By Steve Pomper
Harvard Prof. Roland G. Fryer, (University of Texas at Arlington Photograph Collection, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0)
It’s important that we recognize every individual who supports the police— even if inadvertently. People who are openly pro-police are great. But so are those whose intellectual honesty and actions validate what law enforcers do or don’t do, like shooting minorities for sport.
Harvard Professor Roland B. Fryer, whose academic work I’ve frequently cited, conducted a study back in 2016 whose conclusion was positive for law enforcement so it made the radical leftists’ heads implode. I don’t know if Prof. Fryer is “pro-police,” but I appreciate his academic integrity, which has benefitted America’s cops.
And while the prof, according to Peter W. Wood at the New York Post, has “debunked woke orthodoxy” in several ways (which we also appreciate), for our purposes, let’s focus on how his work has thwarted one crucial aspect of radical leftist law enforcement mythology.
First, what heinous crime did the Prof. Fryer commit that so triggered Harvard’s far left administrators? How did he “aid and abet” the despised cops? I explained it in my book De-Policing America: A Street Cop’s View of the Police State (Post Hill Press, 2018):
“Well, in talking about the study he conducted, an economics professor and Harvard researcher, Roland G. Fryer, Jr., said, ‘It’s the most surprising result of my career.’ What was the surprise? Professor Fryer studied one thousand shootings in ten major cities in three large states. According to Quoctrung Bui and Amanda Cox in The New York Times, Fryer found ‘officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white.’ FBI statistics also confirm there is no such epidemic [of cops wantonly killing minorities].”
The Epoch Times’ Tom Ozimek reported, “‘during a 2022 video conference…,’ Fryer said, ‘I let the data talk, and I don’t care what it says.’” That scientific objectivity is academic blasphemy within, as James Lindsay titled his book, “Race Marxism (New Discourses, 2022).
But what happens when your “lived experience” conforms so perfectly to the radical left’s cultural “diversity” political narrative, but your commitment to critical thinking and intellectual honesty—the truth—severs you from it? The Race Marxist cop-haters will destroy you. Your legitimate achievements mean nothing—especially if the truth you’ve revealed happens to be positive for law enforcement.
That’s the “mistake” Professor Fryer made in 2016 when he released the results of a study that triggered Harvard’s leftist bullies who have savaged him. Well, it appears the good professor is tired of being silent and is proclaiming his new “lived experience” courtesy of the Harvard Nasties. This includes what he says has been constant harassment, false accusations, and the need to hire armed security for him and his family.
According to Law Enforcement Today’s (LET) Pat Droney, Fryer said, “I was going to the grocery store to get diapers with the armed guard. It was crazy. It was really, truly crazy.” This treatment over the valid work product Harvard pays him to do is insane. He even repeated the study with eight new assistants and arrived at the same results. Yet Harvard’s professional scourging of him continues.
Oddly (not), his leftist critics have ignored that his study also found white officers were more likely to use force against black and Hispanic suspects. That study result certainly isn’t “pro-police.” But that’s the Race Marxism orthodoxy: you’re all in or you’re all out. They tolerate no dissent.
Cops may not like Prof. Fryer’s second finding in their use of force, but most cops realize there are many components to consider in any survey. Results don’t automatically point to racism, as the radical left would have us believe.
Take this simple example: An officer is accused of racism for issuing twice as many traffic tickets to black drivers as white. What isn’t publicized is that the officer’s district has an 80 percent black population.
In an Apple Podcast, The Free Press founder and editor, Bari Weiss describes Prof. Fryer as a remarkable example of triumphing over adversity. Weiss described him as a young boy abandoned by his parents and growing up in a druggie household. Based on so many negative social factors, success would be elusive if not unattainable. But he didn’t just succeed; he exceeded all expectations.
Weiss wrote, “Roland Fryer is one of the most celebrated economists in the world. He is the author of more than 50 papers—on topics ranging from ‘the economic consequences of distinctively black names’ to ‘racial differences in police shootings.’ At 30, he became the youngest black tenured professor in Harvard’s history. At 34, he won a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, followed by a John Bates Clark Medal, which is given to an economist in America under 40 who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.”
But even this treasure trove of academic excellence wasn’t good enough for Harvard’s Race Marxists.
Radical leftists, led by Harvard, have attempted to extinguish one of their brightest stars. Why would this university, with its hyped dedication to “diversity,” attempt to “cancel” such a luminary black scholar? Speaking of stars, they oppose him because, as Bari further describes Fryer “has one north star, and that is the pursuit of truth…” regardless of the consequences. And the one thing Harvard has taught Americans is that a large swath of academia has no interest in the truth—but only in their “truth.”
After publishing his study results in 2016 (finding no racial bias against minorities in police shootings), the academic community launched a vicious attack and in 2019 Harvard handed the professor a two-year suspension after allegations of “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” which Fryer denies.
As a cop, I investigated crimes for over two decades. So, I don’t know if the accusations against Fryer are true. I don’t know him and know very little about the case. But I don’t arrive at conclusions without evidence like radical lefties do. So, I find the allegations suspect.
As a former investigator, it seems awfully convenient that these vague charges arrived at such an opportune time for Harvard to “shut the prof—the F—up” and further smear his character and crush his career.
LET also reported that the truth-challenged, deposed Harvard President Claudine Gay, a dean at the time, joined in blasting Fryer’s study (perhaps, jealous he didn’t plagiarize it?). Contrasted with Fryer, Gay has demonstrated little integrity. Yet, Harvard’s lefty admin lambasts Fryer, while, even after Gay’s congressional testimony debacle and plagiarism scandal, it still blankets her with the university’s protection.
Gay also “said [Fryer’s] behavior with other employees at the university ‘exhibited a pattern of behavior’ that didn’t rise to the expectations of the Harvard community.” Gag! Just like the DOJ used to inflict bogus federal consent decrees on good police departments, Gay pulls out the old “pattern…” and practice card, relying on manufactured allegations.
And, apparently not satisfied with her level of hypocrisy, Gay upped the ante and declared, “‘The totality of these behaviors is a clear violation of institutional norms and a betrayal of the trust….” Now, there’s one of those “glass houses” moments? According to an answer he gave to an interviewer who, about Gay, asked, “Do you believe in karma?” It appears, Prof. Fryer is indeed enjoying a big slice of a schadenfreude pie at Gay’s career suicide.
The radical left has degraded so many of America’s revered institutions, such as Harvard, other colleges and universities, and government, including, American law enforcement and criminal justice. Apparently, the Race Marxists will destroy even their darlings, especially if they dare to do anything that reflects positively (even when it’s unintended) on our nation’s protectors—the cops.
