The most important fault line in American politics is the competing explanations for racially disparate outcomes. According to the research of Zach Goldberg, the percentage of white liberals who think “racial discrimination” is the main cause of “black people not getting ahead these days” increased rapidly from under 40% in 2012 to approximately 72% by 2016. Conversely, white conservatives held mostly steady during this period with only about 10% sharing this perspective.

Never one to shy away from controversy, Heather Mac Donald’s newest book, When Race Trumps Merit, joins this debate with a provocative thesis supported by data and case studies. The Manhattan Institute fellow argues that the death of George Floyd and the subsequent riots “spawned a cultural revolution” that is destroying America. At the forefront of this movement is “disparate impact analysis,” which posits, “any standard or behavioral norm which negatively and disproportionately affects blacks is presumed to be a tool of white supremacy” and must therefore be eliminated.

Mac Donald, in contrast, argues that achievement disparities reflect an “academic skills gap.” In evidence of this claim, she points to racially disparate scores on a variety of standardized tests, for example, NAEP, ACT, SAT, GRE, LSAT, GMAT, and the MCAT. Critics will undoubtedly fault Mac Donald’s thesis for its heavy reliance on standardized tests, but she notes that “suitably diverse” experts constantly investigate these exams for culturally biased questions, and that “questions with the largest racial variance in correct answers” are removed.

Mac Donald also rejects the argument that educational disparities owe to poverty, unfair discipline policies, or structural racism. She blames instead underclass disdain for education, aversion towards norms of self-responsibility deemed oppressively white, the pathological dysfunction of inner-city culture, and “the prevalence of out-of-wedlock births in the black community,” which now constitute “over 70 percent of all black births.”

The Consequences of Disparate Outcomes

Having explained her thesis—the misdiagnosis of disparate impact as racism—Mac Donald then investigates how equity initiatives are reducing the quality of our healthcare and preventing scientific breakthroughs. For example, medical schools use lower standards when admitting black and Hispanic applicants, and they have rendered curriculum easier by using pass-fail basis scores and by substituting social justice curriculum for more difficult scientific knowledge. The National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and various STEM programs are likewise emphasizing diversity when it comes to grant funding, but the effort to achieve racial proportionality ignores the paucity of qualified non-Asian applicants. To support this claim, Mac Donald relates that in 2019 the percentage of doctorate degrees awarded to black scientists was minuscule in neuroscience (1.9%), biophysics (1.7%), biochemistry (1.7%), genetics and genomic degrees (2.3%), molecular biology (2.5%), and electrical engineering (1%). However, she does note that research preferences partially account for disparate outcomes among grant recipients.

Mac Donald also warns that sacrificing meritocracy for racial proportionality is a threat to national security. For example, the $280-billion Chips and Science Act, passed “to counter China’s growing dominance in semiconductor manufacturing,” is brimming “with the usual diversity mandates and giveaways,” including the creation of “a new Chief Diversity Officer (and office) in the National Science Foundation.” Mac Donald further observes that not even the Biden Administration’s urgency towards COVID-19 “lessened the identity-politics obsession.” Instead of prioritizing merit-based research during the pandemic, federal agencies used grants to increase the diversity of biomedical labs.

Several chapters of the book discuss crime and the vast overrepresentation of young black males among the suspects and victims of shootings, the disproportionate number of black people involved with hate crimes and traffic violations, and the Ferguson Effect. Mac Donald rejects the argument that black crime owes to a racist criminal justice system, poverty, or systemic discrimination. She blames instead the same cultural factors impeding academic achievement, especially the breakdown of the nuclear family.

Mac Donald also faults “anti-racism orthodoxy” for tabooing the discussion of cultural explanations. Ignoring these causal factors means “the only way to reduce racial disparities in the criminal-justice system is to stop penalizing criminal behavior.” Mac Donald anticipates that anti-racist elites will continue to patronize the black community by not holding it accountable; and that government agencies will eventually conceal the black crime rate by censoring racial crime data. She equates this maneuver with the declining use of standardized tests by academic institutions, which deprives the public of “a lingering source of objective data” to rebut the white racism allegation.

Mac Donald’s chapters on high culture investigate how disparate impact analysis is desecrating museums, operas, symphonies, and ballets. “The art museum was once considered a place apart,” she laments, “where visitors seeking beauty could see the world through more perspective eyes than their own.” Mac Donald scolds those who attack classical music for its European “demographic past” and its present-day lack of diversity. “When we listen to Beethoven, Schubert, or Bach,” she explains, we seek to rise above “ordinary human experience into an unexplored universe of unsettling silences.” She also condemns the exclusive application of cultural deconstructionism to Western civilization. Critics never criticize the art of minorities or non-Western peoples for its homogeneity, misogyny, or racism.

Populist critics will argue that Mac Donald’s fear of losing a “priceless inheritance” is an urban elitist concern far removed from the day-to-day problems of most American families. Yet, Mac Donald does offer the following speculation, presumably with the white working class in mind:

The nonstop denunciation of the West’s civilizational inheritance may well be contributing to America’s drug-addicted malaise and to rising mental distress among the young. This cultural self-cancellation impoverishes the imagination, stunts the capacity for wonder and joy, and strips the future of everything that gives human life meaning: beauty, sublimity, and wit.

Michael Lind’s thesis probably has more explanatory power for the plight of the working class, namely, that these Americans are struggling today because of the decline of religious institutions, labor unions, and civic associations. A cultural explanation would also have more relevance to the working class if we were speaking of pop culture, materialism, or social media. Nevertheless, if high culture trickles downward, then perhaps Mac Donald is correct about the broader consequentiality of this subject matter. Indeed, this would validate her effort to shame the “guardians of tradition,” whom she rebukes for not defending high culture against the charges of racism, sexism, and colonialism. This includes conductors, university art departments, and museum curators, all of whom should know better, having “devoted their lives” to high culture, and who have experienced firsthand its enrichment of the human soul.

Cultural Confidence and Capital

Mac Donald offers several reasons for this abdication. Fear has paralyzed some, but many are willful collaborators because of moral vanity, personal empowerment, and the tendency to follow whatever is politically fashionable. Mac Donald explains, “The self-abasement common in the post-George Floyd era is actually a form of self-aggrandizement. Individuals and institutions blame themselves for inequalities for which they have no responsibility in order to claim a current impact that they do not possess.” More bluntly stated, she contends that most guardians of high culture—because they are white—cannot achieve victimhood status, but “the vigorous assertion of racial guilt” is “the second-best means of retaining cultural capital.”

Mac Donald’s thinking resembles the analysis of Pierre Bourdieu who coined the term “cultural capital” to denote the strategic adoption of preferences, symbols, and tastes to ascend the social hierarchy. Interestingly, this theory might explain why a sizable number of later-generation Asians support affirmative action even though Asians are the racial group most likely to suffer its harm. As Rob Henderson explains, “These younger Americans have learned that social mobility involves … adopting the social mores of the upper class,” which today includes all kinds of views relating to identity and social justice.

As for why non-Asian minorities endorse disparate impact analysis, Mac Donald thinks the answer is obvious. Management prostrates timidly “before every charge of bias,” so “diversity demands are increasing in stridency and scale.” Mac Donald also links grievance politics to a wider problem of narcissism afflicting Americans today; and she contends that minorities often misinterpret typical career struggles as discrimination, which is a misperception the media reinforces with its consistent narrative of systemic racism.

When Race Trumps Merit offers various solutions to the problems it highlights. Foremost among these is honest thinking about disparate outcomes rather than pointing the finger at “phantom racism.” Mac Donald contends that assertiveness of this kind will require sympathetic institutions and legal organizations willing to support dissidents who challenge the reigning orthodoxy. She also surmises that the White House and Congress could alter the regulations and laws mandating the equity initiatives underway. As for increasing diversity participation in high culture, Mac Donald recommends exposing minority children to these art forms through public education.

One solution this reviewer found lacking was Mac Donald’s call for the restoration of Western norms and Western cultural confidence, which fails to appreciate the changing demographics of this country. It may be that a growing number of racial minorities are unable to feel a deep connection to the West because of its complicated history of accomplishments and failures. To be sure, the Manichean narratives weaponized by pundits today are oversimplified and lack nuance, but even if history is not reducible to a good versus evil dichotomy, it remains a bloody story of power, competition, and oppression. Conservatives should therefore be unsurprised that some racial minorities are unwilling to adopt the cultural norms of a civilization that enslaved, colonized, or conquered their ancestors.

Conservatives argue in rebuttal that the West did much to liberate the world from oppression, slavery, and violence; and that Western individualism, rationalism, and color-blind standards should have universal appeal. But identity politics is a natural response to the atomization of excess individualism produced by the West; and as Mac Donald herself observes, disparate impact analysis is an effective (and thus rational) tool for acquiring wealth, power, and status. Furthermore, if we accept Mac Donald’s speculation that defending the culture of Western civilization is important for the psychology of white Americans, then should not the same thinking apply to non-whites? Conservatives wanting to better understand the disregard that some non-whites have for Western culture might do well to study Black Nationalist theories about the importance of self-determination as a people, including controlling one’s own standards of beauty, quality, and excellence. However, Mac Donald would be right to suggest that self-determination works best when coupled with a healthy degree of self-criticism.

Mac Donald could significantly expand her thesis if she linked the persistence of racially disparate outcomes to the many domestic and foreign policy disasters wrought by our ruling class. Mac Donald herself throughout the book discusses the billions of dollars spent by corporations, philanthropies, and the government to close the racial achievement gap. Explaining this failed project and its misallocation of resources may be the most important question of our time. In addition to dividing the country, the “disparate impact” interpretation conveniently distracts citizens from exploring alternative explanations, including the likelihood that our so-called experts have been failing us all along.