After fourteen months of 'inquiring' into Chris Brand, censoring Chris Brand and suspending Chris Brand, the University of Edinburgh next sacked its 'race realist' IQ psychologist -- though an appeal by Brand and his lawyers will follow, and then perhaps legal action in Scotland's public courts.
What on earth is this all about? How can a once-great university have chosen to abandon the principle of academic freedom rather than hear any more from the hereditarian psychologist whom it had employed without complaint for 26 years? Read on and learn how Edinburgh University caved in to Political Correctness and kindred modern pressures!
The affair of 'The g Factor': A SUMMARY
'The 'g' Factor'
is a book about human intelligence. In particular, it tries to answer social-environmentalists and methodological solipsists such as Professors Leon Kamin, Steve Gould, Steve Rose and Steve Jones -- the self-appointed arch-critics of 'general intelligence' ('g') today (though only Kamin is himself a psychologist).'The 'g' Factor' maintains that there are real, deep-seated human differences in intelligence to which the education systems of the English-speaking world must make a more adequate response -- by treating children as the individuals they are, rather than grouping them only according to chronological age.
The book went on sale in the UK on February 29, 1996.
Despite very favourable reviews (e.g. in 'Nature'), 'The 'g' Factor' fell foul of 'political correctness' about race and IQ. In press interviews, Brand freely agreed there was a Black-White IQ difference, that the difference was substantially genetic, and that he was (qua supporter of the London School) what Kamin et al. had for years been allowed to call a "scientific racist" -- or a 'race realist.' On April 17, 1996, 'The 'g' Factor' was withdrawn as "repellent" by Wiley & Sons (New York and Chichester). Wiley followed up their modern version of censorship by refusing to publish a new book on 'g' by Berkeley's Emeritus Professor Arthur Jensen -- a proposal which Wiley had had under consideration for nine months.
The Principal of Edinburgh University, Sir Stewart Sutherland, also felt moved to distance himself from Brand and 'The 'g' Factor' and did so in a press conference. Thus, from May, 1996, the UK press repeatedly carried the story that the Principal found Brand's views "false and personally obnoxious." In August, and again in October, the 'Anti-Nazi' League in Edinburgh mounted noisy demonstrations and made it impossible for Brand to lecture there unless the authorities (police and University security) acted to prevent interruptions and intimidation -- which those bodies showed no inclination to do.
In the course of running a lively Internet 'newsletter' to maintain publicity for 'The 'g' Factor' and his campaign against Wiley and Principal Sutherland, Brand further 'outraged' the Scottish media by urging moderation in the criminal proceedings in Maryland against a US Nobel-Prizewinner indicted for paedophilia. Brand pointed to the apparent harmlessness of consensual adult-pubescent paedophilia (e.g. as practised in ancient Greece and Rome and in modern Papua New Guinea). Thus, on October 16, 1996, Brand claimed in his e-mailed NewsLetter that modern scientific researches and his own experience (both as a choirboy and as a prison psychologist) showed no harm was done, on average, by consensual sex between adults and pubescents so long as both parties were of above-average intelligence and the younger party to the affair was a teenager.
After Principal Sutherland wrote to 'The Scotsman' on November 4, 1996, denying he had ever condemned Brand's views, Brand's statement about paedophilia was drawn to the attention of the Scottish press (whether by enemies or just money-makers is unclear) and 'scandalised' front-page comment immediately appeared in tabloid newspapers (November 8). (One front-page headline was:
FIRE BRAND
['Daily Record', Nov. 9].). Suspension from teaching and nine months of investigation by an E.U. Tribunal culminated on August 8, 1997, in Brand being dismissed, after 27 years of service, for his "gross misconduct" in doubting the invariable harmfulness of 'paedophilia.' The E. U. Principal specially complained in his Press Release that Brand had "courted publicity" -- though just what the de-published author should have done instead was not indicated.
Currently, Brand and his legal advisers are lodging an appeal with the University and aim to follow that up with other appropriate legal action (e.g. in the Scottish High Court) if the appeal should fail. Returnable donations are invited to a Fighting Fund maintained by Brand's law firm, Harper Macleod, 45, Gordon Street, Glasgow G1 3PE. Meanwhile, Brand is still waiting for a decent re-publication of 'The 'g' Factor.' (Wiley still claim to retain copyright despite their breach of contract with Brand and insist that any re-publication should contain no criticism of their own conduct.)
Brand's next major undertaking (together with a US writer, Kevin Lamb) is scheduled to be a biography of William McDougall FRS -- the Anglo-Scottish polymath who became Professor of Psychology at Harvard (1920-1927) and proceeded to fall out with the 'New York Times' and his fellow psychologists over the importance of instincts, biological factors and race differences. A 'McDougall NewsLetter' is being published at the Internet website <http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Brand/> and draft copies can be previewed by request to cbrand@cycad.com.
Chris Brand can be contacted by email at cbrand@cycad.com.
The Summary Of My Book On The INTERNET Shows What Actually *Are* My Views, And How Absurd And Hysterical Are The Modern Forces Of 'Political Correctness' In Trying To Censor Me. Even The E.U. Principal Who Faults Me Has Himself Condemned WILEY's Behaviour As "Abominable." I Am Certainly A Race-Realist, But My Sympathies For The Proper Aspirations Of Black People--Especially As Against Those Of Mainly-White 'PeeCee' People--Can Be Seen In The Current Issue Of 'downlow' Magazine (Autumn 1996, p. 33). There, I Explain In Layman's Terms The Need For More Choice In How Children Are Educated And In How Marriages Are Arranged - Freedoms From Failed And Increasingly Despotic Egalitarianism That Are Needed By Both Blacks *And* Whites.
| Wiley's blurb, originally issued as publicity for the The g Factor, before they withdrew the book - after journalists brought its contents their attention. |
See also
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A random selection from Chris Brand's online collection of psychology related quotes |
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Sir Stewart Sutherland, Principal of Edinburgh University, and the man who fired Chris Brand. |