Did you hear the one about the Harvard Law student who sent out an e-mail saying that she “absolutely do[es] not rule out the possibility that African-Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent1.” No? Well it did actually happen, so it’s not actually a joke. This scenario also has the unfortunate characteristic of not being funny. Jokes usually are.
Recently, a third year law student named Stephanie Grace disrespected her surname by speaking about the differences between the races, in a way that would make Harry Reid blush. This outburst occurred during a dinner party at Harvard University. Yes. This wasn’t Bob Jones—the University with the infamous “blacks-and-whites-can’t-hold-hands-on-campus-lest-we-encourage-interracial-marriages”policy that wasn’t removed until the year 20002. This was Harvard. When her invective comments were not taken the way she intended, she sent out an e-mail to those involved explaining in more detail what she had meant to say. The e-mail didn’t help.
Indeed, the e-mail, now circulating on blogs and being examined at law schools, was one of the more hurtful texts, directed at frequently discriminated-against groups, produced under the cloistered guidance of America’s Ivy League institutions in recent years.
There was, if you recall, a similar incident with Larry Summers, the President of Harvard, who said at a 2005 academic conference that innate “biological differences” between men and women might be a reason why women fail to succeed in science-and-math-based careers3. Summers may have only graduated from MIT with a bachelor’s degree in economics, but he defended himself, saying his statements were simply hypotheses gathered from bits and pieces of scientific literature. Remember, he’s not a scientist. What were the opinions of scientist’s on this supposed debate of “biological differences”? Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at MIT, said that if she hadn’t left during his talk “I would've either blacked out or thrown up.” The censure from his calamitous statements was part of the reason why he resigned from Harvard the following year.
Larry didn’t resign soon enough to avoid impressing Stephanie Grace with the idea that social trends can always be explained with rash and offensive logic. In trying to defend why it was alright for her to assume that intelligence might be a genetically determined trait that is also linked with race, she said this, echoing Larry’s own bombastic comments: “Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders1.” (It’s somewhat shocking that despite paraphrasing his idea, the last line of Stephanie’s e-mail reads: “please don’t pull a Larry Summers on me.”)
Like Larry, Stephanie also believes that she has not erred because she isn’t saying that African-Americans are less intelligent. She’s just saying it’s possible. Just like it’s possible that crack cocaine was distributed to the poor by the government (a statement made by Antwan Patton in the song “Mighty O”), and just like it’s possible George Bush really didn’t care about black people (as Kanye West declared on a national telethon), Stephanie believes that it’s possible African-Americans are genetically inferior. The difference here, however, is that Stephanie isn’t some pop culture icon. She isn’t a celebrity whom the public can dismiss quickly if they so decide. She is a law student at Harvard Law School. One day, if she can successfully write an apologetic e-mail that isn’t even more inciting, Stephanie might be someone of importance within this country. But she has a fundamentally flawed way of looking at social issues. Her judicial decisions will mirror her reasoning, which seems to be of poor quality.
Stephanie is guilty of speaking without thinking, but Harvard University is guilty of letting students pass through its various institutions, coming out on the other end with a Harvard degree which will allow her to do many things that she has proven she should not be allowed to do.
Larry Summers, for example, found employment after his resignation from Harvard with a new institution. He is the director for the White House’s National Economic Council.
Who is to trust in this country? Racism is half-hidden in putative remarks spewed by intellectuals devoid of propriety. Ivy League institutions seem to have no control or desire to mold their students into morally responsible adults. During the 2008 presidential election, there was a lot of discussion about the growing mistrust of elites in the country. But can you condemn this disapprobation? From what has occurred, and from what still occurs, it should be no wonder average Americans are so fearful of elites running the country—elitists are all racist, sexist, ignorant bastards. That may be a joke. But the amount of pernicious commentary presented each year from the places we are taught to respect, should be reason enough for real concern.
1. Jill. Stephanie Grace, racist Harvard emailer. Feministe, April 29th, 2010. <http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/04/29/stephanie-grace-racist-harvard-emailer/>
2. Dances With Compromise: The Bob Jones University Twist. The Multiracial Activist, March 31st, 2000. <http://multiracial.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=285&Itemid=27>
3. Bombardieri, Marcella. Summers’ remarks on women draw fire. The Boston Globe, January 17th, 2005.
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