A major donor to New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, billionaire heiress Liz Simons, is also helping finance a controversial national educational initiative known as “woke math.”
Through the Heising-Simons Foundation, Simons has directed substantial funding—including $1.7 million to the Racial Justice in Early Mathematics Project—to reshape math instruction by integrating racial and social justice themes into the curriculum. Critics argue that reframing traditional math content in this way risks lowering academic rigor.
Simons also contributed $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Mamdani. While the candidate has not officially endorsed “woke math,” foes suggest that his close ties to Simons raise questions about the influence of such educational agendas in his future policies.