I recently had a conversation with an academic woman who was strongly against any discussion of racial differences in academic ability even though she seemed to believe they exist. I countered that in the absence of such a discussion, the conversation usually reverts to charges that the reason for the racial achievement gap (RAG) is because of White racism, either directly or indirectly (e.g., by causing Black poverty).
Now Prof. Ralph Scott of the University of Northern Iowa has written an article in Mankind Quarterly describing the victims of this rigorously enforced silence (“The Late Arthur Jensen: A latter-Day ‘Enemy of the People’?“). Dr. Scott was prominently involved in the public discussion of the effects of desegregation, including a stint as the Iowa chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights. His article presents Arthur Jensen as the consummate scientist. For example, Jensen only included heritability in his groundbreaking 1969 Harvard Educational Review article on boosting IQ because the editor requested him to do so. His finding that there was no evidence for lasting gains in IQ and that IQ differences are substantially heritable resulted in a firestorm, not only for Jensen but for others, such as Prof. Scott, who accepted these findings.
Scott emphasizes findings by Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman (The IQ Controversy [1988]) that there is a gap between (covertly held) professional opinion on IQ and the views disseminated by the elite media. “They found that, despite the common understanding to the contrary, most experts continue to believe that intelligence can be measured, and that genetic endowment plays an important role in IQ.” The following is from an abstract for the book:
The central question addressed in this book is why expert opinion and public views toward intelligence and its measurement are so widely divergent. The authors conclude that the public’s view of the IQ controversy has been shaped by inaccurate media coverage; and more importantly, by changes in the nature of American liberalism as well as the key role of civil rights issues in American life. The increasing influence of new strategic elites in the United States, and the changing role of the mass media, have profoundly affected the character of scientific information communicated to the general public and how it is communicated. (See here)
(Parenthetically, The Culture of Critique references 8 works co-authored by Stanley Rothman, including the groundbreaking Roots of Radicalism: Christians, Jews and the Left [which documents the predominant Jewish role in the 1960s countercultural revolution]. Rothman’s writings on the attitudes of the new elite and on the Jewish representation in the new elite are of seminal importance.)
Scott emphasizes Jensen’s finding that the one standard deviation difference between Black and White students persisted through the school years, implying that the problem was not the schools. As a result, Jensen emphasized that remediation should be aimed at the preschool years:
Colorblind emphasis therefore should be placed on prenatal and perinatal events taking place within families in the course of daily living, such as poor nutrition and intrafamily stress, as well as biophysical considerations, including maternal ingestion of illegal drugs during pregnancy, single parenting, crimes, and sickle cell anemia.
Needless to say, this remains an unpopular message in an age where it seems the blame is now directed mainly at teachers. Jensen advocated placing children into ability groups based on their scores on standardized tests—a proposal that clearly conflicts with egalitarian dogma. Instead, the education establishment pinned their hopes of reducing the racial achievement gap (RAG) on desegregation—not merely de jure desegregation (in which Blacks had the right to attend neighborhood schools), but de facto segregation (which actively changed the racial balance of schools by forced busing). Read more