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Rutgers (was: Re: IQ AND RACE. The taboo subject.)
Gordon Fitch (gcf@panix.com)
9 Feb 1995 13:41:16 -0500
lajoie@eskimo.com (Stephen Lajoie):
| In my first response to this thread, long ago, I stated that there was
| serious reasons why one could not say that IQ was related to race.
|
| Later on, I stated that many professors are muzzled by political
| pressure to not state the obvious; that race and IQ are correlated. I
| knew very well that many professors will tell you they are not related in
| public, and but admit that there is a correlation in private when they
| felt it was safe. They fear for their jobs.
|
| The response to my claim was that this evidence was anecedotal. That there
| was no proof. I remembered that there had been cases of extreme political
| pressure put on profs who admitted the truth in public, but I couldn't
| remember when.
|
| Well, the is a case in the news now. Francis Lawrence, president of
| Rutgers university, said that SAT scores were unfair because black
| students lacked the genetic and hereditary background needed to score
| high on them.
|
| He's taken it back, he said he mispoke, he apoligized, but the clamor
| for his firing still goes on. He is under a great deal of political
| pressure to quit or be fired. ...
A little bit different, I think. Francis Lawrence is
supposed to be an administrator and leader, that is, a
person who holds political power. Not surprisingly, many
people do not want an institution to which they are closely
connected, and which may judge them publicly, to be led by a
person who thinks they are genetically deficient. This is a
quite a bit different than writing similarly stupid material
in some journal where the only harm is the affront to one's
intellect.
I will not be surprised, however, if the Academic community,
at least at Rutgers, chooses to pretend that this is an
issue of academic freedom, just as the article I am quoting
does. I understand that petition forms have already been
printed up at the university and taken to every department.
One wonders what pressures the faculty feel at a time like
this, especially the untenured.
The Black students, of course, will not care; they are too
hip for that game, I'm sure.
It's interesting that, with all his doubtless massive "IQ",
the hapless Lawrence could not have figured out that if he
called a large number of his constituents congenitally
stupid he would get into some kind of trouble. Most ten-
year-olds know better, at least in the 'hood.
--
>< Gordon Fitch >< gcf@panix.com ><
|