UNLV Prof Invites Race-Based Researchers To Conference In Turkey

An organization headed by a prominent University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor has invited four researchers with ties to hate groups to speak at a May conference in Turkey.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, an Austrian economist who made headlines in 2005 over remarks he made in the classroom about gays, has invited the researchers to express viewpoints that some civil rights organizations call “academic racism.”

They’re scheduled to speak at the second annual conference of the Property and Freedom Society, an organization that Hoppe founded in May 2006 to promote “Austro-Libertarianism,” according to the organization’s Web site.

The conference is scheduled at the Karia Princess Hotel in Bodrum, Turkey, between May 24 and 28.

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One of the invited speakers is Richard Lynn, a professor at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.

He has published several papers and books on how different races of people are more intelligent than others.

On his Web site, Lynn states that the average IQ of black Americans is 85, 15 points higher than blacks in sub-Saharan Africa because “American blacks . . . have about 25 percent of Caucasian genes and a better environment.”

In 2002, Lynn wrote in the American Renaissance newsletter, a white separatist publication, that black Americans commit more crimes because they’re “more psychopathic than whites.”

Lynn is listed on the board of directors for the New York-based Pioneer Fund, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a “hate group.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Ala., provides tolerance education programs and fights legal battles with hate groups. It has publicly denounced several of the individuals scheduled to speak at Hoppe’s conference.

According to the Property and Freedom Society’s Web site, others who will be speaking include:

Volkmar Weiss, a German scientist who is scheduled to speak on “History as Cycles of Population Quality.” He is listed as a member of the advisory board for “The Mankind Quarterly,” a journal that receives funding from the Pioneer Fund, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Weiss’ German Web site lists IQ genetics and Saxon history as a few of his interests.

Paul Gottfried, a political science professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, who spoke about “The Decline of WASPdom” at the 1998 American Renaissance conference in Virginia.

Tatu Vanhanen, a political science professor at the University of Tampere in Finland. He co-authored the 2002 book “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” with Lynn. The book compared IQ test results and standard of living data to conclude that certain races of people were superior to others.

Cynthia Luria, Nevada regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said inviting Lynn and the others to speak was “unacceptable.”

“It is troubling to ADL that a UNLV professor would host a conference with featured speakers who have confirmed racist viewpoints,” Luria said. “While ADL believes in freedom of speech, one only has to research Richard Lynn or Tatu Vanhanen to discover their philosophy is rooted in racism.”

“These are folks who are on the extreme end of the scientific community,” said William Turner, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and author of the 2002 book, “The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund.”

Turner said Lynn and others use small amounts of scientific evidence to draw large conclusions about a particular race of people.

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