Race & Violence in the Schools

To the Editors:

Andrew Hacker in his discussion of my report, Campus Ethnoviolence and the Policy Options [NYR, November 22, 1990], does the institute and your readers a disservice. Mr. Hacker commented exclusively on the appendix to the report which is nothing more than summaries of newspaper stories. Had he read the text of the report which summarized the available research, he would have noted, among other things, that as many as one out of four minority students were psychologically or physically assaulted for reasons of prejudice during an academic year. He also would have discerned that the report was dedicated to presenting positive programs designed to reduce intergroup hostilities on college campuses.

Mr. Hacker, who presumably had already learned that covers are misleading, might now bear in mind that you can’t judge a book by its appendix.

Copies of the report are available from the National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence, 31 S. Greene St., Baltimore, MD 21202 for $10.00.

Howard J. Ehrlich, Ph.D.
Research Director
National Institute Against
Prejudice and Violence
Baltimore, Maryland

Andrew Hacker replies:

In fact, those two hundred newspaper items occupy the most prominent position in Howard Ehrlich’s report, accounting for thirty-two of its seventy-six pages. I am surprised by his remark that during a typical academic year, only a quarter of minority students say they were “physically or psychologically assaulted.” Among Queens College minority students with whom I have talked, while none has been physically attacked on our campus, every one has experienced race-based insults.