For Whom the Bell Curves: Harvard Law Student Says Blacks Are Dumber Than Whites; Black Harvard Professor Agrees
Dr. Jonathan David Farley, Huffington Post, April 30, 2010
A recent email by Harvard law student Stephanie Grace allegedly asserts, “I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.” According to the Harvard Crimson newspaper’s blog, this email was forwarded to black law student associations across the country.
Our outrage over the student’s political incorrectness aside, are African-Americans less intelligent than whites? As an African-American who graduated summa cum laude in mathematics with the second-highest grade point average in his class at Harvard, I would have to say, Yes. Because the hypocrisy on the part of black Americans is stunning and self-defeating: Black Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer has written a research paper stating that African-Americans are less intelligent than whites.
In “Testing for Racial Differences in the Mental Ability of Young Children,” Fryer writes that “the results of our analysis do not preclude a possible role for a genetic contribution to racial differences in intelligence for a number of reasons.” He goes on to give three arguments in favor of the “genetic story” that the difference in IQ between blacks and whites comes down to A, C, T, and G.
Instead of being excoriated by blacks, Fryer is celebrated, with black Harvard alumna Soledad O’Brien even interviewing Fryer for her CNN series, Black in America; she calls Fryer a “great guy.” Fryer’s family sold crack, and he personally sold marijuana, stole money from McDonald’s, and nearly murdered a white man. At a meeting organized by Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree about reducing the number of young black men in prison, the 1,000-person, mostly black audience convulsed with laughter when Fryer joked that he once thought of going into the pharmaceutical industry, street-side.
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[Editor’s Note: An earlier story about the Harvard student who wrote about The Bell Curve can be read here.]
