."
Candeub's chapter in Project 2025
Candeub, in his chapter for Project 2025, argued that corporations' attempts to address social and environmental concerns by curtailing services to controversial industries, like fossil fuel extraction and gun manufacturing, can amount to unfair trade practices.
He called for the Federal Trade Commission to set up a task force to investigate whether businesses are using those practices - called Economic, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives - as well as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives "as a means to meet targets, fix prices, or reduce output."
Borrowing from the ideas of economist Milton Friedman, Candeub argued that a business's priority should be increasing profits, not social advocacy.
"Business managers appropriate shareholder wealth when they use corporate resources to further their personal political beliefs, even when pursuing what they consider a 'socially responsible' or 'moral' agenda," he wrote. "The business of American business is business, not ideology."
But in recent years, ideology has become increasingly inseparable from profit, said Elizabeth Connors, an MSU finance professor who teaches classes on ESG.
She pointed to Tractor Supply Company, who recently reversed its commitment to DEI goals after backlash from conservative customers. Some employees left in protest of the decision.
"This argument that if you just manage the bucket of profits then you don't have to worry about anything else doesn't make sense," Connors said. "All of this impacts their ability to do business."
Candeub also advocated for the Federal Trade Commission to have a larger role in regulating the online privacy of children and contracts they sign with big social media companies.
He wrote that Attorneys General should become more involved in regulating large corporate mergers.
Pushback from students
A growing number of students and alumni are paying attention to Candeub's involvement in Project 2025.
A post on Redditpointing out the connection garnered hundreds of interactions in recent weeks. The most recent review on his Rate My Professor profile is a condemnation of his work. And some student groups have begun to discuss how Candeub's involvement in the project looks for the university.
Witherspoon said it's hypocritical for MSU to tout values of inclusion and progress while having first-year law classes "taught by a professor who has participated in a document that …does not feel that same way, and, in fact, advocates for policy that is antithetical to those goals."
Some members of MSU's Student Bar Association are considering drafting a resolution addressing Candeub's involvement in Project 2025, according to Witherspoon, who is president of the group. It is yet to be seen what it will call for or whether the association's members will vote to pass it, he said.
Witherspoon said the document's proposals were "seemingly created to disadvantage people who belong to marginalized communities, such as myself."
Sections of Project 2025 call for limiting LGBTQ non-discrimination protections, saying businesses should be run "according to their religious beliefs." It seeks to eliminate government programs and policies that advocate for transgender people, including reestablishing a Trump-era ban on transgender people in the military.
It proposes aggressive immigration enforcement, like sending active duty military personnel and the National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border.
It also advocates for further crackdown on DEI initiatives, abortion protections and climate change research.
"Project 2025 threatens to erode decades of progress in LGBTQ civil rights," Noah Martin, the executive director of MSU's Triangle Bar Association, said in a statement to The State News. The student organization provides support for LGBTQ members of MSU's law school.
Having an MSU professor openly involved in the project is "disheartening," Martin wrote on behalf of the organization's executive board.
"It is particularly demoralizing that a professor at our own university, who we pass in the hall and whose classes we may be required to take, would be involved in a project that seeks to directly remove so many of their students' civil rights," Martin said.
The backlash Candeub is facing is unique, seeing that he's the only current university professor listed as a contributor to the project.
"This is a classic example of professorial participation in political activities that has long been protected under most university academic freedom policies," Yale University law professor Keith Whittington said.
MSU's policies on academic freedom give staff "full freedom in research and in the publication of the results."
"In this case, the protection is all the more critical given that it relates to his scholarly expertise, but it is protected by the same principles that protected, for example, the professors at the University of Florida who served as expert witnesses in a lawsuit filed against the state of Florida or professors who expressed their opposition to Israel on social media or at political rallies this past year," Whittington said.
Expressing one's opinions is "the foundation of academia," Connors said.
"Academic freedom needs to be supported unless it's extremely egregious," she said. "People are entitled to their opinions."
Martin said that even though the Triangle Bar Association disapproves of Candeub's work, the group doesn't think he should face consequences for it "out of respect for the free speech and academic freedom principles of the First Amendment."
Candeub told Bridge Michigan earlier this month that criticism for Project 2025 comes from people "who are latching on to a few things" in the document.
"Read it," he said. "Make up your own mind."
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