Speaking Out - Vining on Pioneer Fund The source of this document is Almanac. +quot;/penni

Speaking Out - Vining on Pioneer Fund

The source of this document is Almanac.
"/penninfo-srv.upenn.edu/9000/24982/info"

More on Pioneer Fund
====================

   I am gratified to learn from President Rodin (Almanac, February 
14, 1995, p. 7) that I am not personally under attack. But there are 
some loose ends that need to be cleaned up. Notice that President Rodin 
did not address herself to (1) The Nazi Connection, which started all 
this commotion in the first place, (2) the Ford Foundation, or, really, 
(3) the Pioneer Fund itself.

   I don't know much about Nazi Germany. The contents of The Nazi 
Connection will be addressed in a forthcoming book by Robert Gordon, a 
sociologist at Johns Hopkins University. But I do know a little bit 
about the present, which is the subject of The Nazi Connection's first 
chapter. Robert Gordon himself, discussed on pages 3, 8, 9, and 10 of 
The Nazi Connection, is Jewish. He is presumably sensitive to anti-
Semitism. This inconvenient fact is never mentioned in the book. Michael 
Levin, mentioned on page 8, is also Jewish. This fact is never mentioned 
in the book. Hans Eysenck, discussed on pages 5 and 10, was a refugee 
from Nazi Germany. That highly relevant biographical detail is never 
revealed to the reader.

   The Ford Foundation was discussed in my previous letter to Almanac
(Feb. 14, pp. 6-7). But it is even worse than I thought. This campus is 
awash in Ford funds. Our former president, Sheldon Hackney, received 
money from it (Wall Street Journal, January 27, 1995). The Ford 
Foundation not only funded the National Council of La Raza but may have 
even created it (La Raza: Ford Foundation Assistance to Mexican 
Americans, n.d.). This pamphlet helpfully tells us, "the term la 
raza...mean[s] the race." I think we should have a major investigation 
into Ford's activities here.

   As I told you before, the Pioneer Fund is worth about 3.5 million.
It is not "wealthy," contra Barry Mehler's assertion in Patterns of 
Prejudice, Vol. 23, No. 4, Winter 1989-90, p. 1. Five percent, which is 
a good rate of return, of 3.5 million is about $200,000. As any grantee 
will tell you, $200,000 is hardly enough to support a single person, let 
alone a cabal of neo-Nazis and racists named Gordon, Levin, Eysenck, 
Pearson, Lynn, Gottfredson, Rushton, Jensen, and Vining. Ford's 5 (or is 
it 6?) billion, on the other hand, could. It is sad to see the president 
and trustees of a great university go charging off after such a tiny 
foundation as Pioneer, when there is good reason to investigate a really 
big one, like Ford.

-Daniel R. Vining, Jr.,
Associate Professor, Population Studies Center