SOURCE: "The Case Against The Bell Curve," in The Washington Monthly, Vol. 26, No. 12, December, 1994, pp. 17-25.

[In the following essay, Easterbrook examines the intelligence data used in The Bell Curve and contends that it should "be seen as a tract advocating a political point of view, not a detached assessment of research."]

Years ago, hoping to persuade this publication to hire me, I quit a decent job in Chicago and moved to Washington. Unemployed and low on money, I lived in a seedy neighborhood behind the Navy Yard in Southeast D.C. Because the editor of this magazine unaccountably took his time in acknowledging my merit as an applicant, to blow off steam I played basketball on the local court several hours each day. I was the only white player in the game, accepted at first as a charity case. After a few weeks on the blacktop, however...