The case of Michael Levin - Race, Scholarship, and Affirmative Action

National Review, May 5, 1989 by Daniel Seligman

It is not clear how many members of the Senate knew any of the above. Sohmer himself seemed to know that there was an IQ gap. He insisted, however, that serious scholars paid no attention to IQ scores. ("I believe very few people in the field have the temerity to say that IQ tests are coextensive with intelligence.") This too seemed eerie, possibly because I was having the conversation with Sohmer soon after reading The IQ Controversy, by Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman. The book reports on the findings of an exhaustive survey that drew responses from 661 scholars concerned with the study of intelligence. One critical finding, as summarized by the authors: "On the whole, respondents seem to believe that intelligence tests are doing a good job of measuring intelligence, as they would define it."

THE DAY after the Senate meeting, Levin was summoned to the office of Paul Sherwin, dean of humanities at City College. Martin Tamny, chairman of the philosophy department, was also present. Tamny told Levin that in the circumstances he ought to give up his introductory course. Otherwise, Tamny added, he would personally go into Levin's class and offer the students the option of switching to a second section. Contemplating this horrifying prospect-a racially divided walkout by some of his students-Levin glumly agreed to give up the course temporarily (i.e., until the end of the fall semester).

famny's rationale for pushing Levin out of the introductory course is that black students might suspect he would be unfair to them in class. "Now, I don't think that's so," Tamny told me. "I think that Michael Levin is scrupulously fair to students I've never had any complaints, except perhaps from some who say he's a very demanding teacher." Why, then, force him out? Feeble response: Some black students might not realize he would be fair.

In any case, Levin's withdrawal from the course began to seem less "temporary" in the days after his meeting with Tamny and Sherwin. The Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed Levin and City College President Bernard Harleston, then ran an article about the row at City College. The article included this ominous passage: "Mr. Harleston said it was Mr. Levin's decision to stop teaching the course but added that it would be inappropriate for him to teach required courses in the future."

The Levin case is disheartening on several counts. One is the absence from the campus debate of the most familiar of all propositions about academic freedom: that it implies a right of scholars to express unpopular views without administrative sanctions. Had Levin been penalized for being a pacifist, or a Trotskyist, or a follower of Lyndon LaRouche, the entire college community would instantly have gravitated to that proposition. So we learn, not for the first time, that the usual rules of engagement do not apply when the subject is race.

A problem within this problem is the way the term "racist" has been thrown around at City College. That term ought to be reserved for people who use a racial standard in deciding whose well-being to be concerned about. At City College, however, the term has been used like a blackjack to punish a scholar for holding unacceptable beliefs about an empirical issue. The plain implication of this usage: that the issues Levin was writing about are to be decided not by evidentiary rules but by considering which views are politically acceptable. Meaning that thought control is in the saddle.