Focus 580; Academic Racism

In the Friday forum series and we have been following the series along this spring. This is a series of noontime talks they happen at noon on Friday at the university why it's jointly sponsored by the university YMCA the McKinley foundation the Episcopal Church Foundation and the Wesley Foundation and the overall theme for the series this spring. He is responding to racism. And today we'll be speaking with Professor Barry Mailer who is a professor in the department of humanities at Ferris State University which is in Big Rapids Michigan will be talking about academic racism and the growing eugenics movement. And as we talk with Professor mailer of course you're welcome to call in. All we need to do is all you need to do is pick up the telephone to call you like to participate in our program the local number here to call these 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line. That is good anywhere that you can hear us. And that is 800 to 2 to 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 wy allow 800 to 2 to WY alone. I'm very male or maybe familiar to some of you here in this

campus as he did his Ph.D. here. He really is an authority on the topic of racism and has done a lot of research and writing and now has rather been widely interviewed not only on this on this topic of the eugenics movement academic racism but also. The extreme right of political groups the Ku Klux Klan the neo nazis. Also I think on this program some time ago he spoke with us about Lyndon Larouche and his people. And so this is a kind of area that he has devoted a great deal of time and energy to. And again as we talk to perhaps you'll have questions we would welcome this. It's good to see you again. Oh it's great to be back here it's great to be back years you say you know I think this is about the fifth the sixth time I've been in the studio with you. So it's really nice to be home. Well perhaps for people who aren't quite certain what eugenics movement is all about.

It would be good to start by giving us a definition that's right a real thumbnail of the eugenics movement is the movement to improve the human species. By selective breeding by encouraging the reproduction of the superior humans and by discouraging the reproduction of inferior human beings the movement got started around the turn of the century and the United States was the world leader of the eugenics movement until Adolf Hitler came along. Some of the aspects of it were sterilization programs for people who were regarded as feeble minded or had biological tendencies to criminal behavior etc. and we actually passed in this country some 30 odd state sterilization laws in 1997 Supreme Court ruled that sterilization eugenic sterilization and eugenics forced sterilization was legal in the United States. Also immigration restriction was a eugenic policy and encouraging the breeding of the superior elements in the in the in the country. You could do that for example by tax incentives instead

of taxing the wealthy to superior and wealthy were synonymous terms basically. So instead of taxing the wealthy to support the poor which you want to do is tax the poor to support the wealthy you don't want to. Discourage those who are doing well in society from having large families in Europe under Adolf Hitler. The eugenics program finally produced its ultimate flowering in breeding farms and death camps. So the first wave of the eugenics movement basically produced sterilization programs breeding farms and death camps after World War 2. The whole movement was really buried under the bones in ashes of its millions of victims and in the last few decades we've seen a resurgence a reemergence of this movement and in it has it seems to have acquired or perhaps it always had but it seems no had to have acquired a stamp what we what anyone might say is a stamp of

academic legitimacy at least in the sense that there are people who seem to have the right kind of credentials who are working in academic. Surroundings who publish their papers in what seem to be the appropriate kind of journals and speak to the appropriate kind of meetings that are advancing these kinds of theories. It's interesting question because I'm looking at the history of the eugenics movement and in all the literature to date in all the monographs that have been written on the eugenics movement what you find is that the scholars say that the old style eugenics the old style eugenics that led to sterilization breeding farms and death camps that eugenics died after World War 2. And what you had was a wholly different form of eugenics eugenics that was much more humanitarian. Medical Genetics for example genetic counseling these things that are that were much less to be concerned about in terms of racist implications and social policy implications. And

what I found is that if you take a look at the post-war period you find that the old style eugenics continued right along and you had the same kinds of people for example. In 1954 the eugenics movement in the United States launched a massive assault on Brown v. Board of Education and school disintegration. And it was led by Henry Garrett who was the chairman of the department of psychology at Columbia University president of the American Psychological Association. One of the foremost psychologists in the United States there was nothing wrong with the man's credentials. What's interesting is nobody paid attention to him because in 1054 the liberal Democratic coalition was in ascendancy and basically liberal scholars who are writing the history of the eugenics movement who were writing the history of the civil rights movement basically ignored these people because regardless of Henry garrets credentials. He could not gain the ear of the broader public. And what was interesting to see is that the liberal scholars felt that the old eugenics died because nobody was looking at it. In other words if you didn't see it didn't it

what didn't exist. What has happened more recently is that these same scholars in the post-war period were producing students and these students went off to perfectly legitimate academic positions and now these students are publishing in writing and arguing and thinking what really has happened is not that the old eugenics movement has changed or that they the people are in new positions or publishing in new places but the political center of gravity in the West itself has moved to that significantly to the right since the Reagan revolution since Mark with that church and as a result these ideas are becoming to coming to the fore. People are now seeing that they exist because the because they are they are a politically useful and political organizations institutions are paying attention to them. And I think that's what's happening rather than he really had any change in the quality of the people who are arguing eugenics. Her does it does it seem that these

these arguments are finding. They are of greater appeal than they were or are they finding that you aren't receptive yet very receptive audience receptive audience a new appeal. You know it was interesting last year when J Philip Rushton went to the American Academy of American Association for the Advancement of Science meanings for those who were unaware. Last year in February a full professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario at that time little known but he had an impressive publication history. I have a 15 or 16 page bibliography of his work in publishing in academic journals throughout the world of very fine journals. He also was a Simon Guggenheim fellow which is America's most prestigious academic fellowship one of the most prestigious. Certainly he went to the Triple-A us meeting last year to present a paper on racial differences in character traits across the board he

had 60 different character measures. So it wasn't just focused on intelligence but it was focused on all kinds of character traits. And he basically divided the three races blacks whites and Asians and he said the difference between these three groups is an evolutionary one that the blacks are the most primitive and that as the human species moved into Europe into cope with their climbs the human species developed into a higher race. And then as the human species moved even further into Asia Mongolia where was it extremely cold. The species developed even higher so he said that the basic difference between the blacks in Orientals for example is that the Orientals have large brains and small genitals and the blacks have small brains and large Janice holes in the whites or in between. There are 700 reporters at the Triple-A

Hess and when he presented these findings the reporters hit the ceiling it was just there was this media assault on the man and there were calls for his dismissal at Western Ontario the Premier of Western Ontario called his ideas and his thinking despicable it was you know this is just this outrage. And I began getting phone calls about you to discuss the history of his ideas and I thought and I told people called me Phil Rushton did not fall from the sky. Phil Rushton is a John Simon Guggenheim fellow who has been publishing these ideas for the last five years. The only reason that people taking notes suddenly is because he presented the these ideas to reporters not the academics. And I think that since last year the whole debate has really opened up and a number of scholars now are beginning to gain prominence as a result of that whole incident. I mean a number of eugenics guys eugenic and the kids were guests just to remind

you if you've just tuned in there within the last five or 10 minutes our guest is Barry Mailer. He's a professor in the department of humanities at Ferris State University which is located in Michigan in Big Rapids Michigan. We're talking this morning about academic racism and the growing eugenics movement. Barry Mailer is here to speak at the Friday forum today at noontime so if you're here in and around Champaign-Urbana you will have further opportunities to hear from him but one opportunity you will have here this morning is if you have questions or comments you'd like to direct the conversation in a particular way you can do that by calling and talking with us. Three three three W I L L ord 9 4 5 5. Toll free anywhere you hear us 800 1:58 WLM. How how have. The institutions where these these academics reside responded to this and did they was it their hope that as long as no would really knew what these people were doing or their work wasn't widely read and didn't get a lot of attention that they really wouldn't

have to bother with. Well Ford administrator for example in 1969 author Jensen published his historic article in The Harvard educational review on why Head Start programs don't work. I was working in Headstart at the time and we had children who were coming to us in the morning and we were feeding them breakfast. We were giving them a breakfast that they wouldn't have at home. And I read author Jensen's article and he was basically my interpretation was he was saying don't bother beating feeding them breakfast because it's not going to increase their IQ. The article made a sensation. Since then author Jensen has received I think close to a million dollars in funds from the Pioneer Fund. His university has received a cut of that money and university administrators money talks. J Philip Rushton is gotten somewhere that a couple hundred thousand dollars from the Pioneer Fund so that there's there are funding agencies who are willing to support these people. Then there's also the the publice ADC which can be is a two edged sword. The University of Western

Ontario for example came to Russian's defense and they said this is a question of academic freedom the man has a right to say to espouse his theories. And in fact I was asked my opinion I said to the it was a Canadian Educational Association that was doing an investigation and I said you don't you don't destroy an idea by cutting off the head of the person who has the idea you've got to confront the issues. And I didn't think that firing Rushton was going to be a useful. On the other hand various institutions have responded differently. The University of London last year when it discovered that the hounds I sink was receiving money from the Pioneer Fund which is the the major source of funding for all of this research the Pioneer Fund funds basically everyone who was doing research to show the intellectual inferiority of negroes and then this whole

eugenic theory they are the primary funding agency the University of London froze the funds and initiated an investigation. The University of Delaware now where there is again a Pioneer Fund scandal going on has called for a major investigation. And so the question arises in terms of response of institutions is how to respond to should we or should we not take money from the Pioneer Fund the students of the University of Delaware ran an editorial in which they said this is essentially dirty money. And the University of Delaware should not take this money they should return with what has been taken and disassociate themselves because when you associate yourself with the eugenic institution you lend credibility to the institution as far as the individual scholars are concerned. That's I don't advocate throwing out people Begnaud out of universities because of their attitude because

they're for example because they're racist. The fact is that we have to understand that if you want to fire every racist professor in America not to have an professors left I mean we we all were raised in a society in which that racism is pervasive. And one of the points that I want to make of it was we all need to have a little humility here in terms of our own attitudes. We try to divide people between the races than not races you know my mother used to say you know so-and-so doesn't have a racist bone in their body. I mean it isn't true I mean we all have to learn. We we really need to have some humility about this and we need to try to distinguish between racism and the racist the racist as a human being. Racism is that is a DePaul deplorable idea and we need to confront it in some cases. There was a fellow I think his name was C.P. Ellis who was a Ku Klux Klan member a leader of the Ku Klux Klan and. And got involved in a local community activity around his the public school with a with a member the leader of the black community.

And you know and the two of them you know they hated each other they you know but they had to work together. And he really he he went to a metamorphosis. And and he has he's become an opponent of Klan ideas he was able to grow and change and people like that are of enormous value to our society. And we have to learn from that. You know it's not it doesn't have to be as dramatic as I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and now you know I see the light. We all have to grow in that way we all have to develop sensitivities and we have our own prejudices. And one of the things that I you know constantly tell the audience is when I talk about the prejudices on American campuses the most common prejudice on college campuses as far as I can tell is the belief in the intellectual inferiority of undergraduate students. That appears to me to be the most widespread prejudice we believe these students that can't read they can't write they're getting worse every generation. And it must be biological I know because they used to be a whole lot better in the old days when we were under when we were undergraduates That's right. We have a caller to talk

with let's do that on our toll free line. Good morning. I heard Margaret Margaret Sanger was active in eugenics. You know if you really was a she was what. Yes she really was a she. She really was corrupted by it. She started out working with Emma Goldman and doing work with tenement house people immigrants and very wonderful work. And Emma Goldman never compromised and refused. Emma Goldman was asked about eugenics and she said if we have to sterilize criminals let's start with the big criminals let's sterilize Rockefeller and Carnegie. They're the ones who were you know stealing the big money what's the difference of the petty crooks I mean takes a million of them to steal as much money as Rockefeller steals. So that's the kind of statement she would make. Whereas Margaret Sanger was approached by the Rockefeller Foundation and they said you know we are interested in funding your work were we are concerned about birth control. And

she began taking their money and the birth control movement really gained credibility. And she also began to she saw that in order to gain the funds of the leading agencies of the tunnelling foundations of the time one had to use these eugenic arguments the idea was that birth control will limit the reproduction of these less intelligent less of. Appropriate sectors of the society. And so she did get sucked into that and she ended up the Birth Control Review began to espouse eugenics policies. That's true. Thank you very much. All right thank you for the call. Other callers are welcome to have questions for our guest Barry mailer 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. I suppose whenever one gets to talk about these kinds of ideas there there may be some disagreement about how much attention one should give them. I don't suppose there will always be people who will argue that

the that somehow the way to deal with these people is by ignoring them. And that by talking about their ideas somehow you are or you are being an agent in space and spreading them. And I take it that you would not take that point of view your point of view would be that we ought to be doing what we can to shine lights into dark corners because. One never knows what's what's in those corners and we ought to know. Well as I said in 1954 these people were running around and they were Henry Garrett for example was testifying in federal court and he was giving papers and talking to people and saying that school integration won't work because Negro children are intellectually inferior to white children and if you put them into the same class you're really harming the poor kids. And and he presented himself as an advocate for for the black children I mean he was really concerned about what was going to happen to them. When you put them in competition with the white children who were biologically

intellectually superior and Henry guard was ignored and in that environment there was no problem with ignoring him because basically the dominant ideology of the time was a liberal democratic ideology. They can't be ignored anymore the world is really changing. We're seeing major dramatic changes in Eastern Europe Soviet Union nationalism is growing everywhere and fascism is is on the horizon everywhere and these ideologies are the foundation for fascism and at this point we have to speak up and we have to now familiarize ourselves with the whole history of these intellectual movements have this has this kind of thinking do you believe have had an impact on policy making. Oh absolutely. You know I mean they you know our own Jerry Hirsch has done a marvelous job of documenting the use of drop the Jensens

1969 article which he shows was brought right into the White House staff meetings and with Richard Nixon and the question was should we continue funding Head Start programs and here is the evidence that they are not useful to fund. So these people in fact that that's one of the major differences between the theories that are espoused by the skinhead movement you know you skinheads are on the streets they're not in the White House so they're not in policymaking positions whereas professors are in policymaking positions. So these ideas then result in changes in policy and that's a major concern of mine for paying more attention. We all of the monitoring agencies of have shown that in the last decade there's been a dramatic increase in racism. And how do they show that. I mean they count the number of swastikas and they count the number of excuse in hate groups and my concern is that. It's all right to count the number of swastikas but we really need to understand that the problems are much larger than that.

Here's another caller given our toll free line. Hello good morning. My question or area. Like. Stockpiling. The Nobel laureate. Well well respected. And what's that. And aspect. You're next. What's not here. Thank you. Sure that's a very good question I'm glad you asked it because it's a major aspect of the new eugenics you have to realize that the old eugenics the eugenics of the Hitler in the pre Hadley her didn't have the biological technology to do very much they talked about breeding better humans. But there wasn't much they could do I mean Had Hitler established breeding farms he brought the girls in any impregnated them with his you know SS elite and he was going to breed super humans. Whereas today we have a tremendous biological technology the new Genesis are

extraordinarily excited about the idea that a new eugenics movement imagine what Adolf Hitler could do if he had sperm banks and egg banks in recombinant DNA and genetic engineering and amniocentesis and all of these kinds of technologies the new Jennings movement and with these technologies offer us a much brighter hope for breeding.