Playing The Race Card

Regarding "Heritage official quits amid flap over IQ remarks" (Saturday Nation), Jason Richwine - the Heritage Fellow in question - is called racist by Hispanic advocate Arturo Carmona and a large number of others on the Left for positing in his doctoral thesis that Hispanics score lower on IQ tests than other ethnic groups.  This raises two important questions:

 

1) There are dozens of studies that provide compelling evidence that Hispanics score lower than non-Hispanic whites on IQ tests, just as Asians consistently score higher than whites.  Are all of those authors racist too?

 

2)  Mr. Richwine was awarded a doctorate for his dissertation by a board of Harvard professors that included a major liberal academic by the name of Prof Christopher Jencks, who specializes in the very subject of Richwine's dissertation.  Does that mean that Jencks and Harvard are racist as well?

 

Having read his doctoral thesis, I don't agree with Mr. Richwine's conclusions about IQ, but I saw no evidence that he is racist, or that he must be ostracized for his views.  It is distressing that so many on the Left use this term so profligately.  It is more distressing that conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation can be bullied into letting people go without making any effort to defend their positions.  Rash language like this serves no purpose but to stifle debate. 

 

Pete Smith

Cypress