FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD
Posted on 10/01/2002 3:35:31 PM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
The University of Southern Maine has paid an undisclosed sum to settle a grievance filed by a professor who said the university injured his reputation by the way it handled an accusation that he made racist remarks in a lecture.
In addition, USM Provost Joseph Wood sent John Broida, a tenured psychology professor, a written apology for denigrating remarks Wood made publicly last spring about Broida's statements regarding the differing IQ's of blacks and whites.
"I apologize if my opinion about the statements drawn from your videotaped lecture offended you personally," Wood wrote to Broida. "It was not my intention to evaluate or criticize your teaching ability."
Wood previously had called Broida's remarks "dumb, stupid" and "offensive."
Bob Caswell, USM spokesman, said Monday that Wood's apology was regarding "his own personal comments" and is "in no way an admission of guilt or wrongdoing on his part or the university's."
Caswell also said that USM would not comment on any details of the settlement.
Howard Reben, the lawyer that the faculty union hired to represent Broida, also said that most details remained confidential. Still, he said the agreement ensured that Broida suffered no economic loss as the result of USM's actions.
Also, Reben said Wood has reassured faculty in two recent public statements that USM will protect academic freedom. "We're very pleased," Reben said.
Broida said he feels "relieved" that the matter is settled. But the resolution upset Rachel Morales, the student who made the accusation against Broida in February.
"I think it's outrageous that he would receive funds and an apology," she said.
Morales was a third-year student when she complained to USM about several comments Broida made in lectures regarding race and homosexuality that she found offensive. Broida made the remarks in a series of lectures that he delivered live to students in an introductory psychology class, but also videotaped to use later in an Internet-based course that Morales took.
The remarks that gained the most publicity were ones in which Broida, who has an unorthodox lecture style and says he likes to provoke student thought, discussed the intelligence of blacks and whites. During one lecture he said, "Do you know that on average blacks have a lower IQ than whites? Yes, have you noticed that? It's true."
There is much public debate about the differences in intelligence test scores in various populations. However, Morales felt Broida stated the information as truth and that his remarks implied that black students at USM were not as smart at white students.
Her complaint about Broida surfaced publicly in April. USM said it had appointed an ad hoc committee to determine if any violation of professional ethics occurred and whether Broida should be disciplined.
But Broida filed a grievance, charging USM with violating his right to academic freedom and breaking contractual agreements it had with faculty. He also said his reputation had been damaged and that he suffered economic loss.
Two of Broida's courses were canceled following the complaint, and he did not receive the stipends for them.
In May, USM scaled back its investigation of Broida and said it had been a "mistake" to publicly discuss the possibility of discipline. They said any review of him would be a private personnel matter.
The ad hoc committee, made up of three USM faculty members and a Bowdoin College professor, ended up issuing a report in June intended to improve the climate on campus for minorities. One recommendation was that USM review videotaped lectures for "accuracy and integrity" before students see them. But that raised an outcry from faculty, who called it "an assault on academic freedom."
Caswell said the university has since determined that the recommendation and two others in the report - diversity education classes for faculty and creating a code of responsible teaching practices - would be subject to a collective bargaining agreement with the faculty union.
The union and the university already are in negotiations over a new contract, but Reben said he does not expect the prior censorship of videotaped lectures to arise because Wood recently told faculty that USM opposes that.
Regarding a fourth recommendation the ad hoc committee made, Caswell said that a new committee of faculty, administrators and students will be formed this fall to review USM's procedure for handling complaints about professors' conduct to see if it needs changing.
When asked if he plans to change his teaching style, Broida, who has taught at USM since 1985, responded, "Of course not."
However, he added, "I listened to the tape and I didn't have any problem with what was said . . . but that doesn't mean that I can't learn from all this, and as the result of that can think about doing things differently."
Morales said she has seen "greater awareness and active efforts" by USM during the past few months to address concerns that minority students have. However, she fears that the Broida settlement will cause a setback in such efforts.
"It's very discouraging," she said.
Not quite ready - yet - for such censorship at USM.
Almost 100 years of data have consistently substantiated that Blacks, on the average, have an I.Q. of 85 (one standard deviation below the norm) compared to European Whites who have, of course, an average I.Q. of 100. Before anyone feels proud of being a European White remember also the following: Asians average I.Q. is 108, Jews average I.Q. is 117 (one standard deviation above the norm) and siblings vary on average by 12 I.Q. points.
No matter what the protest, no matter what the censure, no matter what the belief these are the facts. Post-modernists and liberals in general are the only ones who dispute this. There is no data inconsistent with the above findings.
There is?
There is, actually. I've seen it. Mostly it tends to be in places like Stormfront, Polinco or LibertyForum ;).
This is a hard to determine figure; however, overall the average I.Q. for "Hispanics" is 92. The problem is there are differences in "Hispanics" based on origin. I don't have figures, for instance, for Cubans vs. Mexicans. Again, remember, these are group statistics and do not predict a given individual and differences between siblings average 12 I.Q. points so whatever group difference there is, is comparatively small compared to differences within a family.
Also, remember Alfred Adler's great dictum: "We are all more alike than we are differant." One of the most recent reviews of these matters was done by a British Psychologist named Brandt: he was fired for documenting the extensive data available. Arthur Jensen, a Professor at Harvard, had to have bodyguards for years for doing the same here. A Pslychologist from Florida, I believe his name was Gladny (deceased) did crime data on the basis of race and he was almost fired as well, but he died at age 61 before they could do it. The people who dispute the statistics do this on Liberal and Marxist convictions that nurture determines everything and there are no individual biological differences that are due to heredity.
The best summary of data prior to 1994 can be found in Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve. There was an excellent editorial in the WSJ in 1995 or thereabouts by 300 leaders in psychology who corroborated the data from Herrnstein and Murray and went on to list a long series of conclusions that are indistubable from the known literature. The chief opponent of I.Q. testing and the finding of a "g" or general factor of intgelligence is a
Professor Gardner of the Education Department of Harvard. He believes there are "multiple intelligences" but refuses to give any hard data, correlations or anything else that could be examined from the "g" factor perspective. His theories require a "leap to faith" much like a religion. The vociferous criticisms directed at psychometrists and their findings is almost inconceivable from a rational perspective.
I've seen it, too-but that hardly qualifies as "much public debate".
This is a hard to determine figure; however, overall the average I.Q. for "Hispanics" is 92. The problem is there are differences in "Hispanics" based on origin. I don't have figures, for instance, for Cubans vs. Mexicans.
The term "Hispanic" as a catch-all term is meaningless as either a cultural or racial term as the only common factor is origin in a Spanish speaking country. It is analogous to lumping Australians and Jamaicans together and calling them both "Britannics".
As group, the Cuban American population is not representative of the general population. At the time of Castro's take over, Cuba and Argentina had the highest per capita middle classes of any population in Latin America. With Castro's coming, practically the entire Cuban middle class packed up and fled to the U.S. Therefore, the average Cuban immigrant in the 1960's was not a random sampling of the general Cuban or general American population but was skewed towards individuals that were the movers and shakers.
When my first cousins and I came over as kids from Cuba in the 1960's our fathers drove taxis, pumped gas, whatever it took to put food on the table. However, 30 years later we were M.D.'s, attorneys, C.P.A.'s, bank presidents and business owners because of our upbringing.
By contrast, my wife's family has been in this country for over 100 years and is "thrilled" that my wife's nephew was accepted to a vocational school. That family is not any "dumber" than my family. They simply have little family tradition for what it takes to get to the top of the economic food chain.
We have had plenty of discussions such as, "I know that public school was good enough for you and good enough for your sister's kids but that's simply not the way we do things in my family. Our kids will be educated in a private school".
Our kids now rountinely score in the 99th percentiles on standadized tests and my wife has decided that maybe Cubans know a thing or two about raising kids after all.
In the Nature vs Nurture debate, I'm on the Nurture side.
Doesn't everyone on this Forum know people who are extraordinarily bright on some subjects or areas of life, and really 'stupid' in others?
Time and time again, I've seen this in people, including myself; long ago it became obvious that intelligence (as opposed to "IQ") is highly multidimensional.
Sure. Every Democrat member of MENSA.
<>--<)B^)
"Time and time again, I've seen this in people, including myself; long ago it became obvious that intelligence (as opposed to "IQ") is highly multidimensional
Answer: Yes I.Q. is multi-dimensional; however, the point is each of the factors seems to correlate with a general factor called "g." If Dr. Gardner gave us his data (if it exists) we could do correlation coeficients and determine whether and how much these factors of his correlated with "g." Generally, almost all I.Q. tests (and there are a considerable number) all have performance or verbal factors which all correlate with "g" if they measure performance at all.
Think of "g" as something like heat. You can measure it. You can quantify it. But it is still hard to define. Heat does follow certain laws and "heat" can be found in anything we call "hot." Not a good analogy perhaps, but the only one I can come up with now.
The only reason to discuss these matters is that people keep making statements and actions which run contrary to nature. For example, some years ago it was discovered the State of California was giving I.Q. tests to children to determine if they needed special education and help. It turned out that 30% of the Black children needed this help. A federal judge looked at this and said it was "racism" and forbid the schools from giving Black children I.Q. tests. This was the law of the land, until recently when Black parents demanded some exceptions.
If you find a child with a learning disorder it is important to make the proper diagnosis and proceed. Generally, the less able the student the more it is going to cost in time and money to achieve an amelioration or solution to the problem. The hysteria on the left about I.Q., racial differences and genetics have actually impaired the ability of professionals to do a better job and politicians from directing sufficient and necessary resources to do that job.
Thomas Sowell Rocks BUMP
Richard Herrnstein (Professor of Psychology at Harvard) died before the book was published (1994). He held the BF Skinner chair in psychology --this is one of the most prestigious ones in the US. Charles Murray, more of a social scientist and intellectual, is alive and is described by many in the liberal media as "the most dangerous conservative in America." Actually, Professor Murray is more of a Libertarian as far as I understand him.
I pulled the Thomas Sowell citation you gave. He alleges things, again, without data on the basis of anecdotal evidence. He is one of my favorite people; however, he is wrong about Dr. Jensen as well. It would seem even genius level, Black people hate the idea of group norms and the inheritance of mental abilities. Incidentally, I watch a lot of football: almost all the great players are now Black. Ditto for the game of Basketball. Ditto for West African ancestory and long distance running. No one alleges these are random events caused by nurture only. Parenthetically, if you keep in mind that Jews, on the average, are smarter than European Whites (Mean Jewish I.Q. is 117), then you are not surprised by the over-representation in Nobel Prizes, scientists, physicians, lawyers and successful business men. When I last checked the Forbes 400 richest, about 1/4 were Jews and they are only 2% or so of the general population. Much of anti-semitism comes from the extroardinary success of Jews whenever they have been treated equal to others. I don't know if this represents a facet of being God's chosen people, or a simple secular finding on long term group characteristics.
It is really an impossible task. Academe is littered with the intellectual corpses of psychologists and others who ascribe mental abilities as well as physical abilities as an interaction between inheritance and the enviornment.
A good parlor test I have given in the past is to pose two questions to the audience. First, do you hold that there is such a thing as human nature and this needs to be taken into account when you choose to reform society? As a corallary of this question, I accept the doctrine of original sin or any kind of secular statement indicating there is a basic, genetically determined human nature and we are not simply a "tabla rasa." The second question I ask do you see differences between individuals and groups that cannot be wiped out by education, income redistribution or egalitarian beliefs. The answer to these to questions is always surprising. There is large group of smart, thinking people who disclaim the evidence of inheritance of almost anything in human beings even though they may purchase dogs and horses on this basis (some of my friends are well off!). There is also a child-like, rather than realistic, belief that you can educate anyone and everyone to fit any job ever designed. Amazing. I believe in education, but there are limits what I or anyone can achieve. No doubt, Dr. Sowell is smarter than 99.9% of the people (and this includes me); however, he has an underlying faulty appreciation of human and group differences.
The 10% increase in I.Q. over a generation is called the "Flynn Effect." It occurs in all races in this country and in Europe. At the same time the SAT Scores have declined. What seems to be the case is that the left hand side of the Bell Curve has been improving on the basis of a better diet and medical care. The lowering of the SAT Scores could be the function of a dysfunctional education system or selective mating where women with I.Q.'S 120 plus are not reproducing sufficient to replace their population while women with I.Q.'s less than 80 are reproducing at a rate, and a younger age that increases their segment of the population. +
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.