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

National Review, May 5, 1989 by Daniel Seligman

I HAVE MENTIONED Michael Levin's story to a fair number of people in the past month or so, and repeatedly run into one reaction. Yes, yes, people say, they agree that what City College did to Levin was wrong, and okay, they are prepared to accept that he was right about the facts. But still, why did he have to say it? Why wound City College students by raising the sensitive subject of black-white differences in mental ability?

The reaction seems understandable, but ultimately it does not make sense (even aside from the fact that Levin had no reason to suppose his students would ever read the essay). Anyone seriously interested in the future of affirmative action cannot forever duck the subject of racial differences in ability. We have no occasion to focus on many other group IQ differences those between rich and poor whites, say. We can easily pass over those differences (which are also significant) because we are not running programs systematically granting preference to poor whites and taking their failure to do better as evidence of discrimination. The existing system of preferences for minorities makes the subject of group differences at once more sensitive and less avoidable. The Levin story can be read as one more indicator of affirmative action's tendency to poison race relations.