Stopping Juvenile Detention: the Eugene and Agnes Meyer Foundation
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Stopping Juvenile Detention: The Eugene and Agnes Meyer Foundation The real legacy of the Washington Post By Kevin Mooney Summary: For seven decades, a founda- tion created with money from the Washing- ton Post’s owners has been trying to help push America further to port. You have probably never heard of it, but it continues to exercise signifi cant infl uence in Ameri- ca’s capital city and beyond. reated in 1944, the low-profi le Eu- gene and Agnes E. Meyer Founda- Ction may not be as large and prolifi c as the Tides Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, or the Ford Foundation, but it funds the same garden-variety left-leaning causes. While it rarely attracts media cover- age, the Meyer Foundation has been cutting a larger fi gure for itself in recent years. Based in the nation’s capital, it concentrates its ef- forts on “improving the lives of low-income people in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region.” Agnes Meyer wrote a six-part report in the Washington Post in 1945 that celebrated Saul Alinsky’s activism in the Chicago slums. So, just how infl uential is the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation? Its small size area real estate developer who founded the belies some high-level connections. Former Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund; Antoi- November 2013 board members include Attorney General nette Cook Bush, executive vice president of Eric Holder, who is making every effort to Fox News’ parent News Corp.; Ginger Lew, CONTENTS take down voter identifi cation laws across former member of President Obama’s White the country while refusing to investigate House National Economic Council (no rela- ACORN and its affi liated and successor tion to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew); fi nan- organizations. Meyer Foundation cier William Dunbar; Barbara J. Krumsiek, Page 1 CEO of Calvert Investments Inc.; James J. The Meyer Foundation’s board of directors is Sandman, president of Legal Services Corp., jam-packed with Washington power players. Philanthropy Notes the single largest funder of civil legal aid for Page 6 Among them are Joshua Bernstein, a D.C.- poor people in the U.S.; Barbara Lang, CEO FoundationWatch of the DC Chamber of Commerce; and Robert whose lawsuits have hurt America’s ability to The foundation’s mission statement is philan- G. Templin Jr., president, Northern Virginia defend itself from terrorist groups. Michael’s thropic boilerplate. According to its website, Community College. sister is PBS commentator turned Fox News the foundation’s mission is to identify and analyst Ellen Ratner. invest “in visionary leaders and effective The family of board member Deborah Ratner community-based nonprofi t organizations Salzberg is connected with some powerful Julie L. Rogers, the Meyer Foundation’s that are working to create lasting improve- Democrats, including President Obama. Rat- CEO for the past 27 years, intends to retire ments in the lives of low-income people in ner family members are big contributors to in June 2014. In mid-October 2013 the the Washington, DC metropolitan region, and the Democratic Party and the president. They foundation announced that its board’s search … strengthen the region’s nonprofi t sector operate Forest City Enterprises, a vast real and transition committee had chosen the as a vital and respected partner in meeting community needs.” estate company based in Cleveland, Ohio. McCormick Group to manage the search Deborah is the daughter of co-chairman for a successor. Radical Roots Albert Ratner. She runs Forest City’s Wash- The Meyer Foundation may behave like a ington, D.C. offi ce. Bruce Ratner, who is a Rogers is a pillar of the left-of-center phil- run-of-the-mill liberal philanthropy, but it has cousin to Albert Ratner, runs the company’s anthropic establishment. From 2002 to some radical roots and occasionally dabbles New York City subsidiary. 2008, she served on the board of the Council in radical causes. Co-benefactor Agnes E. on Foundations. She also served on the Meyer, the wife of former Washington Post Bruce Ratner bought off local opposition, boards of the Foundation Center, Venture publisher Eugene Meyer and great grand- Philanthropy Partners, and the Forum of including the New York branch of ACORN, mother to the current publisher, Katharine Regional Associations of Grantmakers. to make way for the Atlantic Yards Project in Weymouth, was attracted to the radicalism Her biography on the Meyer website boasts Brooklyn. The massive 22-acre residential of Saul Alinsky, the community organizing that she’s received a multitude of awards, and retail complex includes a stadium for guru and author of Rules for Radicals. including Washingtonian magazine’s “Power the Brooklyn Nets basketball team. 100” and “Washingtonian of the Year.” She Lost in history, but available in archives was named one of Washington Business Another of Albert Ratner’s cousins, Michael of the Washington Post, is a six-part report Journal’s “Women Who Mean Business,” Ratner, is president emeritus of the radical written by Mrs. Meyer and published in and Washingtonian recognized her as one Center for Constitutional Rights, a Green- 1945 that celebrated Alinsky’s activism in of the “100 Most Powerful Women in the wich Village-based public interest law fi rm the Chicago slums. The series, entitled “The DC Region” and one of the “Top 45 Who Orderly Revolution,” is what initially gar- Shaped Washington.” Editor: Matthew Vadum nered national attention for Alinsky, enabling his so-called social justice message to reach Publisher: Terrence Scanlon Before joining the Meyer Foundation in Americans who might otherwise never have 1986, Rogers was staff director of the D.C. Foundation Watch heard of his work. President Harry Truman is published by Capital Research City Council’s human services committee. was so impressed by the policy ramifi cations Center, a non-partisan education and She also taught in the Montgomery County, laced throughout Mrs. Meyer’s report that research organization, classifi ed by Maryland public school system. the IRS as a 501(c)(3) public charity. he ordered 100 reprints made. Address: The foundation that Rogers has run for so 1513 16th Street, N.W. Agnes Elizabeth Ernst Meyer was the many years now has assets worth $183.5 Washington, DC 20036-1480 daughter of German immigrants. She was million, according to its most recent pub- born and raised in New York City. One of Phone: (202) 483-6900 licly available IRS fi ling. It had net invest- Long-Distance: (800) 459-3950 the fi rst women reporters hired by the New ment income of $10.9 million in 2011 and York Sun, she had a long and infl uential E-mail Address: a budget of $8.6 million. It disbursed just career in journalism. In 1909, she married [email protected] under $6 million in the form of 222 grants to Eugene Meyer, a multimillionaire who held various causes in 2011. Foundation Search Web Site: several prestigious fi nancial positions in the http://www.capitalresearch.org ranks the Meyer Foundation 629th among U.S. federal government. U.S. foundations by assets. It garners 18th Organization Trends welcomes let- among foundations by assets in the District ters to the editor. Mr. Meyer served as chairman of the Fed- of Columbia. Reprints are available for $2.50 pre- eral Reserve Board from 1930 to 1933 and paid to Capital Research Center. was later named as the fi rst president of the 2 November 2013 FoundationWatch World Bank. It was after the Herbert Hoover “Adopting Common Core national standards School choice proponents have good reason administration ended in 1933 that Meyer and tests surrenders control of the content to be concerned with the education program- purchased the Washington Post, providing his taught in local schools to distant national or- ming on the receiving end of support from the wife with a powerful journalistic platform. ganizations and bureaucrats in Washington. Meyer Foundation. Charter schools, which Her political views became decidedly more It is the antithesis of reform that would put are widely viewed as incubators of reform by progressive during the World War II era, ac- control of education in the hands of those Republican governors and free market think cording to the “Eleanor Roosevelt Papers” closest to the student: local school leaders tanks, are susceptible to federal infl uence via held by the George Washington University. and parents.” the Common Core. Meyer supported Adlai Stevenson over Dwight Eisenhower in the 1956 election and Principled state leaders still have ample op- Last year, the Meyer Foundation granted switched from the Republican to Democratic portunity to unwind themselves from Com- $160,000 to the E.L. Haynes Public Char- Party in 1960. She was a persistent supporter mon Core obligations and restore educational ter School in Washington, D.C., so it could of the creation of a new federal Department freedom. Burke, for example, suggests that partner with the D.C. public school system of Health, Education, and Welfare. President governors and state lawmakers withhold any to develop “competency based pathways to Lyndon Johnson once said she had more funding that would be used to bring state high school graduation” over two years. Not infl uence on his education policies than any curricula into line with federal dictates. only is the project “creating a new pathway,” other single individual. Meanwhile, the Meyer Foundation is mak- but it is also “being done in such a way that’s ing every effort to ensure that the Common aligned with the Common Core,” Lane has Her federal-centric infl uence continues in the Core becomes fi rmly entrenched within the noted. work of her namesake foundation.