Personality and Negro-White Intelligence

Abstract

The Supreme Court in its decision on school integration found that segregation in the public schools implies the inferior status of Negro children thereby retarding their “educational and mental development.” This ruling has evoked considerable controversy among psychologists. McGurk (113), in a widely circulated magazine article purporting to survey “the only existing studies that relate to the problem” (p. 96) so as to make “sense” out of the Supreme Court’s decision, concluded that “there is something more important, more basic to the race problem than differences in external opportunity” (p. 96). He implied that there was a contradiction between the Supreme Court’s decision and the psychological literature. Shuey (161) in a book reviewing the research on Negro intelligence concludes that the evidence “points to the presence of some native differences between Negroes and whites as determined by intelligence tests” (p. 318). Reactions to this resurgence of racist theory (94, 110, 132) stress the lack of justification for generalizing about race differences, but add no new data.