The New York Times issued an editor’s note to Bret Stephens’s recent column explaining that it removed a section where the writer cited a study that was conducted by someone with white nationalist ties.
Stephens’s Friday column, headlined “The Secrets of Jewish Genius,” asked how Ashkenazi Jews were able to contribute so much to society despite there being such a small Jewish population worldwide. Stephens, who briefly left Twitter this fall after being called a “bedbug,” argued that Ashkenazi Jews, or Jewish people who are from Europe, “are, or tend to be, smart.”
He then cited a 2005 study that determined that Ashkenazi Jews have a higher average IQ over other ethnic groups. One of the authors of the study is Henry Harpending, who was identified as having “promoted racist views.” The New York Times removed the part of the column referencing Harpending’s study after being criticized on social media.
The editor’s note reads: “An earlier version of this Bret Stephens column quoted statistics from a 2005 paper that advanced a genetic hypothesis for the basis of intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews. After publication Mr. Stephens and his editors learned that one of the paper’s authors, who died in 2016, promoted racist views. Mr. Stephens was not endorsing the study or its authors’ views, but it was a mistake to cite it uncritically. The effect was to leave an impression with many readers that Mr. Stephens was arguing that Jews are genetically superior.”
Bret Stephens’ latest column (https://t.co/6ECSD0oWe8), which argues that culture and history drive Jewish achievements, has been edited to remove a reference to a paper widely disputed as advancing a racist hypothesis. We’ve added the following editors’ note to the column. pic.twitter.com/Aj7eU3Fce2
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) December 29, 2019
“That was not his intent,” it continues. “He went on instead to argue that culture and history are crucial factors in Jewish achievements and that, as he put it, ‘At its best, the West can honor the principle of racial, religious and ethnic pluralism not as a grudging accommodation to strangers but as an affirmation of its own diverse identity. In that sense, what makes Jews special is that they aren’t. They are representational.’ We have removed reference to the study from the column.”
The column was published amid an increase in anti-Semitic attacks in New York this month. Over the weekend, Grafton Thomas, 38, broke into the home of a rabbi and injured five with a machete. He was charged Sunday morning with five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary. Friends of the attacker said he had a history of mental illness.
