Weird Little Guys

A closer look at one of the men on the Pioneer Fund's team of scientists for segregation reveals that he wasn't a scientist at all.


Sources & Further Reading:

Tucker, William (2002). The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and The Pioneer Fund. University of Illinois Press.

Jackson, John P. Jr (2005). Science for Segregation: Race, Law, and the Case Against Brown v. Board of Education. New York University Press.

Sussman, Robert Wald (2014). The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. Harvard University Press.

Van den Haag, Ernest (1969). The Jewish Mystique. Stein and Day.

Ernest van den Haag, Academic Freedom and Tenure, 15 Pace L. Rev. 5 (1994)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.58948/2331-3528.1354
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plr/vol15/iss1/2

Chianese, Gloria (2006). Fascismo e lavoro a Napoli: Sindacato corporativo e antifascismo popolare (1930-1943).

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/538438703?objectPage=3

https://ilmanifesto.it/melamerson-una-coppia-in-fuga-a-vietri

https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/the-intellectual-portrait-series-a-conversation-with-ernest-van-den-haag

https://web.archive.org/web/20031010001427/http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/pioneer.htm

https://holidaycoast.it/en/Vietri-sul-Mare-and-Salerno%3A-highlights-on-designer-ceramics-with-Europe/

https://www.ilvescovado.it/it/storia-e-storie-19/verso-il-25-aprile-l-antifascismo-vietrese-105190/article

https://www.nytimes.com/1969/11/23/archives/the-jewish-mystique-by-ernest-van-den-haag-252-pp-new-york-stein.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/nyregion/e-van-den-haag-87-educator-and-backer-of-death-penalty.html

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/cultural-revolutions/ernest-van-den-haag-r-i-p/

https://vdare.com/articles/in-memoriam-ernest-van-den-haag

https://kirkcenter.org/essays/ernest-van-den-haag-19142002/

https://sousamendesfoundation.org/family/melamerson

https://archives.albany.edu/description/catalog/apap135

https://files.supersite.aruba.it/media/31058_cfca3f8a5fa8002f9ebf82670aba47c97078fb72.pdf

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, the DOJ's Civil Rights division announced they were moving to dismiss more than 50 desegregation cases against school districts all over the country. Like the weird little guys trying to overturn the Brown v Board of Education decision in the 1960s, the Trump administration is trying to take us all back to a version of America they think was great.

Sources & Further Reading:

Reardon, Sean & Grewal, Elena & Kalogrides, Demetra & Greenberg, Erica. (2012). Brown Fades: The End of Court-Ordered School Desegregation and the Resegregation of American Public Schools. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 31. 876-904. 10.2307/41653800.
https://selc.wordpress.ncsu.edu/files/2013/03/Brown-Fades.pdf

Wang G, White JS, Hamad R. The end of court-ordered desegregation and US children's health: quasi-experimental evidence. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2024 Nov 4;193(11):1530-1540. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwae082
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12096290/

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. (2007). Becoming less separate? School desegregation,
justice department enforcement, and the pursuit of unitary status. Washington, DC
https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/docs/092707_BecomingLessSeparateReport.pdf

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-ends-over-50-half-century-old-desegregation-cases-throughout-united

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-dismisses-half-century-old-louisiana-consent-decree

https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/communication/speech-march-washington-aug-28-1963

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/freedom-black-women-speak-march-washington-jobs-and-freedom

https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/jun/18

https://www.k-12legalinsights.com/2026/03/some-recent-motions-for-unitary-status-seem-to-be-facing-less-careful-scrutiny/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doj-seeking-to-end-school-desegregation-cases/

https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/why-are-schools-still-segregated/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/us/politics/justice-department-desegregation-cases.html

https://www.ed.gov/grants-and-programs/grants-birth-grade-12/school-and-community-improvement-grants/training-and-advisory-services-equity-assistance-centers

https://www.regulations.gov/document/ED-2026-OESE-0958-0001

https://www.justice.gov/crt
https://web.archive.org/web/20240301102317/https://www.justice.gov/crt

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/ex-employees-us-justice-department-blast-destruction-civil-rights-unit-2025-12-09/

https://redlinecivilrights.org/education/

https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/07/us-federal-court-ends-decades-long-school-desegregation-lawsuit-in-louisiana/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6105774/smith-v-concordia-parish/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14791822/boudreaux-v-st-mary-parish/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/5295676/thomas-v-st-martin-parish/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72066767/navy-v-sch-bd-of-st-mary-prsh/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the decade after the Supreme Court's ruling in the Brown v Board of Education case, segregationists used every tool available to prevent integration. By the early 1960s, a group of Pioneer Fund-backed scientists had teamed up with the lawyer they hoped could get their pseudoscientific argument against Brown in front of a judge.


Sources & Further Reading:

Tucker, William (2002). The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and The Pioneer Fund. University of Illinois Press.

Jackson, John P. Jr (2005). Science for Segregation: Race, Law, and the Case Against Brown v. Board of Education. New York University Press.

Sussman, Robert Wald (2014). The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. Harvard University Press.

Gould, Stephen Jay (1996). The Mismeasure of a Man. Penguin Books.

McMillen, Neil (1971). The Citizens’ Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-1964. University of Illinois Press

Reardon, Sean & Grewal, Elena & Kalogrides, Demetra & Greenberg, Erica. (2012). Brown Fades: The End of Court-Ordered School Desegregation and the Resegregation of American Public Schools. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 31. 876-904. 10.2307/41653800.
https://selc.wordpress.ncsu.edu/files/2013/03/Brown-Fades.pdf

Albert P . Blaustein & Andrew H. Field, "Overruling" Opinions in the Supreme Court , 57 MICH. L. REV. 151 (1958). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol57/iss2/2

Amy M. Gardner, Comment, "An Attempt to Intervene in the Confusion: Standing Requirements for Rule 24 Intervenors," 69 University of Chicago Law Review 681 (2002).
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5684&context=journal_articles

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/04/08/how-often-does-the-supreme-court-overturn-its-own-decisions/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wickliffe Draper's Pioneer Fund started out in 1937 by funding screenings of Nazi propaganda films in high schools. But like most American racists, the 1954 Supreme Court decision in the Brown v Board of Education case changed how he approached the fight for white supremacy.

Sources & Further Reading:

Tucker, William (2002). The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and The Pioneer Fund. University of Illinois Press.

Jackson, John P. Jr (2005). Science for Segregation: Race, Law, and the Case Against Brown v. Board of Education. New York University Press.

Sussman, Robert Wald (2014). The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. Harvard University Press.

McMillen, Neil (1971). The Citizens’ Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-1964. University of Illinois Press

Kevin M. Kruse, The Paradox of Massive Resistance: Political Conformity and Chaos in the Aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education, 48 St. Louis U. L.J. (2004).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol48/iss3/13

Thompson, Susan C. "Racial Injustice: A History of the Segregated School System in Jackson, Mississippi." Georgia State University, 2018. https://doi.org/10.57709/12100172

Sadler, Cynthia Jones, "Standing in the Shadows: African American Informants and Allies of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 268. https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/etd/268

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/how-integration-failed-in-jacksons-public-schools-from-1969-to-2017/

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/06/archives/antiintegrationad-seeks-teachers-aid.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1998/02/20/justice-department-lawyer-george-s-leonard-86-dies/238e9399-ef53-4983-9814-40b2250a2223/

https://ldfrecollection.org/content/archives/ba006941-a08b-4c85-b0d7-2f2e5ff00e85

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/21/archives/jackson-schools-end-segregation-43-negroes-sign-up-quietly-for.html

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/meridian-schools-no-longer-under-federal-supervision-stemming-from-1965-desegregation-lawsuit/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB929056013324992946

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/19/archives/mississippi-agency-channels-260000-to-antirighits-drive.html

https://da.mdah.ms.gov/sovcom/document/images/png/cd12/113717

https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/coordinating-committee-for-fundamental-american-freedoms/

https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/nativist-lobby-three-faces-intolerance/

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/eugenics-voter-id-laws-thomas-farrs-connections-pioneer-fund/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometimes when a weird little guy gets shot, the guy who killed him is just a weirder little guy.

Original Air Date: 9/18/2025

Sources:

Schmaltz, William H. (2000). Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's

Schmaltz, William H. (2013). For Race And Nation: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. River's Bend Press

Simonelli, Frederick J. (1999). American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Lee, Martin A. (1997). The Beast Reawakens. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Rosenthal, A. M.; Gelb, Arthur (1967). One More Victim: The Life and Death of an American-Jewish Nazi. New York: New American Library

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1937, the heir to a textile manufacturing fortune established a charitable foundation to funnel money into disseminating propaganda produced in Nazi Germany. Since then, that fund has subsidized the overwhelming majority of research in the pseudoscientific field of 'race science.'

Sources & Further Reading:

Tucker, William (2002). The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and The Pioneer Fund. University of Illinois Press.

Saini, Angela (2019). Superior: The Return of Race Science. Beacon Press.

Gould, Stephen Jay (1996). The Mismeasure of a Man. Penguin Books.

Lusane, Clarence (2003). Hitler’s Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi Era. Routledge.

Kühl, Stefan (1994). The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. Oxford University Press.

Barry Mehler, “The New Eugenics,” Science for the People (May/June 1983)

Lorimer, Frank, et al. “The Role of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population.” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 4, 1971, pp. 86–105. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3349466.

“Current Topics.” The Economic Journal, vol. 45, no. 178, 1935, pp. 406–09. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2224670.

“116. International Congress for the Scientific Investigation of Population Problems.” Man, vol. 35, 1935, pp. 109–109. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2790721.

“Medical News.” The British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 3890, 1935, pp. 192–93. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25344986.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1994/12/01/the-tainted-sources-of-the-bell-curve/

1994 publication of excerpt from The Bell Curve:
https://newrepublic.com/article/120887/race-genes-and-iq-new-republics-bell-curve-excerpt

Rebuttals published in the same issue:
https://newrepublic.com/article/120890/responses-new-republics-bell-curve-excerpt

Andrew Sullivan’s 2022 article
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/03/denying-genetics-isnt-shutting-down-racism-its-fueling-it.html

https://investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/race-science-inc/

https://x.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/business/media/im-still-reading-andrew-sullivan-but-i-cant-defend-him.html

https://www.ub.edu/personal/docencia/infocomp/bell.htm

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,748954-1,00.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1956/06/17/archives/dr-cg-campbell-88-expert-on-eugenic.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/136100c0

https://www.nytimes.com/1935/08/31/archives/berlin-congress-ends-in-dispute-international-and-scientific-nature.html

https://newrepublic.com/article/147960/charles-murray-marketing-genius

Herrnstein 1971 article in the atlantic
https://gwern.net/doc/iq/1971-herrnstein.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/16/obituaries/richard-herrnstein-64-dies-backed-nature-over-nurture.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20170324145730/http://www.intelligence.martinsewell.com/Gottfredson1997.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20200608195813/http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/eugenics2.html

https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/the-bell-curve/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2757926/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Natural Causes is a podcast about the politics and practicalities of going outside in a world on fire, hosted by Dr. James Stout. It approaches the outdoors, conservation, agriculture, food sovereignty, and Indigenous land rights as interconnected issues. We want to combine unflinching journalism with unabashed advocacy for the land we all share, and welcome everyone into the outdoors and the fight for our public lands. Our shared wild spaces are under threat like never before, from climate change, the Trump administration, and extractive capitalism. Now, more than ever, we need serious journalism and serious solidarity that engages people with the struggle to protect these spaces for generations to come. New episodes weekly.

Listen here and subscribe to Natural Causes on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1904, men who believed in 'race science' put hundreds of people in a human zoo at the St. Louis world's fair. Today, those same racist, pseudoscientific views persist, and the men who hold them demand to be taken seriously in the name of academic freedom.

Sources & Further Reading:

Newkirk, Pamela (2015). Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga. Amistad.

Saini, Angela (2019). Superior: The Return of Race Science. Beacon Press.

McCray, Carrie Allen (2012). Ota Benga Under My Mother’s Roof. University of South Carolina Press.

Gould, Stephen Jay (1996). The Mismeasure of a Man. Penguin Books.

Nathan Cofnas’ Doctoral Thesis: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bd78170f-1131-47ef-af8d-7a3bb2ef41d0

https://jannalangholz.wordpress.com/2022/12/26/17-worlds-fair-deaths/

https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/specimen-days-human-zoos-at-the-1904-worlds-fair/

https://web.archive.org/web/20070610034510/http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/Bontoc.html

https://ashp.cuny.edu/documentaries-list/savage-acts-wars-fairs-and-empire-1898-1904/#

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/how-i-became-the-scapegoat-in-the-jason-arday-affair-dc134088

https://investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/race-science-inc/

https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/2007046/ghent-university-under-fire-for-appointing-us-philosopher-with-ties-to-scientific-racism

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial-science/article/abs/reptiles-with-a-conscience-the-coevolution-of-religious-and-moral-doctrine-by-nathan-cofnas-pp-523-ulster-institute-for-social-research-press-london-2012-3000-isbn-9780956881151-paperback/4005A8AD3C5B21AC0A82A38D5D97BBF8

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/03/the-man-who-was-caged-in-a-zoo

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/nyregion/thecity/the-scandal-at-the-zoo.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cevmrjd9lj1o

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/06/harvard-claudine-gay-plagiarism

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/largest-human-zoo-world-history

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1994, Byron de la Beckwith was finally convicted of murder for killing Medgar Evers in 1963. He died in prison, his story is over. But history repeats itself.

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

DeLaughter, Bobby (2001). Never Too Late: A Prosecutor’s Story of Justice in the Medgar Evers Case. Scribner.

Mitchell, Jerry (2020). Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era. Simon & Schuster.

Vollers, Maryanne (1995). Ghosts of Mississippi. Little Brown & Company.

Newton, Michael (2010). The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. McFarland & Company, Inc.

Dittmer, John (1994). Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. University of Illinois Press.

Ball, Howard (2004). Murder in Mississippi. University Press of Kansas.

Snipe, Tracy (2021). The 5th Little Girl: Soul Survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, The Sarah Collins Rudolph Story. Africa World Press.

Doyle, William (2001). An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi 1962. Doubleday.

Nossiter, Adam (1994). Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/719/1345/1438234/

https://shadowproof.com/2018/03/07/documents-reveal-police-targeting-anti-racists-charlottesville/
https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/4404359-DHS-Bulletin-Aug-9/

https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2007/may/30/dredging-up-the-past-why-mississippians-must-tell/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/13/us-government-spied-anti-ice-protesters

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/us/politics/dhs-inquiry-immigration-protests-minnesota.html

https://abc7chicago.com/post/ice-minneapolis-news-agents-claim-alberto-castaeda-mondragn-hit-wall-shattered-skull-triggers-tension-hospital/18514566/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72504545/ge-v-immigration-and-customs-enforcement/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James talks with Molly Conger about the javelina and their installable appetite for golf courses.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65x0RvhJNa8 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/nov/05/conservation.sciencenews   

https://zoologicalbulletin.de/BzB_Volumes/Volume_56_1_2/049_054_BzB56_1_2_Moraves_Jiri_and_B%C3%B6hme_Wolfgang.pdf  

https://www.azgfd.com/wildlife-conservation/living-with-wildlife/living-with-javelina/  

https://content.civicplus.com/api/assets/8e8abbf4-6775-4575-9a10-fedacb7cb2c1 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.