On the Right

The perfect score in verbal aptitude in the college tests is 800, and I spotted one gentleman in the Choate demonstration who had scored a subnormal 475 and was way down in his class, but had nevertheless been admitted to Harvard University. Now—I asked the Dean’s assistant—just how do you account for that? Oh, he replied, almost certainly a Negro.

I raise the point because we have in the past period come slowly to realizing that the old anti-discrimination doctrines are insufficient. It is not a discovery to say that we must in fact encourage a pro-Negro discrimination— Mr. Garry Wills was making that argument as long ago as 1965 in the pages of national review; and quite recently Daniel Patrick Moynihan made the argument in the Atlantic Monthly. The point needs to be carefully made and understood primarily for the reason that those who tend to make it, tend to be immune from the practical consequences of it.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

The perfect score in verbal aptitude in the college tests is 800, and I spotted one gentleman in the Choate demonstration who had scored a subnormal 475 and was way down in his class, but had nevertheless been admitted to Harvard University. Now—I asked the Dean’s assistant—just how do you account for that? Oh, he replied, almost certainly a Negro.

I raise the point because we have in the past period come slowly to realizing that the old anti-discrimination doctrines are insufficient. It is not a discovery to say that we must in fact encourage a pro-Negro discrimination— Mr. Garry Wills was making that argument as long ago as 1965 in the pages of national review; and quite recently Daniel Patrick Moynihan made the argument in the Atlantic Monthly. The point needs to be carefully made and understood primarily for the reason that those who tend to make it, tend to be immune from the practical consequences of it.