The source of the trust's endowment was money inherited from pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle, LLC, whose best-known products included Metamucil, Dramamine, NutraSweet, and Enovid, the first female oral contraceptive.
Previous positions include director of National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program and work at the John M. Olin Foundation.
[12] According to a 2013 analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, the Trust was among the most frequent sponsors of the attendance of federal judges to judicial educational seminars.
In December 2013, The Guardian, in collaboration with The Texas Observer and the Portland Press Herald, obtained, published and analyzed 40 of the grant proposals.
[10][14][15][16][17] The Trust granted, via Donors Trust, $597,500 between 2005 and 2010, $650,000 in 2013, and $500,000 in 2015, to fund the Project on Fair Representation, a Washington, D.C.–based legal defense fund that recruited plaintiffs in lawsuits to challenge affirmative action in college admissions policies, including the United States Supreme Court case Fisher v. University of Texas and at Harvard University.