End Racist Scholarship at Harvard University

END RACIST SCHOLARSHIP! DEMAND A PUBLIC APOLOGY TO THE LATINO COMMUNITY BY JASON RICHWINE AND HIS HARVARD DISSERTATION COMMITTEE!

Sign the Online Petition:

https://www.change.org/petitions/end-racist-scholarship-demand-a-public-apology-to-the-latino-community-by-jason-richwine-and-his-harvard-dissertation-committee

INTRODUCTION Jason Richwine in his capacity as a Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, co-authored a controversial report arguing that immigration reform will cost about 6.3 trillion more in benefits than the country can collect from undocumented immigrants in taxes, attributing the gap to lack of human capital while cynically noting that the cost would be lower if the workers remain undocumented as this would keep them from accessing public benefits.

In his Heritage report, Richwine builds on the same arguments found in his 2009 doctoral dissertation, “IQ and Immigration”, from Harvard University. Based on outdated and repudiated research and methods, which we consider irresponsible and racist, the dissertation argues:

“Hispanic immigrants and their children have a low average IQ, which prevents the second generation from achieving equality with the native majority. Parental expectations for their children are not met, because they cannot be, given the level of intelligence present in the community.”

This kind of pseudo-science disguised as “scientific scholarship”, employs deficit reasoning that positions ethnic “minorities” and the working class as deficient rather than viewing people in dignified ways. We believe that Harvard University needs to apply stricter criteria in assessing not just the merits of scholarship but weigh its ideological content and effect.

DEMANDS: WE DEMAND A PUBLIC APOLOGY TO THE LATINO COMMUNITY BY JASON RICHWINE AND HIS DISSERTATION COMMITTEE, DR. GEORGE J. BORJAS, DR. RICHARD J. ZECKHAUSER, AND DR. CHRISTOPHER JENCKS.

WE DEMAND HARVARD UNIVERSITY CHANGE ITS RESEARCH POLICIES.


WHAT YOU CAN DO: Support this cause by signing on to this online petition and help us reach our goal of 5,000 signatures. We call on all progressive scholars, community members, educators and students, to denounce this kind of work and pressure universities so that they are responsible in their research.

You can contact directly members of Jason Richwine’s committee, who we believe are just as responsible for this kind of scholarship as Jason Richwine, and Harvard’s Institutional Review Board.

Dissertation committee:
George J. Borjas, gborjas@harvard.edu http://gborjas@harvard.edu , 617-495-1393 617-495-1393
Richard J. Zeckhauser, richard_zeckhauser@harvard.edu http://richard_zeckhauser@harvard.edu , 617-495-1174 617-495-1174
Christopher Jencks, christopher_jencks@harvard.edu  http://christopher_jencks@harvard.edu , 617-495-0546 617-495-0546

Harvard University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB):
Fanny Ennever, Senior IRB Administrator, fennever@fas.harvard.edu http://fennever@fas.harvard.edu, 617-495-1775 617-495-1775

Organizational Endorsements of This Campaign: Send organizational endorsements of this online petition campaign to RACE.organization@gmail.com<http://RACE.organization@gmail.com>

Access Jason Richwine’s dissertation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/jason-richwine-dissertation_n_3240168.html