race supremacy and free speech martyrs

At the moment, Leeds University is doing the right thing by refusing to fire Dr Frank Ellis, despite his palpably racist opinions:

In a row that has reignited the debate on the limits of freedom of speech, Frank Ellis, a lecturer in Russian and Slavonic studies, sparked anger after stating, in an interview with the university's student newspaper, that he was an 'unrepentant Powellite' who thought that the BNP was 'a bit too socialist' for his liking.

Ellis said he supported right-wing ideas such as the Bell Curve theory, which held that white people were more intelligent than black people. '[It] has demonstrated to me beyond any reasonable doubt there is a persistent gap in average black and white average intelligence.' Repatriation would get his support, he added, if it was done 'humanely'.

[...] But while the university called his views 'abhorrent to the overwhelming majority our staff and students', it said he had a right to express them. A spokeswoman said that there was no evidence his extreme theories had affected his teaching.

'The question of discrimination does not arise in student assessment. All work counting towards a degree in Russian and Slavonic studies is double-marked. Ellis has a right to his personal opinions, but he does not have the right to treat students or colleagues in a prejudicial or discriminatory manner. We have no evidence that this has happened, but we will look carefully at any such evidence if it is presented to us.'

It's the right thing to do because the first responsibility of a university is to protect academic freedom, which includes opinions that may offend or be rejected by the broader academic and student body. It actually ranks above educating students because it's the only guarantee that the education offered has any credibility. It's certainly unpleasant to find that you might be defending a bigot or a thug but that's tough shit.

You either defend the right to express all ideas or the principle is little more than a list of things you like. However - and this is important to remember - Ellis' right to hold any opinion (and the University's defence of that right) has no bearing on whether he's talking bollocks or not.

The defence Ellis offers is that he is merely speaking a politically inconvenient truth, supported by objective research. While some of Ellis' comments might fall into considered though flawed opinion (based in comprehensively discredited studies like The Bell Curve), other comments are rather more straightforwardly racist:

He was also criticised for an article on the internet in which he states: "It is considered politically incorrect to say so, but were one to take the 'white' and the 'male' out of science and technology, one would have no science, just witchcraft, third world squalor, misery and mega-incompetence."

Dr Ellis said he stood by the statement. He denied that his views amounted to racism, saying they were based on scientific evidence.

'Based on' is a wonderful phrase that can be used to justify almost any amount of fervent bigotry: it hardly needs to be said that supposed evidence of lower IQs is not evidence of a genetic disposition towards primitivism or poverty, and that both squalor and a belief in magic can be found in any number of caucasian communities. Such comments aren't about saying that there's a degree of difference in the intelligence of different groups but establishing the idea that such a deficit means primitivism, savagery and a lack of civilisation. It's about giving credence to white superiority - or supremacy, if you like.

Why is the nature of Ellis' defence important? It tells us he wants to be a martyr. Unable to prove his position with legitimate (peer-reviewed) evidence, he's instead looking for proof that the liberal elite Guardian reading establishment is silencing him. A conspiracy to silence him becomes proof that what he says must be true: cue book tour and fevered website.

If he'd stuck to saying that he believed there was evidence of a difference in IQ that was linked to race, he'd be a minor crackpot and fully employed. The jump to the rhetoric of wholesale racial superiority, where white men bring technology and culture to the savages, puts him into a different league - a kind of racism-denier who claims that everyone else is denying the truth.

Ellis may end up leaving Leeds but not because the university fires him for his beliefs. He'll be pushed out because his position will become untenable: students will picket and refuse to take his classes and staff will refuse to work alongside him. Though the management of universities might make tolerance a hardened principle, the people who study and work there will tend to exercise their own social selection.

While the university might defend Ellis' right to his opinions, his colleagues and students will most likely prove less forgiving. So he'll leave via the back door - not because there's a vast conspiracy to silence eugenicists but because it's almost impossible to get an academic out through the front door.

Though I find Ellis' arguments both flawed and repellent, his departure would still leave a sour taste in the mouth - because the only real way to address people like Ellis is to challenge their beliefs again and again: to point out again and again that a grain of highly disputed stasticial evidence cannot support a mountain of race superiority. If they claim academic working methods, we need to show our critical skills are stronger than theirs.

When racist and sexist arguments attempt to claim academic credibility, a need remains for such beliefs to be comprehensively challenged and, where flawed, dismantled. Ellis' ideas shouldn't be chased away but shown up for their intellectual paucity and unashamed racism.