Pioneer Fund
Encyclopedia
The Pioneer Fund is an American
non-profit foundation
established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences." Currently headed by psychology professor J. Philippe Rushton
, the fund states that it focuses on projects it perceives will not be easily funded due to controversial subject matter. The organization is frequently described as racist and "white supremacist" in nature.
Two of the most notable studies funded by the Pioneer Fund are the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart and the Texas Adoption Project, which studied the similarities and differences of identical twins and other children adopted into non-biological families. The Pioneer Fund has also been an important source of funding for research on the partly genetic hypothesis of IQ variation among races
.
The fund's grantees and publications have generated controversy since the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve
, which drew heavily from Pioneer-funded research. The fund has also been criticized for its ties to eugenics
. The Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC), a civil rights advocacy organization, has characterized the Pioneer Fund as a hate group
due to its history and association and funding of organizations and persons it perceived to be racist.
The 1937 incorporation documents of the Pioneer Fund list two purposes. The first, modeled on the Nazi Lebensborn
breeding program, was aimed at encouraging the propagation of those "descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States
and/or from related stocks, or to classes of children, the majority of whom are deemed to be so descended". Its second purpose was to support academic research and the "dissemination of information, into the 'problem of heredity and eugenics and "the problems of race betterment". The Pioneer Fund argues the "race betterment" has always referred to the "human race" referred to earlier in the sentence, and critics argue it referred to racial groups. The document was amended in 1985 and the phrase changed to "human race betterment."
The Pioneer Fund supported the distribution of a eugenics film titled Erbkrank
("Hereditary Defective" or "Hereditary Illness") which was published by the pre-war 1930s Nazi Party. William Draper obtained the film from the predecessor to the Nazi Office of Racial Policy
(Rassenpolitisches Amt) prior to the founding of the Pioneer Fund. According to the Pioneer Fund site, all founders capable of doing so participated in the war against the Nazis.
Draper secretly met Dr. C. Nash Herndon of Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University
in 1949. Little is known about their meetings, but Herndon was playing a major role in the expansion of the compulsory sterilization
program in North Carolina
.
In the 1950s and 1960s Draper supported two government committees that gave grants for both anti-immigration and genetics research. The committee members included Representative Francis E. Walter
(chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee
and head of the Draper Immigration Committee), Henry E. Garrett (an educator known for his belief in the genetic inferiority of blacks), and Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi, head of the Draper Genetics Committee.
Subsequent directors included:
hypothesis of racial IQ
disparity have received grants of varying sizes from the Pioneer Fund. Large grantees, in order of amount received, are:
Other notable recipients of funding include:
(FAIR) a total of $1.3 million between 1985 and 1994. Among the grants was $150,000 for 'studies in connection with immigration policies'. Funding was dropped after negative publicity during the campaign for California's Proposition 187
linked the Pioneer Fund to ads purchased by FAIR. Other immigration reduction
groups that have received donations from the Pioneer Fund include ProjectUSA
, Californians for Population Stabilization, and American Immigration Control Foundation
.
A grantee is the paleoconservative
and white nationalist journalist Jared Taylor
, the editor of American Renaissance
and a member the advisory board of the white nationalist publication the Occidental Quarterly
. Another is Roger Pearson
's Institute for the Study of Man. Many of the key academic white nationalists in both Right Now! and American Renaissance have been funded by the Pioneer Fund, which was also directly involved in funding the parent organization of American Renaissance, the New Century Foundation
.
, and historian Barry Mehler
and his Institute for the Study of Academic Racism
.
The Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC), a nonprofit organization, lists the Pioneer Fund as a hate group
, citing the fund's history, its funding of race and intelligence research, and its connections with racist individuals. They also state: "Race science has potentially frightening consequences, as is evident not only from the horrors of Nazi Germany, but also from the troubled racial history of the United States. If white supremacist groups had their way, the United States would return to its dark days. In publication after publication, hate groups are using this "science" to legitimize racial hatred. In Calling Our Nation, the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations
publishes a piece by a New York psychologist surveying the work of Jensen, Garrett and numerous others. National Vanguard
, the publication of former physics professor William Pierce
(see The Alliance and its Allies) and his neo-Nazi National Alliance
, runs a similar piece that concludes that "it is the Negro's deficiency ... which kept him in a state of savagery in his African environment and is now undermining the civilization of a racially mixed America."
The Center for New Community, a human rights advocacy organization, mentioned the Pioneer Fund in an article on their website. They characterize the Pioneer Fund as "a white supremacist foundation that specializes in funding 'science' dedicated to demonstrating white intellectual and moral superiority." They draw particular attention to Rushton's theories about differences between races as evidence of the racial slant which they claim accompanies much of the research which is backed by the Fund.
In accord with the tax regulations governing nonprofit corporations, Pioneer does not fund individuals; under the law only other nonprofit organizations are appropriate grantees. As a consequence, many of the fund's awards go not to the researchers themselves but to the universities that employ them, a standard procedure for supporting work by academically based scientists. In addition to these awards to the universities where its grantees are based, Pioneer has made a number of grants to other nonprofit organizations, corporations Tucker feel have been created to channel resources to a particular academic recipient while circumventing the institution where the researcher is employed.
In 2002, William H. Tucker criticized the Pioneer's grant-funding techniques:
Rushton, the current head, has spoken at conferences of the American Renaissance
(AR) magazine, in which he has also published articles. Anti-racist Searchlight Magazine described one such AR conference as a "veritable 'who's who' of American white supremacy
."
Steven J. Rosenthal has described the fund as a: "A Nazi endowment specializing in production of justifications for eugenics since 1937, the Pioneer Fund is embedded in a network of right-wing foundations, think tanks, religious fundamentalists, and global anti-Communist coalitions".
has defended his acceptance of money from the fund, writing "If you can find me some rich villains that want to contribute to my research—Qaddafi
, the Mafia
, whoever—the worse they are, the better I'll like it. I'm doing a social good by taking their money... Any money of theirs that I spend in a legitimate and honorable way, they can't spend in a dishonorable way".
Science writer Morton Hunt received Pioneer funding for his book and wrote: "One could spend hundreds of pages on the pros and cons of the case of the Pioneer Fund, but what matters to me—and should matter to my readers—is that I have been totally free to research and write as I chose. I alerted Pioneer to my political views when making the grant proposal for this book but its directors never blinked."
In a review of Richard Lynn's book on the Pioneer Fund, psychologist Ulrich Neisser, a prominent critic of race-based research, writes: "All things considered, I doubt that the Pioneer Fund's political activities have made much difference one way or the other. The world would have been much the same without them. On the other hand, Lynn reminds us that Pioneer has sometimes sponsored useful research – research that otherwise might not have been done at all. By that reckoning, I would give it a weak plus."
Charles Murray
defended the use of studies supported by the fund in his book The Bell Curve
by saying: "Never mind that the relationship between the founder of the Pioneer Fund and today's Pioneer Fund is roughly analogous to the relationship between Henry Ford
's antisemitism and today's Ford Foundation
. The charges have been made, they have wide currency, and some people will always believe that The Bell Curve rests on data concocted by neo-Nazi eugenicists."
Researchers who have been criticized for accepting grants from the fund have argued that the public debates have been disconnected from the expert debates. Robert A. Gordon
, for example, replied to media criticisms of grant-recipients: "Politically correct disinformation about science appears to spread like wildfire among literary intellectuals and other nonspecialists, who have few disciplinary constraints on what they say about science and about particular scientists and on what they allow themselves to believe."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
non-profit foundation
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences." Currently headed by psychology professor J. Philippe Rushton
J. Philippe Rushton
Jean Philippe Rushton is a Canadian psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario who is most widely known for his work on racial group differences, such as research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and the application of r/K selection theory to humans in his book Race,...
, the fund states that it focuses on projects it perceives will not be easily funded due to controversial subject matter. The organization is frequently described as racist and "white supremacist" in nature.
Two of the most notable studies funded by the Pioneer Fund are the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart and the Texas Adoption Project, which studied the similarities and differences of identical twins and other children adopted into non-biological families. The Pioneer Fund has also been an important source of funding for research on the partly genetic hypothesis of IQ variation among races
Race and intelligence
The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of intelligence testing in the early 20th century...
.
The fund's grantees and publications have generated controversy since the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve
The Bell Curve
The Bell Curve is a best-selling and controversial 1994 book by the Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray...
, which drew heavily from Pioneer-funded research. The fund has also been criticized for its ties to eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
. The Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
(SPLC), a civil rights advocacy organization, has characterized the Pioneer Fund as a hate group
Hate group
A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society...
due to its history and association and funding of organizations and persons it perceived to be racist.
Early history
The Pioneer Fund was incorporated on March 11, 1937. The first five directors were:- Wickliffe Preston Draper, heir to a large fortune and the fund's de facto final authority, served on the Board of Directors from 1937 until 1972. He founded the Pioneer Fund after having acquired an interest in the Eugenics movement which was strengthened by his 1935 visit to Nazi Germany where he met with the leading eugenicists of the Third Reich who used the inspiration from the American movement as a basis for the Nuremberg LawsNuremberg LawsThe Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
. He served in the British army at the beginning of WWI transferring to the US Army as the Americans entered the war, in WWII he was stationed as an intelligence officer in India. Psychology professor and Pioneer Fund critic William H. TuckerWilliam H. TuckerWilliam H. Tucker is a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and the author of several books critical of race science.Tucker received his bachelor's degree from Bates College in 1967, and his master's and doctorate from Princeton University...
, however, describes Draper as someone who "aside from his brief periods of military service ... never pursued a profession or held a job of any kind." According to a 1960 article in The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, an unnamed geneticist said Draper told him he "wished to prove simply that Negroes were inferior." Draper funded advocacy of repatriation of blacks to Africa. Draper also made large financial contributions to efforts to oppose the American civil rights movement and the racial desegregationDesegregationDesegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
mandated by Brown v. Board of EducationBrown v. Board of EducationBrown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...
, such as $215,000 to the Mississippi State Sovereignty CommissionMississippi State Sovereignty CommissionThe Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was a state agency directed by the governor of Mississippi that existed from 1956 to 1977, also known as the Sov-Com...
in 1963. - Harry Laughlin was the director of the Eugenics Record OfficeEugenics Record OfficeThe Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States was a center for eugenics and human heredity research in the first half of the twentieth century. Both its founder, Charles Benedict Davenport, and its director, Harry H...
at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York, funded by the Carnegie Institute of Washington. He served as the president of the Pioneer Fund from its inception until 1941. He was one of the eugenics movement's most energetic legislative activists. He worried about miscegenationMiscegenationMiscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
and had proposed a research agenda to assist in the enforcement of Southern "race integrity laws" by developing techniques for identifying the "pass-for-white" person who might "successfully hide all of his black blood". He singled out Jews as a group "slow to assimilate," a problem related to his doubts that their loyalty was directed primarily to "American institutions and people" rather than to "Jews scattered through other nations." Eleven months after the Nuremberg LawsNuremberg LawsThe Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
, Laughlin wrote to an official at the University of Heidelberg, which had awarded him an honorary doctorate, arguing that the United States and the Third Reich shared "a common understanding of ... the practical application" of eugenic principles to "racial endowments and ... racial health." - Frederick OsbornFrederick OsbornMajor General Frederick Henry Osborn was an American philanthropist, military leader, and eugenicist. He was a founder of several organizations, and played a central part in reorienting eugenics in the years following World War II away from the race- and class-consciousness from earlier periods...
wrote in 1937 that the Nazi Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased OffspringLaw for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased OffspringLaw for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring or "Sterilization Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, which allowed the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who in the opinion of a "Genetic Health Court" Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring...
was "the most exciting experiment that had ever been tried". Osborn was the secretary of the American Eugenics SocietyAmerican Eugenics SocietyThe American Eugenics Society was a society established in 1922 to promote eugenics in the United States.It was the result of the Second International Conference on Eugenics . The founders included Madison Grant, Harry H. Laughlin, Irving Fisher, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Henry Crampton...
, which was part of an accepted and active field at the time, the Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Selective Service during World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and later the Deputy U.S. Representative to the U.N. Atomic Energy CommissionUnited Nations Atomic Energy CommissionThe United Nations Atomic Energy Commission was founded on 24 January 1946 by Resolution 1 of the United Nations General Assembly "to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy."...
. - Malcolm DonaldMalcolm DonaldMalcolm Donald was an American lawyer and a founder of the Pioneer Fund.He graduated Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was an editor of Harvard Law Review. He worked at Boston law firms Gaston Snow and Herrick, Smith, & Donald. He served in the War Department during World War I...
was the Draper family lawyer, trustee of the Draper estate. He was a former editor of the Harvard Law ReviewHarvard Law ReviewThe Harvard Law Review is a journal of legal scholarship published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School.-Overview:According to the 2008 Journal Citation Reports, the Review is the most cited law review and has the second-highest impact factor in the category "law" after the...
and a brigadier generalBrigadier GeneralBrigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
during World War II. - John Marshall Harlan IIJohn Marshall Harlan IIJohn Marshall Harlan was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1955 to 1971. His namesake was his grandfather John Marshall Harlan, another associate justice who served from 1877 to 1911.Harlan was a student at Upper Canada College and Appleby College and...
. Harlan's firm had done legal work for the Pioneer Fund. He was the only director whose name did not appear on the incorporation papers. He was director of operational analysis for the Eighth Air ForceEighth Air ForceThe Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana....
in World War II, and was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United StatesSupreme Court of the United StatesThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
by President Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. EisenhowerDwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
. During his confirmation process, he voiced support for the decision in Brown v. Board of EducationBrown v. Board of EducationBrown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...
, but on the bench limited civil rights in Swain v. AlabamaSwain v. AlabamaSwain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 , was a case heard before the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the legality of a struck jury....
and dissented on Miranda v. ArizonaMiranda v. ArizonaMiranda v. Arizona, , was a landmark 5–4 decision of the United States Supreme Court. The Court held that both inculpatory and exculpatory statements made in response to interrogation by a defendant in police custody will be admissible at trial only if the prosecution can show that the defendant...
.
The 1937 incorporation documents of the Pioneer Fund list two purposes. The first, modeled on the Nazi Lebensborn
Lebensborn
Lebensborn was a Nazi programme set up by SS leader Heinrich Himmler that provided maternity homes and financial assistance to the wives of SS members and to unmarried mothers, and also ran orphanages and relocation programmes for children.Initially set up in Germany in 1935, Lebensborn expanded...
breeding program, was aimed at encouraging the propagation of those "descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
and/or from related stocks, or to classes of children, the majority of whom are deemed to be so descended". Its second purpose was to support academic research and the "dissemination of information, into the 'problem of heredity and eugenics and "the problems of race betterment". The Pioneer Fund argues the "race betterment" has always referred to the "human race" referred to earlier in the sentence, and critics argue it referred to racial groups. The document was amended in 1985 and the phrase changed to "human race betterment."
The Pioneer Fund supported the distribution of a eugenics film titled Erbkrank
Erbkrank
Erbkrank is a 1936 Nazi propaganda film.Directed by Herbert Gerdes, it was one of six propagandistic movies produced by the "NSDAP, Reichsleitung, Rassenpolitisches Amt" or the Office of Racial Policy, from 1935 to 1937 to demonize people in Germany diagnosed with mental illness and mental...
("Hereditary Defective" or "Hereditary Illness") which was published by the pre-war 1930s Nazi Party. William Draper obtained the film from the predecessor to the Nazi Office of Racial Policy
Office of Racial Policy
The NSDAP Office of Racial Policy was a Nazi Party office created in 1933 for "unifying and supervising all indoctrination and propaganda work in the field of population and racial politics"...
(Rassenpolitisches Amt) prior to the founding of the Pioneer Fund. According to the Pioneer Fund site, all founders capable of doing so participated in the war against the Nazis.
Draper secretly met Dr. C. Nash Herndon of Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational university in the U.S. state of North Carolina, founded in 1834. The university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, is...
in 1949. Little is known about their meetings, but Herndon was playing a major role in the expansion of the compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization also known as forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization...
program in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
.
In the 1950s and 1960s Draper supported two government committees that gave grants for both anti-immigration and genetics research. The committee members included Representative Francis E. Walter
Francis E. Walter
Francis Eugene Walter was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.-Biography:...
(chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
and head of the Draper Immigration Committee), Henry E. Garrett (an educator known for his belief in the genetic inferiority of blacks), and Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi, head of the Draper Genetics Committee.
Subsequent directors included:
- John M. Woolsey, Jr., a staff attorney at the Nuremberg TrialsNuremberg TrialsThe Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
- Henry E. Garrett (1972–1973), the former president of the American Psychological AssociationAmerican Psychological AssociationThe American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
- James P. Kranz, Jr. (1948)
- Henry Rice GuildHenry Rice GuildHenry Rice Guild was an American lawyer and director of the Pioneer Fund .According to the Pioneer Fund biography, he was a Lieutenant in the United States Navy in World War I. He graduated Harvard College and Harvard Law School...
(1948–1974) - Charles Codman CabotCharles Codman CabotCharles Codman Cabot was an American judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.-Early life:Cabot was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father was Henry Bromfield Cabot, a lawyer. His mother was Anna McMasters Codman Cabot. He had five siblings: Henry Bromfield Cabot Jr. , Powell Mason Cabot...
(1950–1973) - Harry F. Weyher, Jr. (1958–2002)
- John B. Trevor, Jr. (1959–2000)
- John F. Walsh, Jr. (1971–1973)
- Marion A. ParrottMarion A. ParrottMarion Arendell Parrott was an American lawyer.-Early years and wartime activities:Marion Arendell Parrott was the second son of William Thomas and Jeanette Johnson Parrott from Kinston, North Carolina, and a first cousin to George Parrott...
(1973–2000) - Thomas F. EllisThomas F. EllisThomas F. Ellis is an American lawyer and political activist involved in numerous conservative causes. His network of interests were described as "a multimillion dollar political empire of corporations, foundations, political action committees and ad hoc groups" active in the 1980s and developed by...
(1973–1977) - Eugenie Mary Ladenburg DavieEugenie Mary Ladenburg DavieEugenie Mary "May" Ladenburg Davie was a noted Republican activist in New York and a director of the controversial Pioneer Fund at the end of her life. She was second wife to influential lawyer Preston Davie.-Political activism:...
(Mrs. Preston) (1974–1975) - Randolph L. SpeightRandolph L. SpeightRandolph L. Speight was an American jurist and director of the Pioneer Fund.He was a partner at Shearson Hamill. He also worked at Brown, Harris, Stevens. A resident of Smith's Parish, Bermuda after retirement, he died suddenly in Mexico.-External links:**...
(1975–1999) - William Dawes MillerWilliam Dawes MillerWilliam Dawes Miller was an American engineer. He was also a director of the Pioneer Fund and President of the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan....
(1983–1993) - Karl SchakelKarl SchakelKarl Schakel was an American engineer and rancher. He was also a director of the Pioneer Fund.Schakel graduated from Purdue University and was later a founder of a weapons systems and aeronautical engineering company. Later he was founder of a ranching-farming company operating in 12 countries on...
(1993–2002) - Edwin D. MorganEdwin D. Morgan (businessman)Edwin D. "Eddie" Morgan was an American businessman and director of the Pioneer Fund from 2000-2001.Morgan served with the 1st Marine Division in Guadalcanal, New Guinea, New Britain and Peleliu...
(2000–2001) - R. Travis OsborneR. Travis OsborneRobert Travis Osborne is a professor emeritus of psychology at University of Georgia.He began at University of Georgia in 1946 and was appointed Director of the University's Counseling and Testing Center in 1947. He was interested in psychometrics and counseling...
(2000–present) - John Philippe Rushton (2002–present)
- Michelle Weyher (2002–present)
- Richard LynnRichard LynnRichard Lynn is a British Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Ulster who is known for his views on racial and ethnic differences. Lynn argues that there are hereditary differences in intelligence based on race and sex....
(2002–present)
Scientific research
Many of the researchers whose findings support the hereditarianHereditarianism
Hereditarianism is the doctrine or school of thought that heredity plays a significant role in determining human nature and character traits, such as intelligence and personality. Hereditarians believe in the power of genetics to explain human character traits and solve human social and political...
hypothesis of racial IQ
Race and intelligence
The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of intelligence testing in the early 20th century...
disparity have received grants of varying sizes from the Pioneer Fund. Large grantees, in order of amount received, are:
- Thomas J. Bouchard at the University of Minnesota. As compiled in 1997, the recipient of the largest amount of funding ($2.3 million USD) was Thomas J. Bouchard's landmark twin studyTwin studyTwin studies help disentangle the relative importance of environmental and genetic influences on individual traits and behaviors. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics and related fields...
, the Minnesota Study of Identical Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA), better known as the Minnesota Twins Project. The Minnesota Twins Project compared identical and fraternal twins who had been brought up in different families. - Arthur JensenArthur JensenArthur Robert Jensen is a Professor Emeritus of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen is known for his work in psychometrics and differential psychology, which is concerned with how and why individuals differ behaviorally from one another.He is a major proponent...
at the Institute for the Study of Educational Differences. - J. Philippe RushtonJ. Philippe RushtonJean Philippe Rushton is a Canadian psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario who is most widely known for his work on racial group differences, such as research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and the application of r/K selection theory to humans in his book Race,...
at the University of Western Ontario is the current head of the fund since 2002. In 1999, Rushton used some of his grant money from the Pioneer fund to send out tens of thousands of copies of an abridged version of his book Race, Evolution and Behavior to social scientists in anthropology, psychology, and sociology, causing a controversy. The book describes Rushton's differential K theory. Tax records from 2000 show that his Charles Darwin Institute received $473,835—73% of that year's grants.http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=83 - Roger PearsonRoger PearsonRoger Pearson is a British anthropologist, conservationist, eugenics advocate, founder of the Neo Nazi organization Northern League, and publisher of several journals.-Life and work:...
at the Institute for the Study of Man. Eugenicist and anthropologist, founder of the Journal of Indo-European StudiesJournal of Indo-European StudiesThe Journal of Indo-European Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal of Indo-European studies, founded in 1973 by Roger Pearson. It publishes papers in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, mythology and philology relating to the cultural history of the Indo-European speaking peoples. The...
, received over a million dollars in grants in the eighties and the nineties. Using the pseudonym of Stephan Langton, Pearson was the editor of The New Patriot, a short-lived magazine published in 1966–67 to conduct "a responsible but penetrating inquiry into every aspect of the Jewish QuestionJewish QuestionThe Jewish question encompasses the issues and resolutions surrounding the historically unequal civil, legal and national statuses between minority Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jews, particularly in Europe. The first issues discussed and debated by societies, politicians and writers in western and...
," which included articles such as "Zionists and the Plot Against South Africa," "Early Jews and the Rise of Jewish Money Power," and "Swindlers of the Crematoria.". The Northern LeagueNorthern League (neo-Nazi)The Northern League was a neo-Nazi organization most active in Britain in the latter half of the 20th century.Roger Pearson formed the Northern League in collaboration with Peter Huxley-Blythe, who was active in a variety of neo-Nazi groups with connections in Germany and North America The Northern...
, an organization founded in England in 1958 by Pearson, supported Nazi ideologies and included former members of the Nazi Party. - Richard LynnRichard LynnRichard Lynn is a British Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Ulster who is known for his views on racial and ethnic differences. Lynn argues that there are hereditary differences in intelligence based on race and sex....
at Ulster Institute for Social Research (also on Mankind Quarterly editorial board) - Linda GottfredsonLinda GottfredsonLinda Susanne Gottfredson is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Delaware and co-director of the Delaware-Johns Hopkins Project for the Study of Intelligence and Society. Gottfredson's work has been influential in shaping U.S...
at the University of Delaware.
Other notable recipients of funding include:
- Hans EysenckHans EysenckHans Jürgen Eysenck was a German-British psychologist who spent most of his career in Britain, best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, though he worked in a wide range of areas...
, the most-cited living psychologist at the time of his death (1997) - Lloyd HumphreysLloyd HumphreysLloyd G. Humphreys was a differential psychologist and methodologist who focused on assessing individual differences in human behavior....
- Joseph M. HornJoseph M. HornJoseph M. Horn is an American psychology professor known for his work on adoption studies.Horn received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and currently teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include intelligence and personality and their development,...
- Robert A. GordonRobert A. GordonRobert A. Gordon is an American sociologist best known for his work on intelligence, criminality, and race.Born in New York City, he served in the United States Army from 1955-1957. Gordon earned his B.A. from the College of the City of New York in 1957, then attended the University of Chicago,...
- Garrett HardinGarrett HardinGarrett James Hardin was an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of overpopulation and whose concept of the tragedy of the commons brought attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment"...
, author of the phrase the "tragedy of the commonsTragedy of the commonsThe tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...
" - R. Travis OsborneR. Travis OsborneRobert Travis Osborne is a professor emeritus of psychology at University of Georgia.He began at University of Georgia in 1946 and was appointed Director of the University's Counseling and Testing Center in 1947. He was interested in psychometrics and counseling...
- Audrey M. ShueyAudrey M. ShueyDr. Audrey M. Shuey was the Chairman of the Department of Psychology at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. Dr. Shuey took her B.A. at the University of Illinois, her M.A. at Wellesley, and her Ph.D. at Columbia...
- Philip A. VernonPhilip A. VernonPhilip Anthony Vernon is a psychology professor and intelligence researcher. Vernon is currently one of two editors-in-chief of the scientific journal Personality and Individual Differences and sits on the editorial board of Intelligence and the board of directors of the International Society for...
- William ShockleyWilliam ShockleyWilliam Bradford Shockley Jr. was an American physicist and inventor. Along with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s...
, winner of the Nobel prizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in physicsPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
in 1956, received a series of grants in the 1970s. Shockley became famous in his later career for supporting the controversial genetic hypothesis of race and intelligenceRace and intelligenceThe connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of intelligence testing in the early 20th century...
research and for being a proponent of eugenicsEugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
.
Political and legal funding
The Fund gave the Federation for American Immigration ReformFederation for American Immigration Reform
The Federation for American Immigration Reform is a non-profit tax exempt educational organization in the United States that advocates changes in U.S. immigration policy that would result in significant reductions in immigration, both legal and illegal...
(FAIR) a total of $1.3 million between 1985 and 1994. Among the grants was $150,000 for 'studies in connection with immigration policies'. Funding was dropped after negative publicity during the campaign for California's Proposition 187
California Proposition 187 (1994)
California Proposition 187 was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal aliens from using health care, public education, and other social services in the U.S. State of California...
linked the Pioneer Fund to ads purchased by FAIR. Other immigration reduction
Immigration reduction
Immigration reduction refers to a movement in the United States that advocates a reduction in the amount of immigration allowed into the country. Steps advocated for reducing the numbers of immigrants include advocating stronger action to prevent illegal entry and illegal immigration, and...
groups that have received donations from the Pioneer Fund include ProjectUSA
ProjectUSA
ProjectUSA is an immigration reduction political advocacy group. According to the group's website, it is "a nonprofit social advocacy group based in Washington, DC and dedicated to raising public debate about the important issue of mass immigration...
, Californians for Population Stabilization, and American Immigration Control Foundation
American Immigration Control Foundation
American Immigration Control Foundation is an American political group devoted to reducing "uncontrolled immigration." It is a large publisher and distributor of publications dealing with America’s immigration crisis...
.
A grantee is the paleoconservative
Paleoconservatism
Paleoconservatism is a term for a conservative political philosophy found primarily in the United States stressing tradition, limited government, civil society, anti-colonialism, anti-corporatism and anti-federalism, along with religious, regional, national and Western identity. Chilton...
and white nationalist journalist Jared Taylor
Jared Taylor
Samuel Jared Taylor of Oakton, Virginia, is an American journalist and an advocate of what he describes as "racial realism", a philosophy that views race as a biological reality and advocates the separateness of racial groups as the key of a well functioning society...
, the editor of American Renaissance
American Renaissance (magazine)
-Cancellation of 2010, 2011 conferences:In February 2010, following protests to hotel management of several hotels, which Jared Taylor claimed included some death threats, American Renaissance's biennial conference was canceled...
and a member the advisory board of the white nationalist publication the Occidental Quarterly
Occidental Quarterly
The Occidental Quarterly is a journal "devoted to the ethnic,racial, and cultural heritage that forms the foundation of Western Civilization"...
. Another is Roger Pearson
Roger Pearson
Roger Pearson is a British anthropologist, conservationist, eugenics advocate, founder of the Neo Nazi organization Northern League, and publisher of several journals.-Life and work:...
's Institute for the Study of Man. Many of the key academic white nationalists in both Right Now! and American Renaissance have been funded by the Pioneer Fund, which was also directly involved in funding the parent organization of American Renaissance, the New Century Foundation
New Century Foundation
The New Century Foundation is nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to study immigration and race relations. From 1994 to 1999 its activities received considerable funding by the Pioneer Fund., and has been described as a white supremacist group....
.
Criticism
The Pioneer Fund was described by the London Sunday Telegraph (March 12, 1989) as a "neo-Nazi organization closely integrated with the far right in American politics." It has also been criticized by some scientists and journalists, and in various peer-reviewed academic articles. Critics of the fund include the SPLC, professor of psychology William H. TuckerWilliam H. Tucker
William H. Tucker is a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and the author of several books critical of race science.Tucker received his bachelor's degree from Bates College in 1967, and his master's and doctorate from Princeton University...
, and historian Barry Mehler
Barry Mehler
Barry Alan Mehler is a Jewish-American professor of humanities at Ferris State University who founded the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism . He earned his B.A. from Yeshiva University in 1970, his M.A. from City College of New York in 1972, and his Ph.D. from University of Illinois at...
and his Institute for the Study of Academic Racism
Institute for the Study of Academic Racism
The Institute for the Study of Academic Racism is an organization that monitors "changing intellectual trends in academic racism, biological determinism, and eugenics." ISAR states that in this capacity it "acts as a resource service for students, academics, journalists, legislators and civil...
.
The Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
(SPLC), a nonprofit organization, lists the Pioneer Fund as a hate group
Hate group
A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society...
, citing the fund's history, its funding of race and intelligence research, and its connections with racist individuals. They also state: "Race science has potentially frightening consequences, as is evident not only from the horrors of Nazi Germany, but also from the troubled racial history of the United States. If white supremacist groups had their way, the United States would return to its dark days. In publication after publication, hate groups are using this "science" to legitimize racial hatred. In Calling Our Nation, the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations
Aryan Nations
Aryan Nations is a white supremacist religious organization originally based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Richard Girnt Butler founded the group in the 1970s, as an arm of the Christian Identity organization Church of Jesus Christ–Christian...
publishes a piece by a New York psychologist surveying the work of Jensen, Garrett and numerous others. National Vanguard
National Vanguard
National Vanguard refers to three entities:*National Vanguard *National Vanguard *National Vanguard...
, the publication of former physics professor William Pierce
William Pierce
William Pierce may refer to:*William Pierce , Continental Congressman from Georgia*William G. Pierce , engineer, Republican candidate for Senate from Ohio in 2006...
(see The Alliance and its Allies) and his neo-Nazi National Alliance
National Alliance
The National Alliance is a white separatist political organization. It was founded by University physics teacher Dr. William Luther Pierce in 1974, and is based in the Pierce family's compound in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Although it operates primarily in the United States, the National Alliance...
, runs a similar piece that concludes that "it is the Negro's deficiency ... which kept him in a state of savagery in his African environment and is now undermining the civilization of a racially mixed America."
The Center for New Community, a human rights advocacy organization, mentioned the Pioneer Fund in an article on their website. They characterize the Pioneer Fund as "a white supremacist foundation that specializes in funding 'science' dedicated to demonstrating white intellectual and moral superiority." They draw particular attention to Rushton's theories about differences between races as evidence of the racial slant which they claim accompanies much of the research which is backed by the Fund.
In accord with the tax regulations governing nonprofit corporations, Pioneer does not fund individuals; under the law only other nonprofit organizations are appropriate grantees. As a consequence, many of the fund's awards go not to the researchers themselves but to the universities that employ them, a standard procedure for supporting work by academically based scientists. In addition to these awards to the universities where its grantees are based, Pioneer has made a number of grants to other nonprofit organizations, corporations Tucker feel have been created to channel resources to a particular academic recipient while circumventing the institution where the researcher is employed.
In 2002, William H. Tucker criticized the Pioneer's grant-funding techniques:
Pioneer's administrative procedures are as unusual as its charter. Although the fund typically gives away more than half a million dollars per year, there is no application form or set of guidelines. Instead, according to Weyher, an applicant merely submits "a letter containing a brief description of the nature of the research and the amount of the grant requested." There is no requirement for peer review of any kind; Pioneer's board of directors—two attorneys, two engineers, and an investment broker—decides, sometimes within a day, whether a particular research proposal merits funding. Once the grant has been made, there is no requirement for an interim or final report or even for an acknowledgment by a grantee that Pioneer has been the source of support, all atypical practices in comparison to other organizations that support scientific research.
Rushton, the current head, has spoken at conferences of the American Renaissance
American Renaissance (magazine)
-Cancellation of 2010, 2011 conferences:In February 2010, following protests to hotel management of several hotels, which Jared Taylor claimed included some death threats, American Renaissance's biennial conference was canceled...
(AR) magazine, in which he has also published articles. Anti-racist Searchlight Magazine described one such AR conference as a "veritable 'who's who' of American white supremacy
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
."
Steven J. Rosenthal has described the fund as a: "A Nazi endowment specializing in production of justifications for eugenics since 1937, the Pioneer Fund is embedded in a network of right-wing foundations, think tanks, religious fundamentalists, and global anti-Communist coalitions".
Responses to criticisms
Behavioral geneticist David T. LykkenDavid T. Lykken
David Thoreson Lykken was a behavioral geneticist and Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota...
has defended his acceptance of money from the fund, writing "If you can find me some rich villains that want to contribute to my research—Qaddafi
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
, the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, whoever—the worse they are, the better I'll like it. I'm doing a social good by taking their money... Any money of theirs that I spend in a legitimate and honorable way, they can't spend in a dishonorable way".
Science writer Morton Hunt received Pioneer funding for his book and wrote: "One could spend hundreds of pages on the pros and cons of the case of the Pioneer Fund, but what matters to me—and should matter to my readers—is that I have been totally free to research and write as I chose. I alerted Pioneer to my political views when making the grant proposal for this book but its directors never blinked."
In a review of Richard Lynn's book on the Pioneer Fund, psychologist Ulrich Neisser, a prominent critic of race-based research, writes: "All things considered, I doubt that the Pioneer Fund's political activities have made much difference one way or the other. The world would have been much the same without them. On the other hand, Lynn reminds us that Pioneer has sometimes sponsored useful research – research that otherwise might not have been done at all. By that reckoning, I would give it a weak plus."
Charles Murray
Charles Murray
Charles Murray is the name of:*Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore *Charles Augustus Murray , British author diplomat*Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore *Charles James Murray , British politician...
defended the use of studies supported by the fund in his book The Bell Curve
The Bell Curve
The Bell Curve is a best-selling and controversial 1994 book by the Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray...
by saying: "Never mind that the relationship between the founder of the Pioneer Fund and today's Pioneer Fund is roughly analogous to the relationship between Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
's antisemitism and today's Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
. The charges have been made, they have wide currency, and some people will always believe that The Bell Curve rests on data concocted by neo-Nazi eugenicists."
Researchers who have been criticized for accepting grants from the fund have argued that the public debates have been disconnected from the expert debates. Robert A. Gordon
Robert A. Gordon
Robert A. Gordon is an American sociologist best known for his work on intelligence, criminality, and race.Born in New York City, he served in the United States Army from 1955-1957. Gordon earned his B.A. from the College of the City of New York in 1957, then attended the University of Chicago,...
, for example, replied to media criticisms of grant-recipients: "Politically correct disinformation about science appears to spread like wildfire among literary intellectuals and other nonspecialists, who have few disciplinary constraints on what they say about science and about particular scientists and on what they allow themselves to believe."
See also
- Nature versus nurtureNature versus nurtureThe nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities versus personal experiences The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences...
- Intelligence quotient#Practical importance
- Intelligence quotient#Genetics vs environment
External links
- The Pioneer Fund Official website
- "Big Brother in Delaware", National ReviewNational ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
, Thomas Short (1991)
Opinion pieces
- The New York Times: Fund Backs Controversial Study of "Racial Betterment [12/11/77]
- "Racial Scientist Rushton Takes Over Pioneer Fund" by David Lethbridge. The Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies, January 2003.
- NY Review of Books: 'The Bell Curve' and its Sources
- Eugenics, racism, and conservative ideology (pt. 1)
- The Bell Curve and the Pioneer Fund A special report by ABC World News Tonight. November 22, 1994 (Criticized by Gordon 1997 above)
- "Weird Science" Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Post-Gazette, January 30, 2005.
Scholarly studies
- Pioneer Fund readings from the Institute for the Study of Academic RacismInstitute for the Study of Academic RacismThe Institute for the Study of Academic Racism is an organization that monitors "changing intellectual trends in academic racism, biological determinism, and eugenics." ISAR states that in this capacity it "acts as a resource service for students, academics, journalists, legislators and civil...
- The Funding of Scientific Racism Online book