Frank C. J. McGurk (1910–1995) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

who was noted for his claims about race and intelligence. McGurk taught at

Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epis ...

Villanova University Villanova University is a Private university, private Catholic church, Roman Catholic research university in Villanova, Pennsylvania. It was founded by the Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinians in 1842 and named after Thomas of Villanova, Sa ...

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

, and

Alabama College The University of Montevallo is a public university in Montevallo, Alabama. Founded on October 12, 1896, the university is Alabama's only public liberal arts college and a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. The University of M ...

.Winston A
Science in the service of the far right: Henry E. Garrett, the IAAEE, and the Liberty Lobby - International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology - Experts in the Service of Social Reform: SPSSI, Psychology, and Society, 1936-1996.
''Journal of Social Issues'', Spring, 1998. McGurk's unpublished 1951 doctoral dissertation was cited by

Arthur Jensen Arthur Robert Jensen (August 24, 1923 – October 22, 2012) was an American psychologist and writer. He was a professor of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen was known for his work in psychometrics an ...

in '' Bias in Mental Testing.'' McGurk (1951) matched 213 black high-school students very closely to 213 white students and administered intelligence tests. Jensen claimed the test showed "blacks perform better on tests involving rote learning and memory than on tests involving relation education or reasoning and problem solving, especially with content of an abstract nature."Jensen, Arthur R. (1980). ''Bias in mental testing.'' New York: Free Press, In their review of the book, Darlington and Boyce obtained the unpublished dissertation and concluded that Jensen's summary was itself very biased.Darlington, Richard B. and Carolyn M. Boyce. Bias in mental Testing (review). ''The American Journal of Psychology'', Vol. 94, No. 2 (1981), pp. 365-368 In 1987, Jensen and McGurk made a re-analysis of McGurk's data, writing that "McGurk’s results cannot be explained in terms of item biases, but appear to be the result of the noncultural items requiring more sheer reasoning ability than the cultural items, which depend more on acquired information."Jensen, Arthur R. and Frank C.J. McGurk. Black-white bias in ‘cultural’ and ‘noncultural’ test items. ''Personality and Individual Differences'', Vol. 8, No. 3 (1987), pp. 295–301 In the debates that followed the

Brown vs. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

decision which ended segregation of the American public school system, McGurk claimed in '' U.S. News & World Report'' "that Negroes have less capacity for education than whites",McGurk, Frank C. (September 21, 1956). A Scientist's Report on Race Differences. '' U.S. News & World Report'' thereby provoking numerous counter-arguments.Staff report (Oct. 29, 1956)
Report Card.
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''Staff report (September 18, 1956). NEGRO'S CAPACITY TO LEARN ARGUED; Professor Says Tests Prove Whites Better as a Group --Wilkins Disputes Him Three Points Made Wilkins Sees Omissions. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' *Staff report (September 23, 1956). Race View Denied; Council Challenges Assertions on Negro Learning Ability. ''

'' In 1959 McGurk told Wesley C. George that, "for the past three years, Villanova has censored me stiffly. I may not write without their specific approval .... That is what happens when priests do not fall into line."McGurk to Wesley Critz George, 31 June 1959, Box 7, Folder 44, Wesley Critz George Papers. Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. Cited in John P. Jackson Jr. “In Ways Unacademical”: The Reception of Carleton S. Coon’s The Origin of Races. ''Journal of the History of Biology'' 34: 247–285, 2001.

Bibliography

* McGurk, F. C. J., 1943, Comparative test scores of Negro and white school children in Richmond, Va. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 34(8), 473–484. * McGurk, F. C. J. Comparison of the Performance of Negro and White High School Seniors on Cultural and Noncultural Psychological Test Questions. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1951. * McGurk, F. C. J. On white and Negro test performance and socio-economic factors.

Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology The ''Journal of Abnormal Psychology'' (formerly ''Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology'' and ''Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association (A ...

, 1953, 48, 448–450. * McGurk, F. C. J. Socioeconomic status and culturally-weighted test scores of Negro subjects.

Journal of Applied Psychology The ''Journal of Applied Psychology'' is a monthly, peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. The journal emphasizes the publication of original investigations that contribute new knowledge and understandin ...

, 1953, 37, 216–211. * McGurk, F. C. (1959). " Negro vs. white intelligence": An answer. Harvard Educational Review. * Frank C. McGurk, The Law, Social Science and Academic Freedom - A Psychologist's View, 5 Vill. L. Rev. 247 (1959). * McGurk, F. C. J. The culture hypothesis and psychological tests. In R. E. Kuttner (Ed.), Race and Modern Science, pp. 367–381. New York: Social Science Press, 1967. * McGurk, F. C. (1971). TROUBLE ON THE CAMPUS: BLACK POWER'S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. Mankind Quarterly, 12(1), 12. * McGurk, F. C. J. Race differences— twenty years later.

Homo ''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus ''Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely relate ...

, 1975, 26, 219-239 * Robert T. Osborne, Frank C. J. McGurk, Audrey M. Shuey, eds. (1982). ''Testing of Negro Intelligence''. Foundation for Human Understanding,

Bibliography

References

Further reading