Ron Unz is an American entrepreneur, political candidate, and publisher. Unz founded the Unz Review, a group blog that features consistently anti-transgender content. Unz is an investor in The American Conservative and served as publisher from 2007 to 2013.
Background
Ronald Keeva “Ron” Unz was born on September 20, 1961 in Los Angeles. Unz grew up in a single-parent home in North Hollywood, graduating from North Hollywood High School. Unz earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1983. Unz did graduate work at University of Cambridge and Stanford but did not complete a doctorate.
In 1988, Unz founded Wall Street Analytics, which was acquired by Moody’s in 2006.
Unz unsuccessfully ran for governor as a Republican in the 1994 California gubernatorial election and for U.S. Senator in 2016. Unz has campaigned against bilingual education and promoted campaign finance reform. Unz also campaigned on significantly reducing immigration to the United States. Unz unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Harvard Board of Overseers in 2016, hoping to abolish tuition.
Anti-trans activism
Unz provided a $600,000 grant to anti-trans anthropologist Gregory Cochran to study the “gay germ” hypothesis that proposes that being gay is caused by a pathogen.
In a 2023 interview with Keith Woods, Unz stated:
Also, for example, a lot of what I guess you could call the sort of wokeness or the transgenderism, those are not things that are particularly appealing to ordinary Hispanics or Asians or Whites, for that matter blacks. In other words, a lot of people who are more ordinary working class people have been pushed out of the Democratic Party because of some of its extreme positions it’s taken.
References
Gais, Hannah (January 19, 2021). Meet the White Nationalist Organizer Who Spewed Hate Against Lawmakers. Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/01/19/meet-white-nationalist-organizer-who-spewed-hate-against-lawmakers
Staff report (October 4, 2018). California Entrepreneur Ron Unz Launches a Series of Rhetorical Attacks on Jews. Anti-Defamation League https://www.adl.org/blog/california-entrepreneur-ron-unz-launches-a-series-of-rhetorical-attacks-on-jews
Wilson, Phil (April 25, 2016). Controversial English-only crusader sets his sights on California’s Senate race. Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-ron-unz-senate-run-20160425-story.html
Krantz, Laura (April 16, 2016). Harvard critic faces scrutiny on donations. Boston Globe https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/04/16/leader-bid-shake-harvard-board-linked-white-supremacist-writers/3YGidncAQoAINn64eXbevI/story.html
Foster, Douglas (November 24, 1999). Being Ron Unz. LA Weekly http://www.laweekly.com/news/being-ron-unz-2131367
Bruni, Frank (June 14, 1998). The California Entrepreneur who Beat Bilingual Teaching. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/14/us/the-california-entrepreneur-who-beat-bilingual-teaching.html
Books
Unz, Ron (2022). American Meritocracy Revisited: Elite Admissions, Asian Quotas, and the Free Harvard/Fair Harvard Campaign. Independently published, ISBN 979-8849445472
Unz, Ron (2022). Race and Ethnicity in America: Essays on Immigration, Affirmative Action, and Bilingual Education. Independently published, ISBN 979-8845961402
Unz, Ron (2022). Our Covid-19 Catastrophe: Was the Epidemic the Result of a Biowarfare Blowback? Independently published, ISBN 979-8833430880
Unz, Ron (2022). Raising America Wages by…Raising American Wages: Resurrecting the Minimum Wage as a National Political Issue. Independently published, ISBN 979-8848323559
Unz, Ron (2022). Confronting Russia and China: Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Dangers of World War III. Independently published, ISBN 979-8361907830
Unz, Ron (2022). AIDS and Public Health Issues: How Big Pharma Has Been Poisoning America. Independently published, ISBN 979-8840495704
Unz, Ron (2022). Conspiracy Theories: From the JFK Assassination to the 9/11 Attacks. Independently published, ISBN 979-8837881039
Unz, Ron (2022). Jews, Nazis, and Israel: Grasping the “Third Rail” of Journalists and Historians. Independently published, ISBN 979-8841033097
Unz, Ron (2022). Encountering American Pravda: Essays in a Historical Counter-Narrative. Independently published, ISBN 979-8833158258
Unz, Ron (2022). The Myth of American Meritocracy and Other Essays: The Collected Writings of Ron Unz. Independently published, ISBN 979-8841303732
Resources
The Unz Review (unz.com)
The Unz Archive (unz.org) [archive]
Unz Foundation (tax-exempt since 2007)
- EIN: 20-7181582