The Pioneer Fund was established in a 1937 with the goal of promoting “race betterment” — as in the white race — and it has long funded research that supports or could support a link between race and intelligence. So, in 2018, when mainstream science has debunked any such link, is the Pioneer Fund still a legitimate source of funding for an academic researcher?
More precisely, is it still a legitimate source of funding for Aurelio Figueredo, professor of psychology, family studies and human development at the University of Arizona? Figueredo is facing public and professional scrutiny following a recent Associated Press investigation that found he is the only scientific researcher still receiving funding from the Pioneer Fund: his grants reportedly accounted for all $90,000 of the Maryland-based nonprofit’s contributions reported to the Internal Revenue Service from 2014 to 2016. In all, Figueredo received a total of $458,000 from the Pioneer Fund from 2003 to 2016.
“It’s a foundation with an explicit agenda to prove that a biological hierarchy exists,” said Alexandra Minna Stern, chair in American culture and professor of history, women’s studies and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan, who is an expert in the eugenics movement. “So for any university with a mission that embraces the basic tenets of equality, meritocracy, producing democratic citizens and having a multiracial, diverse student body, the mission of the Pioneer Fund is antagonistic to those very values.”…