Rebekah Mercer, Billionaire Donor to Anti-Science Causes, Is Off the American Museum of Natural History’s Board After Years of Protest

More than two-dozen American Museum of Natural
History curators called for the removal Republican
megadonor Rebekah Mercer from the museum’s board in 2018, citing
her habit of giving to organizations that deny the reality of
climate change. Now, it would seem, those demands have finally been
met—though it’s unclear who made the decision to discontinue the
relationship.

Mercer’s term expired in December, the museum confirmed, but it
declined to comment further. The Mercer Family Foundation,
which Rebekah Mercer chairs, did not respond to requests for
comment.

The foundation has donated tens of millions of dollars to
climate change-denial organizations such as the Heartland
Institute. She and her father, Robert Mercer, were also among the
biggest Republican donors in the 2016 election cycle, spending more
than $49 million that year, including $15.5 million to
organizations supporting Donald Trump’s election. They introduced
the president to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon,
whose Breitbart News they also financed, and to then campaign
manager Kellyanne Conway. Rebekah Mercer was also part of Trump’s
transition team ahead of his taking office.

Numerous groups have called for the museum to cut ties with
Mercer over the years. An open letter signed by
250 scientists asked the American Museum of Natural History “and
all public science museums, to end ties to anti-science
propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation, and to
have Rebekah Mercer leave the American Museum of Natural History
Board of Trustees.”

The activist group Revolting Lesbians,
which has led protests against Mercer’s involvement at the museum
throughout the years, posted on Facebook that its
“sustained direct action campaign” could be credited for Mercer’s
removal from the board.

“This is a big deal because we are in a climate emergency, and a
scientific institution has no place accepting money from and giving
power and legitimacy to a mega-funder of climate science denial,”
wrote the group.

The Mercer Family Foundation donated $1.6 million to the museum
between 2012 and 2017, according to DeSmog, a blog dedicated to
unmasking donations to climate change denial groups. In
roughly the same time period, the foundation donated $5.9 million
to the “ringleaders of climate denial,” the Heartland Institute,
according to the scientists’ letter.

“I believe that genuine scientific discovery flourishes only in
an atmosphere of dispassionate, open-minded inquiry, with research
evaluated according to neutral, evidence-based criteria,” Mercer
wrote in 2018 Wall Street
Journal op-ed, denouncing claims that she was anti-science
as “smears.”

“I oppose politicized science, in which researchers cannot study
certain subjects—or even ask certain questions—for fear of
career-ending backlash and persecution,” she claimed.

The Mercers, who are notoriously press adverse, are said to be
unhappy with the attention they have attracted over their
high-profile donations. In June, Vanity Fair
reported that the family was no longer financially supporting
Trump, although they are still donating to other conservative
causes.

Mercer isn’t the first American Museum of Natural History board
member to come under fire for their views on climate change.
Scientists also targeted billionaire energy magnate David Koch in
2015 with an open
letter calling for the institution to cut ties with the
climate change denier. Later that year, at his term’s end, Koch stepped down after
23 years on the museum board. Both he and the museum denied that
the break was in response to pressure from the anti-Koch
campaign.

The post Rebekah Mercer, Billionaire Donor to Anti-Science
Causes, Is Off the American Museum of Natural History’s Board After
Years of Protest appeared first on artnet News.