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Thursday, March 28, 2024 — Houston, TX

Fernanda Pierre


OPINION 4/8/14 5:42pm

Murray's lecture diminishes Rice's prestige

I’m still in shock. Rice University, home of one of the most prestigious think tanks in the nation, just hosted the man who wrote The Bell Curve and Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, two works that were published without peer review and, as it turns out, for good reason. In his hour long discussion, Dr. Murray made enough offensive, uneducated, unsupported comments to fuel a separate hour-long discussion by itself. This was especially disappointing given that I find his newer thesis about class segregation quite interesting.Murray was certainly aware that the majority of the people attending his talk were there to protest and did not view him favorably as he opened up with “according to your [the audience’s] standards I am racist, I am sexist, I am ageist, I am ablest...”It was really painful listening to him since he’d make claims like marriage civilizes men, women choose to be single mothers, and minorities should appreciate oppression since it has made them stronger without giving any evidence past personal anecdotes, his opinion or his liberal interpretation of data. Perhaps he did have credible evidence. If so, he irresponsibly did not focus on it during his talk.Murray’s “research methods” include designing surveys based on his stereotypes of white people from high versus low socioeconomic backgrounds (see his survey for yourself at PBS.org) and going to bars to collect opinions which anyone with even a basic understand of statistics would find to be an extremely skewed sample.Additionally, Murray failed to successfully measure or even quantify "empathy" or lack thereof between social classes. I am sympathetic to his argument that we have a dearth of empathy in America, but not persuaded by any of his efforts.Murray attempted to steer clear of his opinions on race, intelligence and poverty in favor of his opinions on the differences between upper middle class and working class white Americans perhaps in part because his audience was mainly protesters (240 students RSVPd to the protest versus only 40 students for the actual event). Nevertheless, he still made some interesting assumptions about the audience. He assumed most of us in the room were upper class, which clearly tells me he is not familiar with Rice’s financial aid practices. He assumed none of us belonged to or could empathize with white, working class Americans. He assumed none of us have had a job where working has caused a part of our body to hurt (an example from his survey). He assumed the most contact we have had with people of a different socioeconomic status from us was from working at soup kitchens just because we needed service hours, our parents made us, or we wanted a nice looking resume. Ouch! This also tells me he assumes that Rice is a homogenous community rather than a diverse community with people representing different socioeconomic backgrounds along with different races, different life experiences and in turn different political opinions.I haven’t even touched on Bell Curve. I have two questions: Since when has performance on Intelligence Quotient tests, a misnomer anyway, equated to intelligence, and since when has only intelligence equated to success? Even if one were able to find differences in IQ scores between races, race is not entirely a biological construct, but rather a social one. Furthermore, Murray has not been able to establish a causal effect between race and IQ score. I invite you to read Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth by Claude S. Fischer and five other co-authors. You would think that if Murray were not biased, he’d want to consider social inequality factors as well like unequal educational opportunities, varying access to stable housing and nutrition and exposure to violence that may be more prevalent among minorities due to historical exclusion, discrimination and disenfranchisement. If Murray had ever rationalized racism, you can be sure it was not by truly rigorous academic means.I will say I am extremely proud of the organization and execution of the protest. Students representing several Rice groups, including BSA, HACER, RASA, CSS and APASA, as well as Queers and Allies and the Women’s Resource Center, came together to speak out and create dialogue. It definitely challenged the common saying that Rice students are apathetic regarding social and political issues. I hope this sets a positive precedent concerning the power of unified voices taking a stand at Rice. Thank you to all of the bold students and supportive faculty who practiced free speech without diminishing anyone else’s.