The American Spectator

A non-profit organization that provided training last week to House Democrats, portraying Republican opponents as racially motivated, has received significant funding from foundations linked to controversial left-wing multibillionaire George Soros.

Soros’s Open Society Institute has given $75,000 to the Center for Social Inclusion, which has also received more than $850,000 from the Soros-connected Tides Foundation/Tides Center since 2005, according to documents obtained by The American Spectator.

In a training session for House Democrats and their congressional staffers last week, Center for Social Inclusion founder and president Maya Wiley described “conservative messages” as being “racially coded,” and suggested that Democrats “raise racial disparities” in public policy discussions, Joel Gerhke of the Washington Examiner reported.

Since 2002, Wiley’s New York-based Center for Social Inclusion has received funding from a variety of organizations and individuals. Documents obtained by the Spectator indicate that Soros’s Open Society Institute was one of the earliest donors to Wiley’s non-profit group. In fact, her biography on the group’s Web site describes Wiley as having formerly served as director of U.S. programs for the Open Society Institute. She currently serves as chairman of the board of the Tides Network, which supervises activities by a number of grant-making non-profit organizations, including the Tides Foundation and Tides Center.

Direct contact between such a close Soros ally and congressional Democrats is certain to provoke controversy. A hedge-fund mogul and currency speculator, Soros has been linked to many radical figures, including Wade Rathke. A former official of the corrupt Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Rathke founded the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which recently disbanded and re-organized after a series of high-profile scandals.

The Soros-Wiley connection was noted by Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center. Vadum, an investigative reporter and American Spectator contributor, is author of the widely-praised recent book Subversion, Inc., an exhaustive exposé of ACORN. Wiley’s background also drew attention from Michelle Horstman of PJ Media, who noted that Maya Wiley is the daughter of 1960s radical George Wiley, founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization.