Virginia Deane Abernethy (born October 4, 1934) is an American social anthropologist, far-right activist, white nationalist, and self-described "ethnic separatist."

Early life and education

Virginia Deane Abernethy was born in 1934 in Havana, Cuba, to American parents. She was raised in Argentina and New York City. In 1981, she earned an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University. She left Harvard when she was offered a position at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and described the experience of leaving Massachusetts in her 2023 book, Born Abroad: A Patriot’s Tale of Choice and Chance “The exuberance with which I drove out of Massachusetts (gun-controlled Taxachusetts) toward Tennessee in my little Ford can hardly be imagined.”

She remained at Vanderbilt for 20 years, working in the Department of Psychiatry of the Vanderbilt School of Medicine from 1975 to 1999. She was appointed as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, promoted to Associate Professor in 1976 and Professor in 1980.

An outspoken opponent of immigration, she has called for a complete moratorium on immigration into the United States. She has countered claims of racism against her by pointing to her friendship with Jesse Lee Peterson.

In a letter to The Washington Times published on September 30, 2004, she rejected their reporting of her as a "self-described 'racial separatist, preferring "ethnic separatist."

On June 29, 2011, the American Third Position (now the American Freedom Party), a whites-only party, announced that she had joined their board of directors. Abernethy ran in election for vice president of the United States in 2012 as the running mate of Merlin Miller, who ran for president, in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, gaining a total of 12,900 votes nationally.

Fertility-opportunity hypothesis

Her research has focused on the issues of population and culture. Her best known work discounts the demographic transition theory, which holds that fertility drops as women become more educated and contraceptives become more available. In its place, she has developed a ″fertility-opportunity hypothesis", which states that fertility follows perceived economic opportunity. A corollary to the hypothesis is that food aid to developing nations only exacerbates overpopulation. She has advocated in favor of microloans to women in the place of international aid because she believes that they allow improvement in the lives of families without leading to higher fertility.

Positions held and publications

From 1989 to 1999, she served as the editor of the academic journal Population and Environment. She also served on the editorial board of The Citizen Informer, the newsletter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), a neo-Confederate organization. She has also appeared as a guest on the CofCC-affiliated radio show, The Political Cesspool hosted by James Edwards. She serves on the board of directors of the Carrying Capacity Network, an immigration-reduction and sustainability organization, and also on the Board of Population-Environment BALANCE, which advocates an immigration moratorium in order to balance population size with resources and the environment's capacity to cope with pollution. However, Population-Environment BALANCE has been characterized as an organization that promotes a right-wing, nativist agenda under the guise of environmentalist activism.

Abernethy has written or edited several books, including: Population Politics: The Choices that Shape our Future (1993) and Population Pressure and Cultural Adjustment (1979). Abernethy has written articles that have appeared in Chronicles, The Social Contract Press, The Atlantic Monthly, and numerous academic journals. She has also made occasional contributions to the weblog VDARE, which have been republished by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), an organisation which the SPLC describes as being a hate group. In a blog post circulated by CIS in 2012, she said, responding to Karl Rove, the George W. Bush administration strategist, "those who advocate continued mass immigration choose the path of national suicide."

In 2012, the Anti-Defamation League referred to Abernathy as an "unabashed white supremacist", and the Southern Poverty Law Center called her a "full-fledged professor of hate," adding her to a list of 30 new activists heading the radical right. Abernethy denied that she was a "white supremacist," preferring to describe herself as an "ethnic separatist."

Protect Arizona Now

She was involved in Arizona's Proposition 200 campaign. She was Chair of the National Advisory Board of the Protect Arizona Now (PAN) committee which promoted Proposition 200 in that state's 2004 election. Proposition 200, which passed, limited undocumented immigrants access to government benefits and required proof of citizenship for registering to vote.

References

  • Anthropologist proposes link between per capita energy use and fertility rate - Vanderbilt University news release (archived copy)