These wealthy institutions are quietly financing white nationalism

[MelissaB]

These wealthy institutions are quietly financing white nationalism
Organizations that claim to serve the public good are enriching Robert Mercer.

... big snip

The business of hate

Neither Mercer’s involvement in Breitbart, nor his support for Yiannopoulos, nor charges of discrimination, have appeared to negatively impact his business. Renaissance Technologies now manages $45 billion in assets, up from $27 billion at the start 2016, according to Forbes. Outside investors pay a hefty fee for the privilege of accessing a Renaissance fund and a good deal of that money ultimately ends up in Mercer’s pocket.

The identity of Renaissance’s investors has largely remained secret. The company is not obligated to disclose their clients, who are generally required to invest at least $25 million. ThinkProgress, however, has been able to identify numerous investors in Renaissance by identifying institutions that, either voluntarily or by law, disclose how they invest their money. This includes reports from public pension plans, non-profit filings, and university endowment reports.

ThinkProgress identified 10 nonprofits, university endowments, and public retirement funds that currently invest in Renaissance Technologies funds, according to the latest available public report. We contacted all of them to confirm their investment and asked if they had any concerns about investing in funds run by Mercer, who is using the profits to fund Breitbart and Yiannopoulos. (Institutions that did not respond to our inquires could have divested their holdings since the last public accounting.)

Neither Robert Mercer nor a representative from Renaissance Technologies responded to requests for comment.

More: https://thinkprogress.org/these-wealthy-institutions-are-quietly-financing-white-nationalism-5313db89b185/

Included in the list:

The Public Schools Employee Retirement System of Missouri
Columbia University
Michigan State University
The Employee Retirement System of the City of Providence
Los Angeles Water & Power Employees Retirement Plan
National Academy of Sciences
Baltimore Fire and Police Employees’ Retirement System
The William Penn Foundation
American Physical Society
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation


It's time to make some phone calls.

[Initech]

1. Follow the money,

[BigmanPigman]

2. It looks like most of them would not respond

or could not be reached for comment. To me that means they are trying to hide while their PR department gets their stories straight.

[MelissaB]

3. They are probably embarrassed as hell.