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Witherspoon Scholar Was ‘Paid Consultant’ On Parenting Study

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Mark Regnerus said the conservative organization that funded his study played ‘no role’ in the research. New evidence calls that claim into question.

When University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus released a study this summer portraying gay parents in a negative light, he insisted that the conservative funders who backed the research had no involvement in how it was designed, implemented, or interpreted.

But recently emerging evidence shows that a scholar affiliated at the time with the Witherspoon Institute — the socially conservative think tank that supplied the bulk of Regnerus’ funding — did indeed play a role carrying out and analyzing the study.

In his peer-reviewed article, Regnerus said his research revealed different — and often unfavorable — outcomes for children of gay parents when compared to children raised by a mother and father in biologically intact families. Opponents of gay marriage immediately seized Regnerus’ initial findings from the ongoing “New Family Structures Study,” published in the July issue of Social Science Research. The study has been cited in court briefs to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and by a federal judge in a decision upholding Hawaii’s ban on same-sex marriage. Opponents of marriage equality have also used it in state-level ballot-measure campaigns.

Right away, Regnerus’ findings sparked a backlash, as critics said his study was methodologically flawed. Many have argued that Regnerus’ actual comparisons — children raised in households with two biological parents compared to children raised in families where one parent had a same-sex relationship at some point, regardless of whether the child lived with that parent — did not correspond with his conclusions.

The research has also provoked questions, especially from gay-rights advocates, about whether the Witherspoon Institute – some of whose leaders have ties to the National Organization for Marriage and other groups that advocate against gay marriage – influenced the study’s design. Both Regnerus and Witherspoon have denied this charge.

It turns out that from 2010 to 2012, one of the study’s paid consultants was William Bradford Wilcox. For much of that time, Wilcox was also the director of Witherspoon’s “Program on Family, Marriage, and Democracy,” the program from which Regnerus’ study was born.

Much of the new evidence regarding Wilcox’s involvement was unearthed by New Civil Rights Movement blogger Scott Rose.

Wilcox is a conservative scholar and associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, where since 2009 he has directed the National Marriage Project, whose stated mission is “to provide research and analysis on the health of marriage in America, to analyze the social and cultural forces shaping contemporary marriage, and to identify strategies to increase marital quality and stability.” Among his many affiliations, Wilcox is on the Board of Advisory Editors of Social Science Research, which published Regnerus’ study.

Up until Oct. 2, the Witherspoon Institute’s website identified Wilcox as the director of the Witherspoon’s Program on Family, Marriage, and Democracy (referred to in this case as the “Program on Marriage, Family, and Democracy.”) That link is now defunct. The Witherspoon’s tax form from 2010 describes the launch of the “New Family Structures Study” as one of the year’s main achievements of the Program on Family, Marriage, and Democracy.

Back in June, Rose filed a complaint with the University of Texas, accusing Regnerus of scientific misconduct concerning his study. As a matter of protocol, the university conducted an initial investigation and concluded in late August that “no formal investigation is warranted.” The university used that investigation as a reason for not disclosing to The American Independent any documents related to the Regnerus’ study. Now that the investigation is over, the university is trying to prevent disclosure by arguing that the information related to the study is proprietary.

In response to a public records request from Rose for communications between Regnerus and Wilcox concerning the study, the university’s counsel asked Texas’ attorney general to allow the university to withhold those documents. Rose provided TAI with a copy of the letter, which says that “Professors Regnerus and Wilcox collaborated on the data collection and analysis that formed the basis of Dr. Regnerus’s publication” on the New Family Structures Study.

The responsive documents include email exchanges between the University’s Professor Mark Regnerus and a colleague, W. Bradford Wilcox, from the University of Virginia (TAB 6). The communications pertain to scientific research conducted by Dr. Regnerus and published in his New Family Structures Study. Professors Regnerus and Wilcox collaborated on the data collection and analysis that formed the basis of Dr. Regnerus’s publication, thus, their communications reveal substantive analytical and scientific data that is protected from disclosure under Section 51.914,Texas Education Code. To release this information would facilitate third party appropriation of Dr. Regnerus’s intellectual property.

In an employment authorization form obtained by TAI from the University of Texas, Wilcox’s role in Regnerus’ project is described this way: “Dr. Brad Wilcox will provide consulting work for Dr. Mark Regnerus on his New Family Structure Study. He will be assisting with data analysis. This is sporadic work throughout the spring semester and summer.” Rose has also reported on this form.

The form, dated April 24, 2012, indicates that Wilcox was to be paid $2,000 for his services from April through August, 2012, and notes that Wilcox has “worked with Dr. Regnerus on data analysis and structure in the past.”

‘Provided input to Professor Mark Regnerus’

From the beginning, Regnerus and the Witherspoon Institute have said Witherspoon had nothing to do with how the study was designed or implemented — other than providing roughly $700,000 for Regnerus to carry out the work.

In his initial article on his findings, Regnerus wrote: “The NFSS was supported in part by grants from the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation. While both of these are commonly known for their support of conservative causes—just as other private foundations are known for supporting more liberal causes—the funding sources played no role at all in the design or conduct of the study, the analyses, the interpretations of the data, or in the preparation of this manuscript.”

And the Witherspoon Institute, on its website promoting the study, states: “In order to insure that the NFSS was conducted with intellectual integrity, beginning from the earliest stages the Witherspoon Institute was not involved in the Study’s design, implementation, or interpretation.”

Wilcox, Regnerus, and the Witherspoon Institute have all stood by previous statements that the Witherspoon was never involved in how Regnerus’ study was designed or implemented.

Witherspoon President Luis Tellez told TAI in an email exchange this week that Wilcox was a fellow for Witherspoon from 2004 until the summer or fall of 2011 but that Wilcox was never a staff member at Witherspoon. Tellez confirmed that Wilcox served as the director of the Witherspoon’s Program on Family, Marriage, and Democracy, while the New Family Structure Study was being developed, but he said Wilcox exited that position “when the NFSS was entering the period of implementation i.e. the survey was about to be fielded.”

“In his capacity of director of the program in Family, Marriage and Democracy Prof. Wilcox offered advice and assistance in various family related events or projects that the Witherspoon Institute decided to undertake,” Tellez said. “Never did Prof. Wilcox represent in any way the Witherspoon Institute when dealing with other scholars or the public. Prof. Wilcox, like any other fellow of the Institute, never was involved in the decision making of the Witherspoon Institute. More specifically, he was never involved in any decision making at the Witherspoon Institute in matters related to the New Family Structure Study.”

According to Tellez, Wilcox did not advise the Witherspoon Institute on matters relating to “the scope of the study, how it is to be conducted and how to interpret the results.”

But Wilcox was involved in the process that led to the study’s creation, Tellez said.

“His role was to help assemble an initial group of scholars, Mark Regnerus included, out of which came the idea of the NFSS,” Tellez said.

Tellez said Wilcox did not use his role at Witherspoon to pressure Regnerus to conduct his study in any specific way.

“Wilcox participation in the NFSS was of course known to Witherspoon, at no point however he used his role in the NFSS or his connection to WI to convey any sentiments or wishes as to how the NFSS was being conducted or convey desired outcomes, etc.,” Tellez said. “The only sentiments that were conveyed, and this were conveyed primarily to Mark, was to be sure the study was conducted in the most professional manner, that scholars from the ideological spectrum be included, to respect the findings whatever they were, etc. I said primarily conveyed to Regnerus, but because I knew Wilcox longer and had confidence in his professional integrity, I would inquire with him occasionally as to whether this standards were being applied. Just to be sure all was well.”

After TAI questioned Wilcox about his roles at the Witherspoon Institute and as a paid consultant on the study, Wilcox published a blog post on FamilyScholars.org Tuesday night, which he said was in response to questions asked by fellow FamilyScholars blogger Barry Deutsch. In the post, Wilcox downplayed his title as Witherspoon’s director of the Program on Family, Marriage, and Democracy as “honorific.” He said that from October 2010 to April 2012, he “provided input to Professor Mark Regnerus about the design, analysis, and interpretation of the survey data associated with the NFSS,” but he emphasized that he did not make “funding or programmatic decisions at” Witherspoon. He also noted that he was among “a dozen paid academic consultants” who worked with Regnerus on the project.

“I viewed my consultation for the NFSS as collegial, that is, as providing academic advice that Regnerus was free to take or ignore (and he took some advice, and went his own way on other matters). I was not acting in an official Witherspoon capacity in relationship to him,” Wilcox wrote.

Regnerus also told TAI in a phone interview that he never viewed Wilcox as a “Witherspoon agent.”

“He never acted as a Witherspoon mouthpiece,” Regnerus said. “As a consultant he did not represent Witherspoon.”

Responding to Wilcox’s post, Deutsch wrote Wednesday that Wilcox’s dual role at the Witherspoon and as a paid consultant on the study should have been disclosed, and that the omission was deceptive.

“There is nothing unethical about Brad working with both NFSS and Witherspoon, in my opinion,” he wrote. “Brad is a known scholar with interests similar to those of Witherspoon and Professor Regnerus; it is natural that both the staff at Witherspoon and Professor Regnerus should seek his advice.”

But, he added: “In my opinion, Professor Regnerus’ carefully-crafted statement about his funding sources’ non-participation was deceptive. It omitted a relationship that was obviously relevant and should have been mentioned, and Regnerus’ choice to omit that, and the use of wording which gave the impression that there was unequivocally no relationship to report, calls his credibility into question.”

 

This article originally appeared at The American Independent and is republished here by permission.

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Trump Doubles Down Calling Egg Prices ‘Too Low’ as Costs Soar to Record Highs

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In the days leading up to Easter, President Donald Trump has repeatedly—and falsely—claimed that egg prices have plummeted to the point of being “too low,” baselessly citing steep double-digit declines—even as Americans face record-high prices at the grocery store.

“The egg prices are down 87 percent, but nobody talks about that,” the President said on Friday. “You can have all the eggs you want, we have too many eggs, in fact, if anything the prices are getting too low.”

Trump campaigned on the promise he would lower the price of groceries “on day one,” a promise that three months later is not only unfulfilled, but in some cases reversed: overall grocery prices have risen.

READ MORE: ‘Taunting SCOTUS’: Concerns Mount Over ‘Openly Contemptuous’ White House

On Thursday, Trump claimed the price of eggs had dropped 92%, while berating a reporter and his Federal Reserve Chairman.

“The price of groceries are substantially down,” the president falsely claimed.

The price of eggs, you know, when I came in, they hit me with eggs. I just got there, I was here for one week, and they started screaming, ‘Eggs have gone through the roof.’ I said, ‘I just got here.’

“They went up 87%, and you couldn’t get them,” Trump told reporters. “They said, ‘You won’t have eggs for Easter,’ which is coming up. Happy Easter, everybody.You won’t have eggs for Easter.”

“And we did an unbelievable job, and now eggs are all over the place and the price went down 92 percent,” he claimed.

READ MORE: Trump’s Latest Target: The Watchdog That Keeps Suing Him

Last week on Monday, Trump had claimed, falsely, that egg prices had dropped 79%.

Egg prices, Newsweek reported on Wednesday, “continued to climb despite recent efforts by the Trump administration to combat the shortage brought about by the ongoing bird flu with imports of Turkish eggs. The CPI egg index jumped by 5.9 percent from February and was up 60.4 percent compared to March 2024, and the average price for a dozen grade A large eggs climbed 5.6 percent to a record $6.23.”

Moe Davis, the well-known retired U.S. Air Force colonel, attorney, and former administrative law judge, posted to social media a federal government chart of egg prices.

“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” Davis wrote, “the price of a dozen eggs in March was $6.23, the highest price ever recorded and 26% higher than in January when Trump took office. Of course if Trump says egg prices are down then the MAGA cult is obliged to say egg prices are down.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Things Like This Take Place’: Trump Shrugs Off Mass Shooting Despite Once Being a Target

 

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‘Taunting SCOTUS’: Concerns Mount Over ‘Openly Contemptuous’ White House

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The Trump White House is coming under fire for what appears to be an attempt to mock the U.S. Supreme Court, the facts in the case of a Maryland man wrongly deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, and The New York Times.

The White House’s official account on the social media platform X posted a “corrected” version of a New York Times story—corrections that have drawn concern and scorn from the legal community and political commentators.

“Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador,” read a screenshot of the Times’ headline.

But the White House’s version (below), complete with red ink and cross outs, reads: “Senator Meets With MS-13 Illegal Alien in El Salvador Who Is Never Coming Back.”

The White House added remarks saying, “Fixed it for you, @NYTimes. Oh, and by the way, @ChrisVanHollen — he’s NOT coming back.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) traveled to El Salvador this week and, after several days, was finally permitted to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the legal U.S. resident whom the Trump administration has admitted in court it wrongly deported. Multiple courts, including the Supreme Court, have ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return. Yet the Trump administration appears to be refusing.

Friday’s claim that Abrego Garcia is “never coming back” was taken as a serious statement of intent by some.

Attorney Aaron Regunberg wrote: “The White House is saying he’s ‘never coming back’ — they are explicitly declaring they will violate a unanimous Supreme Court order.” Calling out Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Regunberg wrote: “you said this was your red line that would trigger ‘extraordinary action.’ So…where the f— are you?”

“2 telling things here,” offered The Washington Post’s senior political reporter Aaron Blake. “1) White House crosses out ‘wrongly,’ despite repeatedly acknowledging its error in court. 2) ‘who’s never coming back’ is basically taunting SCOTUS. Signals the opposite of any intent to ‘facilitate’ his return.”

“The White House press shop lies and claims Mr. Abrego was not wrongfully deported, despite having acknowledged that fact at every single stage of the court process; at the district court, the circuit court, and the Supreme Court,” noted attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “They are openly contemptuous of the truth.”

Civil rights attorney Patrick Jaicomo, replying to the White House, wrote: “There is a mistake in the headline. You didn’t wrongly deport Garcia. You wrongly imprisoned him without due process. So, fix your mistake, as the courts have ordered. You don’t have to keep doubling down on bad decisions.”

Attorney Dilan Esper added, “I’ll remind you that the federal judges issuing orders see this.”

Veteran journalist John Harwoood called it, “disgusting fascism,” and wrote that “the Trump WH is garbage from top to bottom.”

Opinion writer Magdi Jacobs noted, “They’re moving from evading the judiciary to openly mocking it. This is very dangerous territory.”

Some others addressed what they appeared to suggest was the juvenile nature of the White House’s post.

“When you graduate from 4chan and land your first job at the White House,” wrote Talking Points Memo publisher Josh Marshall.

“The Trump admin really wants to distract people from the fact that it illegally sent someone to El Salvador in violation of a court order & binding law, either out of malice or sheer incompetence. No amount of s—posting will change that,” said Reason magazine’s Billy Binion.

“This is the evil of the Trump White House,” remarked Fred Wellman, an Army veteran, political consultant, and the host of the podcast “On Democracy.”

Journalist and author Robert Lusetich observed: “The White House, an ever-lasting symbol of the power, dignity and greatness of the United States. Now, a trolling meme account.”

Anti-gun-violence activist Fred Guttenberg declared the White House is “staffed by pathetic punk 2nd grade pre pubescent children.”

Journalist James Surowiecki commented, “Your tax dollars are paying for this childish cr–.”

See the White House’s social media post above or at this link.

 

Image via Reuters

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Trump’s Latest Target: The Watchdog That Keeps Suing Him

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From the outset of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump signaled that a central focus of his presidency would be targeting and exacting retribution against his critics.

“In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice,’” Trump told attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

In keeping his retribution vow, Trump in just three months—often with the use of the power of his executive orders—has targeted for retribution numerous top law firms, revoked the security clearances of dozens of top national security experts, former government officials, and former political opponents. He has targeted top universities, threaten to defund millions of dollars or more in critical research grants, and declared top news outlets CNN and MSNBC “corrupt” and “illegal.”

Just days after the 2024 election, NPR reported that during the campaign, “Trump made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including political opponents and private citizens.”

READ MORE: ‘Things Like This Take Place’: Trump Shrugs Off Mass Shooting Despite Once Being a Target

On Thursday, Trump threatened to go after one of his top legal critics: CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit legal and ethics watchdog that has been working for years to hold him (and others) to account, often by suing.

Asked by a reporter what group he would like to see have their tax exempt status removed, Trump replied, “Well, we’ll be making some statements, but it’s a big deal.”

“They’re so rich and so strong, and then they go so bad, they’ve earned so much by being a member of this country, you know, a member of this group, this beautiful group of people in this country, and then they go and they abuse their power like that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon. “I think it’s, you know, I think it’s very sad.”

“I have a group named CREW,” he continued. “CREW. You ever hear of it? I think it’s CREW, and they have a guy that heads CREW. It’s supposed to be a charitable organization. The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that.”

“We’re looking at a lot of things, but if you take a look at CREW, what they’ve done, and I think it was a very big abuse, but we’re going to be finding out pretty soon.”

During Trump’s first and second terms, CREW sued Trump or his administration for alleged emoluments clause violations, alleged Presidential Records Act noncompliance, and challenged some of his executive orders. It also represented voters in a lawsuit attempting to use the 14th Amendment to remove him from the ballot, claiming his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection was constitutionally disqualifying.

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In January, CREW was part of a lawsuit suing to “block Trump’s illegal plan to fire government workers,” and in February, CREW sued the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “to compel transparency.”

CREW, in a statement to NCRM, vowed to continue its work.

“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” CREW Vice President of Communications Jordan Libowitz said. “Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy. We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”

Legal experts are blasting Trump’s threat.

“It is literally a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison for the President, VP, or any senior White House employee, to ‘request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the IRS to conduct … an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer,'” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

“The Trump administration has gone after law firms, they’ve gone after universities, and they’re now going after civil society, including groups like @CREWcrew. They want to silence any opposition to their extreme agenda,” added the National Women’s Law Center.

“President Trump is now threatening to weaponize the IRS against nonprofit organizations like @CREWcrew,” wrote Public Citizen. “He is attacking our most basic right: to say what we believe without fear of government prosecution. We proudly stand in solidarity with our friends at CREW.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Stunning Admission’: GOP Senator Says Colleagues ‘Are All Afraid’ of ‘Retaliation’

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