Campus centers that support traditional teaching about America’s founding will get a $2-million infusion from two organizations that have been instrumental in starting some of the centers. Most of the money will be used for centers that already exist, but some could be spent to create new ones.

The Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History and the Veritas Fund, which is part of the Manhattan Institute, plan to announce today that they will spend the money over three to four years to help the centers offer undergraduate courses, hire more postdoctoral fellows, and bring in outside lecturers.

About $1-million will go to three existing centers: the Program on Western Civilization and American Institutions at the University of Texas at Austin, the Program on Constitutional Democracy at the University of Virginia, and the Tocqueville Forum at Georgetown University.

“These are three flagship programs,” said James Piereson, chairman of the Veritas Fund, which is part of the Manhattan Institute’s Center for the American University.

Another $1-million will go to other existing centers or proposals for new ones, said Mr. Piereson. More than a dozen such centers already exist on American campuses. The centers have been controversial because their founders assert that campuses do not offer enough intellectual diversity and that a more traditional, conservative viewpoint should be added to the mix.

“The Constitution, American history, free institutions, liberty, and how these traditions were invented and evolved — these are neglected by the current academic trends that focus on race, gender, and class,” said Mr. Piereson. —Robin Wilson