LSE Professor Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa has once again raised controversy at the LSE with a recent article stating: “half of Muslims worldwide are terrorists or active supporters of terrorism”.
In the article published in Psychology Today last Wednesday, he went on to elaborate that half of the Muslims: “would encourage their sons, brothers and nephews to blow themselves up in an airplane or in a crowded market.” The article, entitled ‘Naked Air’, stated that racial profiling and differential treatment of Muslim passengers following the failed Detroit bombing attempt last Christmas was not only legitimate, but necessary unless “we fly naked”.
When a concern about Dr. Kanazawa’s views, citing the specific quotation above, was raised to LSE Director Howard Davies at his termly appearance at the Union General Meeting (UGM), Davies found these views “disagreeable” but said he was not about to censor what the faculty writes.
Responding to Davies’ views at the UGM, first year student Niamh Hayes said: “I am very disappointed with Howard Davies’ response; the LSE is an institution famous for its cultural diversity and I would have expected to see Kanazawa’s work as a little more than ‘disagreeable’.
“While I am very disappointed by his indifference towards a matter than many students find disheartening and alienating, it looks as though it is up to those students … to do something about it.”
In response to the professor’s statements, President of the LSESU Islamic Society Talha Ghannam said: “We would strongly question the factual basis for Mr Kanazawa’s assertion that half of all Muslims in the world are terrorists. Although LSE should promote freedom of academia in every department, his piece ‘Naked Air’ is clearly his strong personal opinion that incites and proposes discrimination against Muslims with no factual basis. We find that view inconsistent with building positive, harmonious and vibrant campus relations.”
Dr. Kanazawa’s views caused similar controversy in 2006, when he published an academic paper alleging that African states were poor and suffered chronic ill-health because their populations were less intelligent than people in richer countries. As reported in the Beaver, the abstract of the paper noted that: “individuals in wealthier and more egalitarian societies live longer and stay healthier not because they are wealthier or more egalitarian but because they are more intelligent”.
In response to the controversy then, which was also reported in the national press by the Guardian, Davies said: “it has certainly created some unpleasant publicity for the School” but believed that nothing could be done on a corporate level as the article was published in a respected journal, The British Journal of Health Psychology. A motion to condemn the professor’s “racist” views were put forward at the UGM, but fell after heated debate.
Besides his views on race and racial profiling, Dr. Kanazawa also believes that modern feminism is “illogical, unnecessary and evil”. In an article published last August in Psychology Today, he questions the assumption that women have historically been worse off than men. The article states: “The fact that men and women are fundamentally different and want different things makes it difficult to compare their welfare directly, to assess which sex is better off”. He also asserts that modern feminism makes women “unhappy” and that women do not control money, politics and prestige “because they don’t have to”, but men do “in order to impress women”.
LSESU Women’s Officer Jessie Robinson said: “To read Satoshi Kanazawa’s work you might think you have gone back sixty years. It’s shocking that a lecturer at the LSE could have opinions so tediously outdated and so fundamentally incorrect.
“Many of Kanazawa’s ideas are actually laughable; he has claimed ‘the fact that women make less money than men cannot by itself be evidence that women are worse off than men, any more than the fact that men own fewer pairs of shoes than women cannot be evidence that men are worse off than women.’ Wow, next time I’m concerned about the pay gap, sexual violence, or political underrepresentation, perhaps I’ll just remind myself of life’s blessings- shoes, I will always have shoes.”
Chair of the LSESU Feminist Society Anna Krausova echoed these sentiments, believing: “While feminism fights for equal rights for women and remains relevant in a global situation of gender dicrimination and violence, it is Satoshi Kanazawa’s views that seek to normalize the stark inequality between women and men without a grain of scientific evidence that are ‘illogical, unnecessary and evil’. We should ask ourselves whether LSE funds should be going into research and teaching based on racist and sexist stereotypes, rather than empirical social science.”
Students of the professor were not without similar concerns. Hannah Dyson, a 2nd-year BSc Management student taught by Dr. Kanazawa in the last academic year, felt it was: “strange that such strong, controversial opinions were the basis of our course [MN101: Introduction to Pyschology]. Even though I found many aspects interesting, I also thought there should have been scope for discussion and debate. Unfortunately…unless you fully accepted the ideas you were unlikely to succeed.”
Dyson further stated that: “Many students, including myself, felt enraged and insulted by some of the ideas presented as fact”.
A spokesperson from the School indicated that they will look into the concerns, stating: “It was argued that these views made it difficult for him to teach mixed-race classes. The School will consider these arguments carefully, though we note that no complaints about his teaching have been received, and will respond more fully in due course”.
Related posts:
- Howard Davies unwilling to censor “disagreeable” views held by professor
- LSE teacher accused of holding “extremist” views
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