Pioneer Fund

This article is about the eugenics fund. For the fund associated with figure-skating, education, and medicine, see Helen M. McLoraine. For the international talent fund, see Daniel Gross (software entrepreneur).
Pioneer Fund
FormationMarch 11, 1937
FounderWickliffe Preston Draper
TypeNonprofit foundation
Focus
HeadquartersNew York City, U.S.[1]
Director
Gerhard Meisenberg
Key people

The Pioneer Fund is an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences". The organization has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature.[2][3][4][5] The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the Pioneer Fund as a hate group.[6][7] One of its first projects was to fund the distribution in US churches and schools of Erbkrank, a Nazi propaganda film about eugenics.[8]

From 2002 until his death in October 2012, the Pioneer Fund was headed by psychology professor J. Philippe Rushton, who was succeeded by Richard Lynn.[9][10]

Two of the best known studies funded by Pioneer Fund are the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart[11] and the Texas Adoption Project, which studied the similarities and differences of identical twins and other children adopted into non-biological families.

Research backed by the fund on race and intelligence has generated controversy and criticism. One prominent example is the 1994 book The Bell Curve, which drew heavily from Pioneer-funded research.[12][13] The fund also has ties to eugenics,[14] and has both current and former links to white supremacist publications such as American Renaissance and Mankind Quarterly.

  1. ^ "Pioneer Fund". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
  2. ^ John P., Jackson Jr.; Winston, Andrew S. (October 7, 2020). "The Mythical Taboo on Race and Intelligence". Review of General Psychology. 25 (1): 3–26. doi:10.1177/1089268020953622. We refer to the five decades of careful, archival investigations documenting the involvement of psychologists and the Pioneer Fund with the campaign to overturn the Brown decision and preserve segregation, anti-immigration activism, and active involvement with neo-Nazi groups.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tucker2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Wroe, Andrew (2008). The Republican party and immigration politics: from Proposition 187 to George W. Bush. Springer. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-230-61108-5.
  5. ^ Falk, Avner (2008). Anti-semitism: a history and psychoanalysis of contemporary hatred. ABC-CLIO. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-313-35384-0.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Berlet was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mehler was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Saini, Angela (2019). Superior: The Return of Race Science. Beacon Press. p. 64. ISBN 9780807076910.
  9. ^ Beirich, Heidi. "Pioneer Fund Assets Divided; New Leadership Appointed". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved February 9, 2014.
  10. ^ Flaherty, Colleen (September 10, 2018). "Arizona psychologist faces scrutiny for grants from organization founded to support research in eugenics". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  11. ^ Segal, Nancy L. (2012). Born Together – Reared Apart. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-05546-9.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Lane, Charles (December 1, 1994). "The Tainted Sources of 'The Bell Curve'". The New York Review of Books.
  14. ^ Lombardo, Paul A. (2002). "'The American Breed': Nazi eugenics and the origins of the Pioneer Fund". Albany Law Rev. 65 (3): 743–830. PMID 11998853.
    Rushton, J. Philippe (2002). "The Pioneer Fund and the Scientific Study of Human Differences" (PDF). Albany Law Rev. 66: 209. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 27, 2013.
    Lombardo, Paul A. (2002). "Pioneer's Big Lie". Albany Law Rev. 66: 1125.
    Tucker, William H. (2002). "A Closer Look at the Pioneer Fund: Response to Rushton". Albany Law Rev. 66: 1145.