(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Jeff Yass’ foundation spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting a nonprofit group that brought litigation on behalf of those who spoke out against diversity initiatives, critical race theory programs and other lightning-rod topics in schools and legislatures nationwide.
The Susquehanna Foundation gave $500,000 in 2023 to the Institute for Free Speech, a nonpartisan group that filed several lawsuits in the same year that sought to protect the free speech of people who opposed affirmative action in Texas, anti-racist guidelines in California community colleges and a Colorado bill around name changes and gender identity, according to tax filings.
Yass, co-founder of trading firm Susquehanna International Group, is a vice president at the foundation. Fellow co-founder and billionaire Arthur Dantchik is its president.
A spokesperson for Yass declined to comment. Institute for Free Speech President David Keating stressed that donors do not earmark contributions for any particular case, and that the group supports cases across the ideological divide.
“Our work is guided by First Amendment principles, not partisan politics or donor preferences, as evidenced by our consistent defense of free speech rights across the ideological spectrum,” Keating said in a statement.
Yass, a longstanding libertarian mega-donor, co-founded Pennsylvania-based Susquehanna with a group of friends more than three decades ago. His political spending and donation activities were pushed into the spotlight after he became one of the 10 largest donors in the 2024 election cycle, giving about $95 million to conservative groups, according to OpenSecrets.
Susquehanna also vaulted to wider national recognition because of its ownership stake in TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance. The short-form video app’s fate has been hanging in the balance: President Joe Biden a law that would ban TikTok in the US unless it can be sold, but president-elect Donald Trump flip-flopped to oppose such a ban this year. TikTok has asked for the law to be paused until the Supreme Court can review it.
ByteDance makes up about one-third of Yass’ $46.5 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Susquehanna Donations
The Susquehanna Foundation contributed a total of $1.25 million to the Institute for Free Speech over the three years ended in 2023, filings show. The institute’s net assets totaled about $7 million at the end of 2023.
Last year, the Susquehanna Foundation also donated $3 million each to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank where Yass spent two decades as a board member, and to Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. It gave $2 million to the Alliance for Decision Education, a group created by Susquehanna co-founder Eric Brooks and his wife, the former professional poker player Annie Duke, that says it teaches students “how to think, not what to think.”
Founded in 2005 and previously known as the Center for Competitive Politics, the Institute for Free Speech calls itself the nation’s largest organization dedicated solely to protecting First Amendment rights. Keating was formerly the executive director of anti-tax group Club for Growth, a political organization Yass supports.
In his statement, Keating underscored the group’s involvement in lawsuits with plaintiffs across the political spectrum. He pointed to a successful case restoring press credentials to progressive Iowa journalist Laura Belin, and a separate settlement that secured an Oklahoma TV station’s access to state board of education meetings, after a pro-Trump official inhibited reporters’ attendance.
In 2023, the group backed University of Texas at Austin finance professor Richard Lowery in a lawsuit against school officials who, he alleged, threatened his job because he criticized diversity, equity and inclusion requirements.
After the California Community Colleges Board of Governors released a set of guidelines requiring faculty to embrace an “anti-racist ideology” in their teaching, the Institute for Free Speech filed a lawsuit, calling the rules unconstitutional.
The nonprofit also filed a lawsuit accusing Colorado legislators of silencing speakers in a public hearing when they expressed disapproval for a bill that would make it easier for transgender people with felony convictions to legally change their names.
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