Free Republic

Harvard students, outraged over a doctoral dissertation arguing that Hispanic immigrants lack “raw cognitive ability or intelligence,” this week urged the university to investigate how the thesis came to be approved and to ban future research on racial superiority. The students presented 1,200 signatures to president Drew Faust and the dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, David Ellwood. “Academic freedom and a reasoned debate are essential to our academic community,” the petition said. “However, the Harvard Kennedy School cannot ethically stand behind academic work advocating a national policy of exclusion and advancing an agenda of discrimination.” …

On Monday, May 6, Robert Rector and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation published a study of the fiscal effects of immigration amnesty, arguing that the costs would amount to $6.3 trillion. Controversy greeted the report, but of the normal kind, with critics making specific allegations that the costs were calculated using unrealistic assumptions. On Wednesday, the Washington Post revealed that Richwine’s 2009 Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard’s Kennedy School had said that, on average, Latinos have lower IQs than do non-Latino white Americans and the nation should consider incorporating IQ into immigration decisions. The blogosphere and some elements of the...

As you no doubt have already heard, on Friday the Heritage Foundation accepted the resignation of one Jason Richwine, who in 2009 had completed a Harvard dissertation in which he probed the nexus between immigration and IQ. The decision revealed a shocking unwillingness on the part of Heritage to stand up to bullying and protect the academic freedom of its researchers. Perhaps the only good thing to emerge from all this has been the wide-scale distribution of the dissertation itself, a worthy if highly debatable document. It’s a pity that none of Richwine’s detractors seem to have seriously engaged the...

There are a ton of clips of Jason Richwine talking about race and immigration floating around the Internets. For example, Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed posted a one-minute excerpt from an AEI event that Richwine attended and wrote: Here’s Video Of Another Time The Heritage Analyst Said Blacks and Hispanics Have Lower IQsJason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and co-author of a controversial report on the economic costs of immigration reform, said at a 2008 event that the “most important way” race was different was in IQ. He made similar comments in...

American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray suggested on Friday that former Heritage Foundation analyst Jason Richwine, whose doctoral dissertation at Harvard included evidence that Hispanic immigrants have lower IQs than non-Hispanic whites, had been railroaded and forced to resign by people without integrity or “balls.” Quote: Jason Richwine, guilty of crimethink, "resigns." The bashing from the right has been as mindless as from the left. Thank God I was working for Chris DeMuth and AEI, not Jim DeMint and Heritage, when The Bell Curve was published. Integrity. Loyalty. Balls.DeMuth was the president of AEI from 1986 to 2008. The Bell...

The Heritage Foundation made something of a splash with its study suggesting that immigration reform will cost the public trillions. Past work by one of its co-authors helps put that piece in context. Jason Richwine is relatively new to the think tank world. He received his PhD in public policy from Harvard in 2009, and joined Heritage after a brief stay at the American Enterprise Institute. Richwine’s doctoral dissertation is titled “IQ and Immigration Policy”; the contents are well summarized in the dissertation abstract: "The statistical construct known as IQ can reliably estimate general mental ability, or intelligence. The average...

A co-author of a disputed Heritage Foundation report on a new immigration bill has resigned amid controversy over claims he made about immigrants having low IQs. A spokesman for the conservative think tank confirmed Jason Richwine's resignation Friday without offering details. Richwine was one of two authors of a report released Monday that said immigration legislation pending in the Senate would cost $6.3 trillion over 50 years as immigrants consumed federal benefits without making up for it in taxes. The report quickly came under attack as critics from the left and right said it didn't account for economic benefits from...

How low will supporters of the Gang of Eight immigration bill go to get their way? This low: They've shamelessly branded an accomplished Ivy League-trained quantitative analyst a "racist" and will stop at nothing to destroy his career as they pave their legislative path to another massive illegal alien benefits bonanza. Jason Richwine works for the conservative Heritage Foundation. He's a Harvard University Ph.D. who co-authored a study that pegs the cost of the Ted Kennedy Memorial Open Borders Act 2.0 legislation at $6.3 trillion. Lead author Robert Rector is a senior research fellow at Heritage, a former United States...