Harvard Professor Says "All Hell Broke Loose" When His Study Revealed No Racial Bias In Police Shootings
Bari Weiss of The Free Press sat down with Harvard Economics Professor Roland Fryer at the University of Austin last week to discuss what it means to pursue the truth.
Fryer, a highly respected economist, told Weiss about the intense blowback that was dealt to him after he published a study in 2016 showing there were "no racial differences in officer involved-shootings."
After the study was published, in a matter of days, the professor said, "All hell broke loose," and people were "losing their minds when they didn't like the result."
The study found that police were over two times more likely to use physical force, such as manhandling or beating, against black and hispanic individuals compared to people from other races. On the other hand, the findings also revealed that police were 23.8% less inclined to use firearms against black individuals and 8.5% less inclined to do so against Hispanic individuals, compared to whites.
“We didn’t find any racial bias in police shootings.”
— The Free Press (@TheFP) February 15, 2024
Economist Roland Fryer tells @bariweiss at @uaustinorg about the 2016 paper on policing bias that led to his need for an “armed guard” for over a month and the academics who told him not to publish. https://t.co/dklaGtiMxT pic.twitter.com/95FbOe3jhJ
"I lived under police protection for about 30 to 40 days," he said, adding, "I had a seven-day-old daughter at the time…I was going to the grocery store to get diapers with an armed guard."
Fryer told Weiss the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 is how he initially became interested in the topic. He was shocked by the result because he expected the study to find evidence of bias in police shootings.
The biggest conclusion from the study (read: here): "Yet, on the most extreme use of force – officer-involved shootings – we are unable to detect any racial differences in either the raw data or when accounting for controls."
At the time, liberal elites warned Fryer not to publish the study because it would ruin his career. Then he said in 2019, Claudine Gay, who was Harvard's dean at the time, placed him on a two-year leave for alleged sexual harassment.
Considering Gay is no longer president of the woke college following her botched antisemitism response on campus and plagiarism allegations, Fryer told Weiss:
“Do you believe in karma?”
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) February 17, 2024
“I hear it’s a motherf*cker.”
Roland Fryer in response to @bariweiss when she asks him about Claudine Gay. pic.twitter.com/dlC4XpwAiI
Fryer had the courage to publish the unpopular truth despite liberal elites' attempts at Harvard and elsewhere to silence the professor in his pursuit of truth because the study didn't fit the progressive narrative at the time of the Marxist group Black Lives Matter.
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Listen to the full discussion: