The National Review's resident white supremacist intellectual John Derbyshire was invited by the Black Law Student Association at UPenn Law School to speak about government's role in addressing racial disparities in education and employment. "The Derb" gave his standard "Racism 101" lecture:
When the organizers first emailed me to suggest I appear on the panel, I told them that this is my view of the matter. I said that I was flattered to be invited to speak at such a prestigious institution, and that, having two teenage children, I am always glad to get out of the house for a few hours; but that racial disparities in education and employment have their origin in biological differences between the human races. Those differences are facts in the natural world, like the orbits of the planets. They can't be legislated out of existence; nor can they be "eliminated" by social or political action.
Derbyshire then goes on to explain to the black students at one of the most prestigious law schools in the nation the scientific foundation of their inferior intellectual abilities:
Our species separated into two parts 50, 60, or 70 thousand years ago, depending on which paleoanthropologist you ask. One part remained in Africa, the ancestral homeland. The other crossed into Southwest Asia, then split, and re-split, and re-split, until there were human populations living in near-total reproductive isolation from each other in all parts of the world. This went on for hundreds of generations, causing the divergences we see today. Different physical types, as well as differences in behavior, intelligence, and personality, are exactly what one would expect to observe when scrutinizing these divergent populations.
By all accounts, Derbyshire was treated with far more civility at the event than he deserved (why in the world did they invite him?)
In the early days of the National Review, William F. Buckley championed the white supremacist governments of South Africa and the American South. He never fully renounced these views and with John Derbyshire racism is once again the predominant ideology of America's "most respected" conservative publication.
UPDATE: Hey, thanks for putting this on the rec list. In honor of Confederacy History Month, here is an excerpt from a classic Buckley piece from the NR's early days (no doubt The Derb keeps this framed on his wall)
Why the South Must Prevail
"The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.
"National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority."
