The Death of an Evil Man: Leading ‘Race Scientist’ Dies in Canada
Leading Race ‘Scientist’ Dies in Canada
Jean Philippe Rushton, a psychology professor and probably the most important race scientist in North America, died of cancer Tuesday night in Canada. The man who sparked a firestorm of controversy and protest in the late 1980s with his theories about the correlation between genital size and intelligence, and in later years was the head of a right-wing fund that has long supported the research projects of academic racists from around the world, was 68.
“He’s the end of an era of academic racists of his style and notoriety,” Barry Mehler, professor of history and director of the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism at Ferris State University in Michigan, said today. “I don’t think we’ll see that again.”
That’s not to say that academic racism has died, only its most prominent elder.
Rushton taught psychology at the University of Western Ontario for 25 years and began his academic career investigating the basis of altruism - why one person sometimes aids another, even at personal risk. But it was in the fields of biology and genetics, academic disciplines unrelated to his training, that Rushton made his biggest mark — and left his largest stain.
Rushton’s infamous theory about race and intelligence can be summed up in two words: size matters.
He postulated that brain and genital size are inversely related, implying that whites are more intelligent than blacks and that Asians are the smartest of all.
Saying that Rushton’s ideas were “monstrous” and “simply do not qualify as science,” David Suzuki, an actual geneticist, debated Rushton on the Western Ontario campus in 1989 before 2,000 students and more than 100 reporters and television crews. Security was tight inside and out of the auditorium.
“I did not want to be here,” Suzuki told the audience. “I do not believe that we should dignify this man and his ideas in public debate.” A few minutes later, he added, “There will always be Rushtons in the world. We must be prepared to root them out.”
Brian Timney, dean of social science, which includes the psychology department where Rushton actually worked, said Rushton’s legacy “was not a great one.” “His research was not highly thought of,” Timney said. “I work in neuroscience and I expect some academic vigor. He was not vigorous.”
The dean said while the university refused to fire Rushton, he was removed from the classroom for at least a semester during the height of the uproar in 1989. “There were so many protesters gathered outside his door, he couldn’t get in or out,” Timney said. Rushton delivered his lectures via videotape.
While Rushton may still be a big name in race science circles, at Western University “he sort of disappeared off the radar a long time ago,” the dean said.
Mehler also debated Rushton that year. The men appeared together on “The Geraldo Rivera Show.” “Is There a Master Race?” was the title of the segment.
Mehler remembers telling Rivera and his audience, “I have a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in institutional racism. I am an expert at recognizing racism when I see it. Rushton is a racist.”
Rushton kept his cool and soon he was red hot in the world of academic racists.
“He was very photogenic,” Mahler said today. “He never got flustered. He became the focus and the spokesman for the academic racists.”
But no matter how calm and cool Rushton was on the talk-show circuit, Rushton was pushing old-fashioned racism. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Mehler said.