Eric Ward

He was previously executive director of the Western States Center, a left-of-center policy-advocacy group. He previously worked as a program officer for the Ford Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, and Center for New Community. ¹

Early Life

Eric Ward was born in the mid-1960s in Los Angeles, California. At age five, Ward’s parents divorced and Ward spent most of the rest of his childhood with his mother, who worked in service jobs and nonprofits. In sixth grade, Ward moved to a mixed-race neighborhood in Long Beach, California, but was bused to a majority-white school where he says he was subject to racial discrimination and racial violence. In this environment, Ward says he developed a racial consciousness and began “to realize that racism and bigotry weren’t just individual acts but systems—some conscious, some not.” ³

In high school, Ward was involved in the local punk rock scene, where he saw “a glimpse at what a multiracial society might be like.” ³

In 1983, after graduating from high school, Ward enlisted in the U.S. Navy. However, he received a medical discharge during boot camp. Afterward, Ward worked as a security guard and at a gas station. He also rejoined the local punk rock scene where he encountered neo-Nazi groups and drug use. Fearing for his future, Ward moved to Eugene, Oregon. ³

After briefly working in construction, in 1987 Ward enrolled at Lane Community College on a work-study program. Ward became involved in left-wing student activism and later transferred to the University of Oregon where he co-directed the Black Student Union. Ward also became involved with the local punk rock scene and led activism efforts against local neo-Nazis. ³

Activism Career

In 1991, Ward began working at the Community Alliance of Lane County, a left-wing advocacy group based in Eugene, Oregon, as an organizer. ¹ That year, he also launched his own community organizing group, Communities Against Hate. ³

In 1994, Ward became a field organizer for the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, a group founded in 1986 to oppose the annual meeting of the white supremacist Aryan Nation group in Hayden Lake, Idaho. ¹ Ward helped establish or revive 120 local task forces and went undercover in meetings at white nationalist groups. ³

In 2003, Ward left the group to become the national field director of the Center for New Community, a group that opposes anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups across the United States. ¹

In 2011, Ward became a program executive at Atlantic Philanthropies, a now-defunct collection of left-of-center grantmaking nonprofits founded by billionaire Charles Feeney. ¹

In 2014, Ward co-founded Funders for Justice, an online networking platform for left-of-center donors that focuses on race- and sex-based identity politics and reforming police conduct toward minority suspects and civilians. ¹

From 2014 to 2017, Ward worked as a program officer advancing racial justice and minority rights for the Ford Foundation, one of the largest nonprofits in the world and a prolific donor to left-of-center causes. ¹

From 2017 to 2022, Ward worked as the executive director of the Western States Center, a left-of-center community organizing group based in Portland, Oregon best known for its work on racial issues. Ward assisted in research efforts into white supremacists. After leaving the role, Ward was an advisor to the Center until 2023. ^{1 3}

From 2018 to 2020, Ward was a new executive fellow at the Open Society Foundations (formerly the Open Society Institute), a nonprofit grantmaking foundation founded by left-of-center billionaire George Soros. ¹

In 2020, Ward became a senior fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a controversial left-of-center advocacy group that claims to be a watchdog of extremist groups. In November 2022, Ward also became the executive vice president of Race Forward, a left-of-center organization that advocates for a variety of race and other identity-based issues as well as environmental issues. As of February 2026, Ward remained in both positions. ¹

Ward is a co-producer of White With Fear, a documentary released in 2024 about “how America’s conservative power brokers built influence by exploiting racial divisions and promoting White victimhood narratives over decades.” ^{1 4}

In January 2026, Ward hosted an online video conference on “ICE Watch Training,” which trains activists on how to protest and obstruct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The presentation included the warning that “federal law enforcement is not here to keep us safe.” ⁵

As of February 2026, Ward was a board member of the Proteus Fund, a left-of-center “pass-through” funder and donor-advised fund provider, as well as Seeding Justice, the Social Justice Fund NW, and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. ¹

Research and Political Views

Eric Ward asserts that “systemic racism” is ingrained in the United States’ history and modern society, and that systemic racism is responsible for the disparate outcomes between white and Black Americans. Ward promotes the concept of racial equity over racial equality, with the former being based on equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Ward has argued that Black equity can be increased without any ultimate cost to white Americans; for instance, he claims that reducing anti-Black discrimination will substantially increase American economic output. ⁶

Ward supports the notion that implicit bias against Black Americans is common throughout the United States and is responsible for much of the country’s systemic racism. ⁶

Ward opposes the use of criminal history as a screen for employment or housing, arguing that it discriminates against Black Americans who have suffered from unjust “overpolicing and mass incarceration.” ⁶

Ward has argued in favor of “identity politics” as a valid evolution of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to tackle deeper systemic inequalities in the United States, including “mass incarceration, infant mortality and graduation rates,” which he claims are products of “underlying systems of bias.” However, in an interview, Ward also said, “I… strongly reject the growing practice by many leaders within these communities to treat identity politics as a final destination. It’s not. Identity politics are supposed to be our bridge to rebuilding people centered movements for justice.” ⁷

Ward has been referred to as an expert in so-called stochastic terrorism, defined as the public demonization of an individual or group that statistically increases the odds of violent attacks against the individual or group. For instance, Ward has attributed the increase in hate crimes against Muslim Americans after 9/11 to stochastic terrorism resulting from anti-Muslim rhetoric. ⁸

Ward argues that antisemitism is a core component of white nationalism, as it “provides the white nationalist movement with a grand narrative and overarching worldview that connects all other aspects of their bigotry.” In the mid-1990s, Ward went undercover into white nationalist groups, and despite being Black, found that he was treated well by white nationalists who supported multi-racial solidarity against alleged global Jewish conspiracies. ⁹

Ward has criticized President Donald Trump, characterizing him as an authoritarian who “[stokes] white grievance” as a means to consolidate power in the increasingly multi-racial United States. Ward has pointed to President Trump’s deployment of the U.S. National Guard to American cities as a means of “staging a spectacle, sowing fear, and testing how far the executive branch can go.” ¹⁰