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Jensen's From the National Observer The Students for a Democratic Society is alive and well in Berkeley and is putting the finger on people it considers, well, socially undesirable. These days, for exam ple, SDS is distributing pamphlets proc laiming that "Hitler is alive and well and spreading racist propaganda." Hitler, eh? Okay, who is SDS talking about this time? Placards provide the answer: "Arthur Jensen-Another Galileo or Another Scien tific Racist?" Arthur Jensen? Who is Arthur Jensen to warrant such calumny? Jensen is the central figure in one of the better knock-down-and-drag-out intel lectual rumbles in the history of American education. A highly regarded professor of education psychology at the University of California in Berkeley, Jensen became even more notorious, some contend-in educa tional circles by suggesting that existing studies show: -Our genes determine our IQ much more readily than education and environmental factors; heredity accounts for about 80 per cent of the differences in IQ, he says. -Blacks consistently score about 15 points lower in IQ tdsts than whites. -Individuals in lower social and economic classes have lower IQs than those in the upper classes. -Compensatory educational projects such as Head Start have failed to raise IQ scores. When he first made these arguments four years ago after an exhaustive survey of the research on genetics and education in rela tion to IQ testing, Jensen became the center of a storm that still rages. Geneticists, psychologists, educators and philosophers set out to hand him his intellectural heads, and the Berkeley SDS still harasses him whenever it doesn't have something better to do. "They'll go after me, and I'll hsve to have bodyguards, then they'll turn off suddenly and go after Standard Oil because of an oil spill or one of our political-science faculty members who advised the Nixon Administ ration on somthing about Vietnam," says Jensen. Crank calls and death threats-have occasionally forced Jensen to hold his lec tures in secret locations and to call campus security forces to guard his office files. The Wall Street Journal even nominated his name for the lexicon, as in "Jensenism, n., the theory that IQ is largely determined by the genes." According to science writer Lee Edson, however, a colleague told Jensen that he should wait until they print it in lower case before he concludes that he has really made it. Jensen, an intense, scholarly man who generally remained aloof from the turmoil Latin~ Ai Souti DAT E: April i Do you know anj us at the South Ca surpirses, free for will go to the scli of Managua, Nical ADMISSION.... TICKETS ON .S Q Theory C that has engulfed Berkeley in the past 10 years, nevertheless has been willing to fight on this issue. The latest SDS outbursts are the result of the publication of his book, Genetics and Education (Harper & Row; $10), which restates his original thesis and offers further supporting evidence. Background Investigation And if that isn't enough, he is marching eyes-front into the cross fire by completing another book that will be released this summer further exploring genetic differ ences among racial groups, including blacks and whites. He also has signed a resolution appearing in the American Psychologist, the journal of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI); stating that genetic factors are strongly involved in human behavioral dif ferences. SPSSI, he says, was so stunned by the appearance of his name that it is going to investigate the backgrounds of the resol tuion's signers. "But I'm in pretty good company, really," he observes. "There are Nobel laureates and four presidents of the American Psychological Association included among the latest signers." The battle looks endless. Jensen's lates antagonist is Dr. Leon Kamin, chairman of the department of experimental psychology at Princeton, who questions the evidence on which Jensen bases his argu ments. The burden of proof is on Jensen and those who share his views, Kamin argues, and "so far they have failed miser able." The Jensen controversy is just one of the several that have risen in the past few years to challenge some of American educators' most cherished assumptions. Together thpse challenges question the traditional optimistic view that education has been a major factor in redressing inequality in American society, whatever its sources. This is a powerful belief that has underlain educational policies in this country since the cracking of the Liberty Bell. Coleman and Jencks The challenge began with the now famous Coleman Report, prepared by James S. Coleman of Johns Hopkins University by order of Congress after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Coleman concluded, to his and everyone else's surprise, that social, biological, environmental and family back grounds were more important factors in educational performance than differences in the quality of black and white school s-differences that weren't as great as generally supposed. There were others. Christopher Jencks argues that differences in income are due largely to factors other than education and nerica Fiest at [1 Cafeteria 4th -TIME:8. rLatin dances? Com, feteria. There will be ad and drinks. Funds iools in the devasate< ragua. . .................... students $2 Non Students $3 ALE AT THE RUSSELLk HUSiE auses E ARTHUR JENSI .*.'IQ determined by j that spending more money doesn't produce much impr David Armor contends that and desegregation haven't re change in scholarship perfo These and other contentior have been challenged with vs of success. But Jensen ha ticularly heavy fire for at le reasons. First, his contention that th differences in IQ scores col when the civil-rights move: momentum. This argument c the Nixon Administrationto j Federal aid to education, som and it gives aid and comfo variety Ku Klux Klan-type re Second, Jensen's thesis c preted as a counsel of despai tain groups of citizens, partic they are starting the race of lil icap that can't be overcome. Jensen's arguments are much on his own research a of other work on the subjec he says, shows that twins ha tion in their IQs than nonti adopted children will winc closer to those of their natura their adoptive parents. Thes gest the power of heredity tc In addition, the distributior a disproportionate number of very low IQs, which could ind: mating; since IQ is the best dictor of educational achiev is in turn directly related a]] P.M. e show prizes, raisedC cities .00 .00 iucation Stir economic status, there tends to be selective mating among members of groups who have superior IQs. IQ tests show blacks testing out about 15 points lower than whites and Orientals and also lower than American Indians and Mexican-Americans , Jensen says. This hurts the environmentalist argument, he continues, because the Indians and Chicanos are economically more deprived than blacks. According to Jensen, research also indicates that associative intelligence, i.c., memory and rote learning, is about the same among all social groups and economic classes. But cognitive learning, the ability to manipulate abstract symbols and per -t .ceive relationships through reason-which is true IQ, he argues-is higher for whites and Or-entals and high socio-economic groups than for blacks and lower socioeconomic groups. .......A reason that compensatory education projects have failed, Jensen concludes, is that they have tried to give ghetto youngs ters education designed for the middle Nclass. But Jensen's critics argue that com pensatory education such as Head Start enes.' can't be described as a failure, because it has never been tried with the money and on edcto resources required for success. one eucation oement. And 'Elitist World View' school busing ultedinmuch Others contend that the dramatic mance. increase in the average height of Amen ; and findings cans over one generation shows that rying degrees environmental factors, such as diet and ;drawn par-. health care, can accomplish. Still others pst two major cite the experience of the Israeli ibbutzim, which have raised the average IQ of Euro Mre are racial pean Jewish children to 115 from 10S-and ies at a time those of Oriental Jewish children to 115 ient has lost from 85. (See what effect those factors have m be used by on black children before trying that istify cuts in argum nt . on me, is Jensen's rejoinder.) critics fear, Others quarrel with Jensen's interpreta t to garden- tion of the research on which his argu -ists. ments are based. And critics quarrel with in be inter- his emphasis on pure IQ, particularly the c; it tells cer- cognitive skills; other say that he is ignor tarly blacks, ing environmental factors or that there are e with a hand- some that haven't been properly measured. He is guilty, says another, of an "elitist, )ased not' so competitive world view." Educators should on a survey be environmentalists, argues another, since t Tigs work, education's function is to improve the me less varia- individual's environment, not his genes. 'ins and that Jensen's response is that "to fear up with'lQs, research on genetic racial differences-.in parentspthan abilities is, in a sense, to grant the racists's factors ty assumption." Genetic factors in individual him. differences have been ignored for "his of IQs shows torical, political, and ideological" reasons, ery high and he says, and he describes the reaction to .ate selective his arguments as a "storm of ediologically, vailable pre- often politically, motivated protests, misin ment, which terpretations, and vilifications..." o social and (See JENSEN, Page 6) laiyErpean Beisclre to11From 0-n athoseurdoBy ritaentJewichildet1 irsSot arguntl, ne, CoiJngen'eone. CearTera er Shoppl ing Cennnterpea 6420gSu te skilys (29209)ha h sgnr educatim. on's tfruncio hi toimrothe