Harvard students erupt at claim in thesis that Latino immigrants have lower IQs

In May, ImmigrationProf reported the Jason Richwine, co-author of a controversial immigration report issued by the Heritage Foundation, had left the conservative think tank. Richwine co-authored the controversial report, which estimated the cost to taxpayers of a legalization program for undocumented immigrants. Richwine drew fire for work he had done studying relative IQs of different immigrant groups. “In his Harvard University dissertation, he argued that persistent differences between immigrants’ IQs and those of white Americans should be a factor in determining who should be allowed to permanently come to the U.S.”  The dissertation was accepted by a committee headed by Professor George Borjas, whose work is often cited by opponents of immigration reform.

The Boston Globe reports that Harvard students, outraged over the dissertation’s claim that Hispanic immigrants lack “raw cognitive ability or intelligence,” have urged the university to investigate how the thesis came to be approved and to ban future research on racial superiority.The students presented 1,200 signatures to president Drew Faust and the dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, David Ellwood.

KJ