Immigration Reform 2013 News: Harvard Students Demand Explanation for Racially Charged Thesis

Harvard students are calling on the university to investigate a 2009 dissertation that claimed Hispanic immigrants had lower IQs than "white natives."

The Ph.D. dissertation came to light last week when its author, Jason Richwine, came under fire for a controversial report he wrote for the Heritage Foundation overstating the costs of immigration reform to the national economy.

A petition with 1,200 signatures calling on Harvard to reject racially prejudiced research was delivered to university President Drew Faust and David Ellwood, dean of the Kennedy School of Government, which awarded Richwine his degree.

The petition cites several issues with the dissertation. "First, its racially charged rhetoric is profoundly worrying. Creating a racial hierarchy of intelligence for Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, and Native Americans is disturbing. This framework echoes a period in American history when dubious scientific claims supported institutionalized racism in American public policy. Second, a wide body of academic literature counters the basic claims of this dissertation and raises questions about its academic rigor."

The shoddy scholarship of the Heritage report led to the uncovering of Richwine's 2009 thesis, entitled "IQ and Immigration Policy." In it Richwine asserts that "the average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market."

Richwine goes on to say little can be done. "No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against. From the perspective of Americans alive today, the low average I.Q. of Hispanics is effectively permanent."