URBANA — Tea party or Occupy Wall Street — where do your sympathies lie and why?

A symposium exploring the historical roots and current relevance of the both movements is planned for this afternoon (Wednesday, Nov. 16) on campus.

The event, "Popular Discontent and Demonstrations In Troubled Times," is being sponsored by the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government, a Champaign-based nonprofit that supports the University of Illinois Foundation by funding debates and forums, scholarships, study-abroad and other programs on the UI campus.

The event will be from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in room 314A on the third floor on the north side of the Illini Union. It's free and open to the public.

Professor Steve Davies of the Institute for Economic Affairs in London will offer a historical overview of the tea party movement, with his talk, "Understanding the Tea Party: A Tradition in American Politics." He will be followed by Professors Eric Hadley-Ives of the University of Illinois at Springfield and Jeff Scott of the UI's Urbana campus, who will talk about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Students from the UI's Civic Leadership Program, a co-sponsor of the event, will ask questions. Audience members also will be invited to ask questions of the speakers.

"Whether you blame excessive big government as the tea praters do, or excessive corporate greed as the occupiers do, both point toward a basic corruption and cronyism in American society and governance," said Matthew Brown, president and chief executive officer of the academy.

Wednesday's event will be the fifth annual symposium for the group, which began several years ago with the aim of promoting and advancing research and teaching at the UI about free markets, entrepreneurship, individual rights, individual responsibility and limited government.

"We're a supporting organization of the U of I Foundation. That means we're a public charity, but we have a mission designed to support the mission of U of I Foundation," Brown said. The UI Foundation is the fundraising arm of the university.

Originally proposed by its founders to be a unit within the university, the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government and the UI went their somewhat separate ways following a number of questions about shared governance and academic freedom raised by faculty. Among the concerns: a fear of "mission creep," in which donors move from supporting scholarship to dictating it.

Instead of remaining within the UI, the group formed its own nonprofit foundation, but it remains close to the university with an office on Green Street and supporting a number of campus programs.

Most recently the faculty-student senate drafted guidelines on unit mission statements on campus, highlighting the need for such statements but also recognizing that units should not be organized around advancing specific views.

Mission statements, the senate's committee wrote, "that presuppose the unquestioned superiority of particular theories, doctrines or 'isms' or are based on assertions that prejudge or restrict the outcomes of free academic market inquiry are inconsistent" with the principles — free inquiry, open debate and institutional intellectual integrity — to which the UI is committed.

The group has given about $150,000 in financial support to the university so far this year. It has paid for a debate on the Illinois budget situation, student scholarships, visiting scholars and study abroad programs.

The Internal Revenue Service recognized the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government in 2009. Brown was hired as its first full-time employee last year. He is still the only employee.