Tuesday, December 9, 2008
On the chopping Block
Posted by Lauren LaBorde on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 8:45 PM
Walter Block, Loyola economics chair and former adviser to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, is no stranger to incendiary opinions. I interviewed him for my Gambit article “Safe or Sorry?”, about a proposed piece of legislation that would allow guns on college campuses, because of his widely-known, staunchly libertarian views. In discussing the role of firearms on campuses he also brought up, interestingly enough, feminism:
"Where the hell are the feminists (regarding this issue)?" he asks. "They're always taking about, you know, women are exploited and they aren't equal and this and that and the other. Well, the gun's a great equalizer. Men are taller than women, men weigh more than women, men have more testosterone than women, men are more likely to fight and rape than women. That's what [feminists] would affirm, that women are powerless — they need to seize power. Well how better to seize power than to seize a gun? That's a very powerful implement."
(Later in the article appears a quote from Loyola sociology professor Marcus Kondkar — who conducted a campus-wide study last year on rape and sexual coercion — refuting this claim, saying that the majority of sexual assault instances occur among acquaintances and dating partners.)
Now Block is under fire for his views, which also involve women — and also, African Americans.
During a recent visit to Loyola College in Baltimore, Block attributed the existence of the wage gap between men and women (women generally make 79 cents to every dollar a man makes) to lower productivity among females.
And even more incendiary: In a post-lecture question and answer session when someone asked about the wage disparity between blacks and whites, he cited the same reason. The proof?:
"The politically correct answer is that lower black productivity is due to slavery, Jim Crow legislation, poor treatment of African-Americans in terms of schooling, etc. The politically incorrect explanation was supplied by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in their book 'The Bell Curve': lower black IQs."
Potential problems with such statements run abound. For instance, Block fails to mention the institutional aspects that contribute to the wage gap — most notably, the lack of legal, paid maternity leave in the country (America is the only industrialized country without a uniform policy). As for the “Bell Curve,” that theory — that blacks are fundamentally less capable than whites due to IQ differences — is outdated and has been mostly rejected by scholars.
Rev. Kevin Wildes, Loyola president, wrote a letter to editor to the Times-Picayune about a week ago, basically saying that Block does not speak on behalf of the university. Meanwhile, many members of the Loyola community feel embarrassed, misrepresented and are calling for Block’s tenure to be overturned. Also, many parents of current and prospective Loyola students are vowing to revoke support of the university, or to dissuade their children from enrolling.
The question is: When it comes to academic freedom and First Amendment rights, what crosses the line? Also, Block and Wildes both agree on one thing – that the views of one professor don’t reflect those of an entire university. Is that the case, especially since former Harvard president Lawrence Summers was recently removed for some similarly disparaging comments.
(Click here for James Gill’s Times-Picayune column on Block, as well as — as you may expect — a host of intelligent, articulate reader comments.)
Comments (6)
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"...— refuting this claim, saying that the majority of sexual assault instances occur among acquaintances and dating partners." Lauren, Block seemed to be speaking of feminists,weapons and rape in general, the problem of rape is across society and not limited to the college campus. Even if this bill were directed to college campuses, a weapon is an equalizer on an acquaintance as well as a stranger. You also wrote: "As for the “Bell Curve,” that theory — that blacks are fundamentally less capable than whites due to IQ differences — is outdated and has been mostly rejected by scholars." You and Gill have both made that assertion while producing no support for that contention. Could you direct me and others interested to any scholarly articles that refute the findings of Herrnstein and Murray?
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Yeah, the guy's academic and was commenting on sources. His assertion isn't particularly off the mark as far as a great body of still relevant literature is concerned. It's just not right to have academics running scared to voice what they ponder and ESPECIALLY what a great deals of others might ponder. By the way, if a woman has a job and little kids her priorities are in fact divided. Over the course of her life, and on the average, this certainly drops the amount of AVERAGE productivity. Consider that the trends in lower productivity he is siting do not exist in scandanavian societies where there is less of a cultural bias to women being the primary care giver, or that salary differences among young and single men and women are negligible.
Here's some academic literature and research refuting Herrnstein and Murray. This is what I was able to find in only a few minutes. There is infinitely more out there, including a more than a few books and edited collections. Murray and Herrnstein are widely considered a joke. Herrnstein's book Crime and Human Nature claims a relationship between physical characteristics (like head size) and likelihood of criminal behavior. And anyone who has read Murray's other book, Losing Ground, knows what a logical stretch that one is. Cracks in the Bell Curve: How Education Matters Author(s): Linda Darling-Hammond Source: The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 64, No. 3, Myths and Realities: African Americans and the Measurement of Human Abilities (Summer, 1995), pp. 340-353 Published by: Journal of Negro Education Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2967213 Lessons from the Bell Curve Author(s): James J. Heckman Source: The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 103, No. 5 (Oct., 1995), pp. 1091-1120 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2138756 The Pseudoscience of Psychometry and The Bell Curve Author(s): Joseph L. Graves, Jr. and Amanda Johnson Source: The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 64, No. 3, Myths and Realities: African Americans and the Measurement of Human Abilities (Summer, 1995), pp. 277-294 Published by: Journal of Negro Education Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2967209 Washington University Researchers Shoot a Small Hole in The Bell Curve Source: The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 18 (Winter, 1997-1998), p. 37 Published by: The JBHE Foundation Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2998739
hegemon: First, the topic of my interview with Block was about this bill, which would apply to college campuses, so I assume he was referring to incidences of on-campus rape. But I could be wrong. However, could you elaborate on how a gun would be an equalizer with an acquaintance or a dating partner? I don't think most women would carry a gun in the presence of her boyfriend, anticipating such an attack. That is the problem with rape, is that it often occurs among friends or dating partners, leading to a problem of women not reporting the rape or not considering the act rape. But this study was meant to only be generalizable to a college population (the findings of this study were consistent to those at other campuses). Second, without perusing a library or an academic search engine, I did find that the American Psychological Association release a report on the Bell Curve theory, saying that "There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation... . It is sometimes suggested that the Black/ White differential in psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences (Jensen, 1972). There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis." Also, over the years, there has been a general consensus that genetic determinism is not a sound theory. I don't have any specific places to find a statement to support that, but it's pretty ubiquitous. But this really comes down to sociological versus deterministic ways of thinking, which often can't be reconciled. I prefer the sociological way of thinking, which takes into account the role of social institutions in theorizing as to why things are the way they are. Togakangaroo: First, I believe the cliché holds true that with freedom comes responsibility.I think that's the crux of the controversy. Second: "Consider that the trends in lower productivity he is siting do not exist in scandanavian societies where there is less of a cultural bias to women being the primary care giver, or that salary differences among young and single men and women are negligible." That is exactly the point I'm trying to make, that things can't always be attributed solely to the individual, which is why many disagree with Block's assertion that women are fundamentally less productive.
The fact of the matter is in the US most women aren't going to carry guns for cultural reasons. My only point was rape can happen in many circumstances and weapons if available would be effective for the more defenseless against acquaintances or strangers. And while this is not the best forum to discuss the Bell Curve, I will note that the APA also states: "The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socio-economic status. Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support." "At present, no one knows what causes this differential." Hardly a refutation of the position taken by Herrenstein and Murray. Reasoned studies on this issue are not ubiquitous.
