When Race Trumps Merit

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour

Episode Title: When Race Trumps Merit
Date: May 22, 2026
Host: Scott Bertram
Guests: Heather Mac Donald (author, Manhattan Institute Fellow), Dr. Richard Samuelson (Associate Professor of Government, Hillsdale in D.C.)

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Episode Overview

This episode addresses two central themes. First, an in-depth conversation with Heather Mac Donald on the themes of her book When Race Trumps Merit, focusing on how contemporary equity-oriented policies sacrifice standards of excellence across education, medicine, and public safety. Second, a historical segment with Dr. Richard Samuelson as part of the “America 250” series, examining Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the “Remember the Ladies” letters between Abigail and John Adams leading up to the American Revolution.

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Part 1: When Race Trumps Merit

Guest: Heather Mac Donald

Main Topics:

• Impacts of equity policies on meritocracy
• The Trump administration's approach to racial equity initiatives
• Disparate impact theory and its consequences
• Real-world examples, especially in medicine and higher education
• University's DEI programs and their durability
• Law enforcement, crime, and disparate enforcement consequences

Trump Administration and Racial Equity Policies

[02:13-06:16]

• Mac Donald commends Trump's energetic efforts to dismantle race-based policies in federal hiring, contractor requirements, and higher education admissions.
• She highlights a major executive order (April 2025) prohibiting “disparate impact” analysis in federal agencies, aiming to restore colorblind merit standards in government and academia.

“Trump was just a whirlwind on day one when he was sworn in, issuing executive orders by the dozens ... a very large number of those were focused on this preposterous infrastructure ... that we've created in government based on the lie that America is a systemically racist country.” — Heather Mac Donald [02:15]

• She is skeptical whether these changes will endure unless reinforced by a subsequent administration, noting entrenched bureaucracies are ideologically committed to racial identity politics.

Disparate Impact Theory Explained

[06:16-11:16]

• Disparate impact substitutes “phantom racism” for actual intentional discrimination, Mac Donald argues.
• Despite civil rights laws ending deliberate exclusion of Black employees by 1970s, academic and skills gaps persist.
• Skills-based tests, such as firefighter reading/math exams, disproportionally disqualify Black applicants—leading to their removal as “racist” under disparate impact logic.

"You can either have diversity in the workplace or you can have meritocracy. You cannot have both." — Heather Mac Donald [11:13]

Equity in Medical School Admissions

[11:16-17:40]

• DOJ found UCLA’s medical school violated anti-discrimination laws by prioritizing race over merit.
• Mac Donald details systemic double standards: MCAT and GPA thresholds much lower for Black/Hispanic applicants, higher for white/Asian applicants.
• This results in “almost non-overlapping bell curves” of qualifications between groups, and pressures schools to continually lower standards to boost minority representation.

"If the MCAT scores and grade point averages in college, that would be automatically disqualifying if presented by a white or Asian applicant... are an automatic admit if presented by a Black or Hispanic student." — Heather Mac Donald [13:20]

Justifying Lower Standards for Doctors?

[17:40-20:20]

• Mac Donald references Bakke v. Regents (1978) and the failed rationale that affirmative action admits would disproportionately serve underserved communities. She claims there remains no evidence of this.

"[Justice Powell] considered the argument, well, blacks will be more likely to go out and work in the so-called community ... And Powell said then there's no evidence that that's the case. And he's right, there's still no evidence of that." — Heather Mac Donald [19:41]

DEI Bureaucracies' Resilience

[20:20-22:25]

• Universities embed DEI under new names to evade bans and survive political cycles.
• The DEI apparatus, she claims, feeds on false narratives of campus hostility and victimization, driving costs without improving outcomes.

"There's no more welcoming environment in human history than a college campus to the groups that are now deemed marginalized and victimized." — Heather Mac Donald [21:36]

Crime, Law Enforcement, and Racial Disparities

[22:25-26:59]

• Regarding Trump’s intervention in DC crime, Mac Donald asserts enforcement improves public safety but is often derided as racially motivated due to disparate arrest rates.
• She ties this back to disparate impact theory, contending higher Black crime rates predict disproportionate enforcement, not racism.

"If you apply the laws against turnstile jumping, against robbery, against aggravated assault, you will have a disparate impact on black criminals, not because the laws are racist, but because the crime rate is so high." — Heather Mac Donald [25:53]

Local Political Levers & "Equity" Agendas in Major Cities

[26:59-30:29]

• New York and other major cities, with increasingly socialist leadership, have levers to alter school admissions standards and law enforcement, frequently undermining merit-based systems like test-admission high schools.

"At this point, [Stuyvesant High School] is so overwhelmingly Asian. Whites are underrepresented... Asians are way overrepresented ... Why? Because they're whooping everybody's ass." — Heather Mac Donald [28:07]

• Pressure grows to remove such exams, and mayors can influence prosecutors and economic policies that further equity over merit.

The Enduring Divide on Public Policy and Outcomes

[30:29-31:28]

• Mac Donald contrasts right and left views on homelessness and public disorder: the left sees “homelessness” as the result of structural economic unfairness, not policy choices, and thus continues voting for progressive politicians.

"The left thinks that so-called homelessness is a fact of nature. It’s created by unfair economic conditions, not by public policy choices ... They’ll keep voting in the people that are bringing us this squalor because they don’t blame the policies. And that’s a basic divide that is very hard to overcome." — Heather Mac Donald [30:29]

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Part 2: America 250—Common Sense & "Remember the Ladies"

Guest: Dr. Richard Samuelson

Main Topics:

• Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and its impact on the Revolution
• The “Remember the Ladies” letter exchange between Abigail and John Adams

Context for Common Sense

[34:31-44:45]

• Samuelson sets the stage in 1776: tensions with Britain escalate; King George rejects reconciliation; colonists’ identity is bound to the King.
• Common Sense arrives, quickly persuades colonists to consider independence, attacks both King George III and monarchy as an institution.

"Paine drops Common Sense or publishes Common Sense anonymously. And it spreads because he's the first, in a high profile way, to take it to the King to say, the problem is ... the King is not looking out for your interests." — Dr. Samuelson [36:54]

• The pamphlet leverages biblical and moral language to resonate with a religious, literate but still oral culture.

"Paine uses that very effectively in that Bible reading culture and Bible listening culture... to take the argument that it’s absurd to have a king." — Dr. Samuelson [39:19]

• Its ideas were spread through both newspapers and public readings in taverns and other gathering places.

Founding Figures & Radical Implications

[42:57-46:40]

• Founders admired Paine’s rhetorical power but found his political theory less robust (lacked checks/balances, too reliant on the will of the people).
• Paine radicalized the break: not just from a king, but from the concept of monarchy and the British identity itself.

"Remember the Ladies"—Abigail and John Adams

[46:40-54:57]

• In March 1776, Abigail Adams writes to John, urging that new laws after independence “remember the ladies” and offer legal protections.
• She connects women’s lack of liberty to the hypocrisy of revolutionaries fighting tyranny while maintaining “unlimited power” over wives.

"I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors." — Abigail Adams (as described by Dr. Samuelson) [47:46]

• John responds playfully but somewhat dismissively, calling her letter “saucy” but recognizing, in private later writings, the seriousness of the equality issue.
• Both the issues of slavery and the legal status of women are present in revolutionary debates, foreshadowing later struggles for equality.

"John is a leading figure in Congress and Abigail is pushing him to think about some of the more deeper implications of this move towards independence. And she's a pretty serious thinker herself." — Dr. Samuelson [54:32]

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• On the durability of reform:
  "I am ambivalent or torn between whether it’s really going to make a permanent difference. Because a lot of these ... the most extreme and committed organizations and bureaucracies ... are still there, they're still dug in." — Heather Mac Donald [05:55]

• On disparate impact:
  "Disparate impact Theory substitutes phantom racism for actual discrimination because it became very difficult to find sufficient examples of real virulent discrimination..." — Heather Mac Donald [06:42]

• On Asian overrepresentation at Stuyvesant:
  "Because they're whooping everybody's ass. The parents are riding their children with extraordinary attention to study, ... and it's paying off." — Heather Mac Donald [28:22]

• On the spread of Common Sense:
  "Often this is an oral culture. So you'll hang out in the tavern or the pub and people will read aloud extracts from Common Sense, and then they'll discuss it and talk about it." — Dr. Samuelson [41:27]

• On the radicalism of attacking monarchy:
  "He's not just attacking [King George], attacking the root of monarchy. And he mocks it ... it was timely. It wouldn't have had a year earlier." — Dr. Samuelson [45:04]

• On women's equality and the Revolution:
  "Both slavery, equality of black white and the question of equality of men and women is all on the table in the spring of 1776. Those ideas are already logically identified as ... part of the movement towards independence..." — Dr. Samuelson [51:50]

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Key Timestamps

• 02:13 — Heather Mac Donald on Trump’s efforts to dismantle race-based federal policies
• 06:42 — Explanation of disparate impact theory
• 11:16–14:38 — Medical school admissions and racial preferences
• 19:27 — Supreme Court’s rationale on affirmative action in medicine
• 20:58 — The resilience of DEI offices in universities
• 22:25–25:53 — Crime rates, enforcement, and disparate impact logic
• 28:01 — Stuyvesant High School as a case study in merit-based admissions
• 30:29 — Why progressive voters persist amid urban decline
• 34:31 — Dr. Samuelson on the historical context of Common Sense
• 39:17 — Role of religion and biblical rhetoric in Paine’s pamphlet
• 47:07 — Introduction of “Remember the Ladies” letters

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Summary in Context

Listeners are provided with a robust defense of merit-based policies in education and hiring, with pointed critiques of race-based affirmative action and DEI bureaucracy, all underpinned by detailed discussion and real-world cases (especially in the medical field). The historical segment offers rich insight into how revolutionary rhetoric, the profound cultural shift away from monarchy, and even early feminism were intertwined in America’s founding years. Both conversations reinforce themes of principle, evidence, and the persistent challenges of policy and cultural change.

Transcript

[Heather MacDonald]

Foreign.

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

From the historic campus of Hillsdale College

[Scott Bertram]

in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

true and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored.

[Scott Bertram]

This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour,

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

[Heather MacDonald]

So they'll keep voting in the people that are bringing us this squalor because they don't blame the policies. And that's a basic divide that is very hard to overcome.

[Scott Bertram]

This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was Heather MacDonald, author of When Race Trumps Merit, how the Pursuit of Equity, Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty and Threatens Lives, now in a revised paperback with a new preface by Heather. We'll go in depth with her today. Also later on in today's show, Richard Samuelson joins us From Hillsdale in D.C. we'll talk about common sense and remember the ladies as we walk up to America 251st. Happy to be joined now by Heather McDonald. She is Thomas W. Smith, Thomas Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor at City Journal, and the author of When Race Trumps how the Pursuit of Equity, Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty and Threatens Lives.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

It is now available in an updated

[Scott Bertram]

paperback edition with a new preface by Heather MacDonald. Heather, thanks so much for joining us.

[Heather MacDonald]

Thank you for having me, Scott. I greatly appreciate it.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

We talked about the book upon its release, which I can't believe was finished three years ago. But I looked at the numbers and that's true. Much has happened since then. We could not have necessarily counted on or anticipated President Trump being reelected to a second term in the White House. And part of what you say in the preface now is that we've seen President Trump attempting as much as possible through the administration to dismantle the racial equity infrastructure that had been created. So how far have we come in these past 14, 15 months or so?

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

Well, I can't fault Trump on what

[Heather MacDonald]

he's trying to do. The question is, are any of these changes going to stick? As you recall, Trump was just a whirlwind on day one when he was sworn in, issuing executive orders by the dozens practically. And a very large number of those were focused on this preposterous infrastructure that we've created in government based on the lie that America is a systemically racist country still, and that we need to engineer racial proportionality in meritocratic, high standards institutions like medical schools, law schools, law firms, corporations in order to overcome this systemic bias. And so you had Democratic administrations dating back decades basically forcing public and private sector entities to discard high standards in favor of race. And sadly, if you do that, you are guaranteeing that you're going to get people in your institution who are not competitively qualified. So Trump set out saying, you know, we're going to get rid of racial programs within the federal government. I'm going to stop federal agencies from hiring on the basis of race and sex rather than on the basis of how much that bureaucrat knows about his field. I'm going to stop requiring that federal

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

contractors, private firms that have contracts with

[Heather MacDonald]

the federal government, engage in these extremely

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

burdensome demographic surveys of their workforce, itemizing

[Heather MacDonald]

a ever larger number of racial and identity based groups that are now claiming

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

aspiring to victim status. And so private firms had to create these massive EEOC bureaucracies that sucked up funding and time. And in April, he did what I think is the most significant executive order,

[Heather MacDonald]

which is to try to extirpate this

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

very dangerous concept called disparate impact liability from the federal regulations. So this was all great. And of course, he tried to actually give teeth to the 2023 Supreme Court case called SFFA v. Harvard that purported to ban, on a constitutional basis, private, excuse me, public colleges from using race and admissions to eviscerate high standards. But colleges were sort of trying to lie low and ignore the ruling. And frankly, the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts gave them a huge loophole to continue using race. So Trump came in and tried to say, no, we really mean this. You're going to have to give us your admissions data that will allow us to determine if you're still using racial preferences. This was all good, but I am ambivalent or torn between whether it's really going to make a permanent difference. Because a lot of these, the most extreme and committed organizations and bureaucracies that are committed to basically the idea that

[Heather MacDonald]

white males are the biggest threat to humanity, they're still there, they're still dug in. And I would say if we don't get another Republican administration to follow up on this second Trump term, I think we're going to backslide very quickly.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Heather, I want to return to April 23, 2025. This is the date when President Trump has this order to federal agencies to stop employing disparate impact theory. This was a big part of when raised Trump's merit, this discussion about disparate impact theory. Explain for us briefly once again what that meant and what real changes we might see or have seen since the change by President Trump's administration.

[Heather MacDonald]

Well, in a nutshell, disparate impact Theory substitutes phantom racism for actual discrimination because it became very difficult to find sufficient examples of real virulent discrimination by mainstream institutions against qualified black individuals. But you had to keep the anti racism juggernaut going. And so disparate impact theory was developed in order to do so. The original civil rights acts that were passed in the 1960s at the height of the sort of active civil rights era, banned employers from deliberately and intentionally discriminating against qualified black applicants. So if you had, you know, if you were a business seeking a lawyer and a black lawyer showed up, who was the most qualified, you could no longer say, I'm not going to hire you because you're black, or you couldn't not hire him because he was black without explicitly saying so. And the federal government said, that's just not. That sort of deliberate discrimination is not compatible with our understanding of equal protection and civil rights in this country. So the civil rights laws banned intentional discrimination. Well, like five years later, seven years later, most employers had stopped doing that.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

They were not trying to exclude qualified blacks. The problem. And yet you still saw workplaces that didn't have 13% black representation if they had any kind of selective test for admission. So, for example, fire departments may not have been 13% black firefighters because those

[Heather MacDonald]

departments administered a very basic elementary test of reading and math skills to firefighter applicants on the assumption that if you're going to be a firefighter, you need to be able to read an instruction manual on how to use this or that fire retardant. You had to understand how to, you know, read about chemicals. And so they would issue, they would administer these tests. And what happened was black applicants would disproportionately fail because they didn't have an even elementary level of reading skills. And so the workplaces remained insufficiently diverse from the perspective of government bureaucrats and the civil rights establishment. And so what the court, the supreme court came up with, and this idea had been batted around in law schools for a while, was the idea that even if an employer did not intend to discriminate against blacks, all he wanted was to have the most qualified applicants, and he'd be happy if his entire workplace was black. And if he administered some kind of test or had a certain expectation of reading skills, of writing skills, of math skills, if that test had a negative impact disproportionately on blacks, that that test was itself racist. And so you had all sorts of institutions throwing out perfectly constitutional, perfectly colorblind tests based on what is called disparate impact. And that was what started A very serious decline in meritocratic standards in medical schools, in law schools, in flight training, you name it. Any. The sad fact of the matter is, Scott, because the academic skills gap is so wide and it has been intractable, you cannot administer a meritocratic test without having a disparate impact on blacks. You can either have diversity in the workplace or you can have meritocracy. You cannot have both.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Heather McDonald is with us. Her book is When Race Trumps Merits. How the Pursuit of Equity, Sacrifices excellence, Destroys beauty and Thrill Threatens Lives. Heather, you mentioned how it shows up in science and medicine. That's a part of When Race Trump's Merit. Just recently, as we have this conversation, the Department of Justice concluded an investigation into UCLA's medical school, which I think we talked about the first time we chatted three years ago. So the investigation's taken a while, but it found the school's admissions process unlawfully discriminates based on race. Their process has been focused on racial demographic demographics at the expense of merit and excellence. We talk about real world impact of these policies on everyday Americans. What this means is UCLA is not admitting the best of the brightest of the people who are gonna be the best doctors, but they're more concerned about the racial demographics of the potential doctors that are in their programs that eventually affects the health and wellbeing of all of us down the road.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

It's just outrageous. Scott.

[Heather MacDonald]

Anybody who has a white male, straight white male son or grandson has either discovered this or will discover it. That that straight white male is going to be the last admitted to selective colleges, to selective graduate schools, to professional schools, and to law firms, government, science positions, you name it. And students experience this daily. I was at an event last night and a very left wing mother had to admit that although her son had very good MCAT scores, he was right in deciding that he would never be admitted to medical school. And so he went to Palantir instead. Now that's hardly the end of the world, but now, nevertheless, we have lost potentially a groundbreaking medical scientist. And this is happening all over. And what's going on is the medical schools have had completely different tracks of admission, MCAT scores and grade point averages. MCATs are the medical college admissions test. They're the standardized, colorblind, neutral, objective tests of the types of skills that you need to succeed in medical school. They're the medical counterparts of the SATs. In many places. If the MCAT scores and grade point averages in college, that would be automatically disqualifying if presented by a white or Asian Applicant to medical school are an automatic admit if presented by a black or Hispanic student. So you've got almost non overlapping bell curves of who's getting admitted to medical school. And so what happens is, and this is true for any institution that practices racial preferences when these less qualified, under qualified blacks are admitted to medical school. And let me just put in a little aside here, opponents of racial preferences like myself are not saying that blacks

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

should not go to college.

[Heather MacDonald]

We're not saying that blacks should not go to law school. We're not saying that blacks should not go to medical school. All we are saying is they should go to school on the same basis as everybody else admitted to schools for

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

which they are competitively qualified, not catapulted outside of their comfort zone, outside of their skills zone, into schools for which they're not qualified. So if you're a black student and you'd be qualified to go to Boston College, it is not doing you a service to be admitted to Harvard Medical School where the students there are the absolute top of the, of the academic skills curve to the extent they're admitted when not kept out to make places for racial preference beneficiaries. So the black students are admitted into schools that they're not ready for, they do very poorly, they're at the bottom of their class. And the pressure is then on to lower standards further. And that has gone on with the first stage of the medical licensing test which got rid of grades and went to pass fail in the hope of passing through more blacks into the hospital residencies of their choice in their second year of medical training. And the pressure is on to do similar things to part two of the medical licensing exam. And sorry guys, skill matters, intelligence matters, capacity matters. These things cannot be fudged. You cannot play around with seeking the best possible candidate and lowering standards and think things are all going to come out okay. They won't.

[Scott Bertram]

Heather McDonald is with us. We'll talk more about when race Trumps merit. The new paperback version available now. But now is an opportunity to make plans for May 31, June 1 or June 2. That is when Revolutionary America is in theaters. The very first big screen production from Hillsdale College. You know, our founding generation risked everything for the freedom our children enjoy today with 250 years on the line, make sure that they know the story. Introducing the first documentary about the American Revolution that you can trust from Hillsdale College. Go to Hillsdale Edu Film F I L M to find a theater near you and get your tickets for Revolutionary America. It's in Theaters for A Limited Run May 31 June 1, June 2 Make your plans now. Hillsdale Edu FILM Good for the whole family. Hillsdale Edu Film we continue with Heather MacDonald, author of When Trumps Merit. That book, now available in paperback with a new preface by Heather MacDonald.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Heather, on this subject of educating doctors,

[Scott Bertram]

is there an argument or is there any evidence that by enrolling and accepting doctors who might be slightly lower achieving in their career, it's still a net

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

benefit because those doctors could serve areas

[Scott Bertram]

that otherwise would not have any access to medical care whatsoever?

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Is there any evidence that that is taking place?

[Heather MacDonald]

When the first case was decided called Bakke versus the Regions of University of California and this was in fact a medical student, a white Jewish guy who applied to the medical school at the University of California at Davis and had competitive qualifications and he was not admitted because at that point the University of Davis, University of California at Davis had an explicit set aside program for say 100 blacks to come into the medical school who had the usual very low scores. And Bakke sued all the way up to the Supreme Court. This was a public university, so it was obligated to abide by the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the laws. The opinion that was the plurality opinion was written by Justice Lewis Powell. And he considered various rationales that maybe justified would justify racial preferences under what's called in constitutional law a strict scrutiny test, which is of high level of review. You have to have a very strong reason to use race as a category as a government entity.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

And he considered among the rationales compensatory justice. Blacks have been screwed in the past,

[Heather MacDonald]

so we need to have to, you

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

know, help them now.

[Heather MacDonald]

He said that doesn't do it.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

Not a good enough rationale. And he considered the argument, well, blacks

[Heather MacDonald]

will be more likely to go out and work in the so called community. They'll be more likely to do health

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

clinics that are not so elite and

[Heather MacDonald]

in places where they're insufficient number of doctors.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

And Powell said then there's no evidence that that's the case. And he's right, there's still no evidence of that. So you know, I can imagine a viewer thinking, well, but maybe there's a balance there. So you have maybe not as quite as competent doctors, but if they're filling needed gaps in the medical system, maybe it's worth it. But I just want to say that rationale doesn't apply either.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Heather McDonald with us, her book When Race Trumps Merit. Speaking of colleges and universities, once you get there, you previously have dealt with DEI programs all over campus on many colleges and universities across the country. The president, the administration have instructed colleges and universities to stop those programs. And it appears based on evidence and hidden cameras, that many places are simply renaming departments, trying to do their best to keep those programs intact while staying under the radar of the federal government. So do you think they're gonna get away with that, to simply try to wait out the Trump administration?

[Heather MacDonald]

Yes, I do.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

Let's just state that this is a bureaucracy based on an outright lie. And that's bad regardless of its consequences. It's bad if a university embraces untruth because it's supposed to be dedicated to the truth. The DEI bureaucracy in colleges across the country is based on the fiction that colleges remain hotbeds of discrimination and that to be a female or a so called underrepresented minority on campus, which means basically blacks, Hispanics, and a minute number of American Indians, that to be one

[Heather MacDonald]

of those unfortunates is to be subject to unsafety and you need allies to survive. This is all preposterous. There's no more welcoming environment in human history than a college campus to the groups that are now deemed marginalized and victimized. So these bureaucracies, it's just sucking up tuition dollars, it's making the colleges get more and more expensive, and it teaches students to think of themselves as victims. It is dedicated to that proposition. And it uses these bureaucrats, the vice provost of diversity and belonging. They use every opportunity to tell students why they should think of themselves as victims rather than as the most fortunate people on on earth in human history.

[Scott Bertram]

And there are the issue of crime.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

You wrote a piece at City Journal a couple of weeks ago, rude, but right on crime, referring to Donald Trump and crackdown in Washington, D.C. we've seen murder rates plummet in D.C. we've seen some public transit agencies across the country actually enforce the law and go after fare evaders. And crime has fallen, vandalism has fallen in those particular locations. And yet we still sort of see this couched as some sort of racial animus if you want to enforce the law, and racial animus if you want to keep some of our larger cities safe. Will the evidence that we see in some areas, including right there in Washington, D.C. change the minds of anyone who's looking at that topic?

[Heather MacDonald]

I've sort of given up on changing minds, Scott. And I'm sure the left says that about us as well. I'm acutely conscious on a minute by minute, by basis that both sides have similar rhetorical techniques that they use against the other and both sides are equally capable of violating neutral principles. That having been said, I can, I can hold two contradictory ideas in my mind at once. I believe that. And yet I also do believe that I have the facts and I'm not deluded. But nevertheless, I have to admit that the left thinks we're totally out of touch with reality. I would just make one little emendation to what you said. Yes, things are looking better in Washington, D.C. after Trump in August of last year bracingly sent in the National Guard and said, we're not going to take this any longer. You know, this is not acceptable. There's a very high crime rate here. Disorder is out of control. We want to be a livable, beautiful city and we're not going to excuse this any longer. That was a great, great moment, he called it. It was the second Liberation Day after the tariffs. This was a more important one in my view. But, but recently summer is approaching and we're getting the youth flash mob season coming upon us where you have large groups of children raised predominantly by single mothers. They are overwhelmingly black that gather in urban centers, having announced a sort of a mobbing event on social media and

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

they rampage, they raise hell. And there was one recently in Washington

[Heather MacDonald]

D.C. in the Navy Yards area.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

So I would say we need more National Guards. But crime is another area where you have disparate impact theory at work, just as it's true. And again, let me also say I'm speaking about averages here. I am not speaking about any individual, white, Hispanic or black person. There are thousands of blacks who are overperforming whites and Asians in academic skills. There's thousands of blacks who are far more law abiding than white and Asian gang bangers and thugs. But the averages, the data do not lie. And it is the case that black crime rates, on average, taken the group as a whole, I'm not talking about any given individual, are so much higher than other groups in society that if you apply the laws against turnstile jumping,

[Heather MacDonald]

against robbery, against aggravated assault, you will have a disparate impact on black criminals, not because the laws are racist, but because the crime rate is so high. And so the criminal justice system under progressive leadership has said, well, if we enforce laws against shoplifting or turnstile jumping, we will be putting a disproportionate number of black juveniles in jail, maybe. Although if they're juveniles there, they get a free pass immediately. But even if we apply these laws against people that already have 10 crimes in their background, we will have A disparate impact on black criminals. They therefore we'll stop enforcing the law because it has a disparate impact that's been going on. And that's a more difficult thing for Trump to get at because these are generally local, state and local decisions, and the federal government has limited authority over those decisions.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

So let me actually probably end there, which is since the last time we've talked, New York now has a socialist mayor. Chicago essentially has a socialist mayor. Seattle has a socialist mayor. It seems some of our big cities are leaning into democratic socialists or just flat out socialists in office. What kind of levers do they then have at the local level, at the city level, and some of our biggest cities in the country to try to, in their parlance, restore equity in those areas?

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

They have a lot of leverage.

[Heather MacDonald]

There's a longstanding battle in New York City over what are called test schools. These are specialized high schools that are public, they're free, that use academic skills tests to admit students. This is fairly rare, although they exist like Virginia has one, San Francisco, Seattle, and they've been the crown jewel of the public education school. In New York City, the most famous

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

one is called Stuyvesant High School, and it's down in the lower Manhattan.

[Heather MacDonald]

And at this point, it is so overwhelmingly Asian.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

Whites are underrepresented.

[Heather MacDonald]

Asians are way overrepresented based on their population in New York City.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

Why?

[Heather MacDonald]

Because they're whooping everybody's ass.

[Heather MacDonald (additional commentary)]

The parents are riding their children with extraordinary attention to study, to not run the streets at night, to do their homework, to learn to pay attention to their teacher, to respect their teacher. And it's paying off. And these schools, because they have very few black and Hispanic students, have been under pressure for decades from the various race hustling advocacy groups to get rid of the exams and do admit by race. And Mondami, the left wing mayor of New York, Zorami, has been ambiguous about that. It's not clear which way he's going to go, but he, and it is fortunately controlled by the state legislature, nevertheless, he's feeling the political momentum. And I could imagine that that effort to reward academic merit will be torn down. They can bring pressure on progressive prosecutors not to further enforce the law. And God knows they can certainly screw up with the economic situation. So it's really astounding. You know, I was in New York City in the Giuliani mayoralty and it was an extraordinarily exciting moment. He took on the welfare industrial complex. He took on the criminal industrial complex. He restored high standards. He brought accountability to government. It's all gone. New York looks filthier than ever. There's more danger than ever from mentally ill vagrants that are allowed to roam the streets without being committed for mental illness. So, you know, you and I, people like us, scratch our heads and say, how do people keep voting in these left wingers? And the reason I have come up with is like when it comes to

[Heather MacDonald]

street vagrancy, otherwise known as homelessness, which is a complete misnomer, the left thinks that so called homelessness is a fact of nature. It's created by unfair economic conditions, not by public policy choices. I see it street vagrancy as completely a policy choice. People have decided that we want the vagrants on the streets. We're going to get rid of the means to get them off, which is moving people along for vagrancy and committing people involuntarily if they're psychotic. The left thinks it's just a matter of we're not fearful funding enough social services so they'll keep voting in the people that are bringing us this squalor because they don't blame the policies. And that's a basic divide that is very hard to overcome.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Heather Macdonald is Thomas W. Smith Fellow

[Scott Bertram]

at Manhattan Institute, also contributing editor at City Journal, and the author of the recent book When Race Trumps Merit, the Pursuit of Equity, Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

and Threatens Lives, now available in paperback

[Scott Bertram]

with a new preface from Heather MacDonald.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Heather, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale hour.

[Scott Bertram]

Up next, Dr. Richard Samuelson from Hillsdale in D.C. will talk about common sense and also remember the ladies letters between John and Abigail Adams. I'm Scott Bertram. This is is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. You know the Robertson family from the hit TV show Duck Dynasty. Now Hillsdale College offers you the unique opportunity to learn alongside the Robertsons as they dive deep into Hillsdale's online course, the Genesis Story. Every Friday on the Unashamed podcast, the Robertsons will share their insights and perspectives. Learning from Hillsdale professor of English Justin Jackson. Take a trip down south to Louisiana for this one of a kind learning experience we call Unashamed Academy. Visit unashamedforhillsdale.com and enroll today. That's Unashamed. F O R Hill hillsdale.com to experience the genesis story alongside the Robertsons.

[Larry Arnn]

Great books, great people, great ideas. Learning about these things is critical to being a well educated human being and we can help with the Hillsdale dialogues. Each week Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins radio veteran Hugh Hewitt to discuss topics of enduring relevance and and from time to time, they also talk about current events, but always with an eye toward more fundamental truths. And they want you to tune in to a conversation like no other. The Hillsdale Dialogues are posted every Monday on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at podcast hillsdale.edu. that's podcast hillsdale Edu. Or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find find your audio.

[Scott Bertram]

Welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram. Be sure to find more Hillsdale College audio on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network, older episodes of this program, plus the Larry Arn show, the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast and more podcast Hillsdale. Edu. We're joined by Dr. Richard Samuelson. He is associate professor of government at Hillsdale in D.C. Dr. Samuelson, thanks for joining us.

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

Thanks for having me on. It's great to be here.

[Scott Bertram]

Good to have you back. As we continue our discussion and walk up to July 4th of 1776 as we approach now America 250. We've had a couple of conversations in the past. You can find that in the archives. Today we're going to talk about two things, common sense and remember the ladies. Before we do that, Dr. Samuelson, tell us a little bit, perhaps set the scene. What's happening, say, from the beginning of 1776 up until around April or so, where our discussion takes us today?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

Well, just go back a little before. Remember when the second Congress met, they sent the people wanting reconciliation, sent the olive branch petition to the king. It arrived hopefully the same time the king said, nope, I'm not interested. You guys are out of my protection. And there's a struggle in Congress in the last part of 75. But what do we do about that, including in December, people were coming to giants. What we do if we have bills or not from the king, just say from the colony of blah, blah, blah, he said. But they had to think about that. And in late December of 76, the king said, basically American trade in American on the colonial ships is forfeit to the king. And so the king is gradually pushing them and pushing them. And that's the context in which Paine's common sense takes place. There is a turn. All along the colonists have been saying, well, we want the good patriot king to protect us, but from Parliament and what's happening now, they realize they're starting to realize the king is part of the problem. And when you get the Declaration in July, it's always he hath, he hath, he hath because the King was the only legal connection they had to Britain. They did not believe they were subject to Parliament's authority, perhaps on the high seas, but not as soon as you got inside the colony. And so that's the context in which you get common sense. And it hit like a firecracker. In the start of 76, Paine drops common sense or publishes common sense anonymously. And it spreads because he the first, in a high profile way, to take it to the King to say, the problem is the King is not looking out for your interests. The King is not working for you. He's working for someone else, perhaps himself, perhaps Britain, but not for the colonists.

[Scott Bertram]

So at that time, as common sense hits with the force of a firecracker, as you say, is it generally a population that they feel perhaps independence is inevitable? Are colonists still hoping for reconciliation? And where does common sense enter that mix?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

They're still hoping for reconciliation among many people, John Adams thought and others thought, once the sword is drawn, throw away the scabbard that is after Lexington, conquered in the spring of 75, it's just not happening. But most people weren't thinking that way. We think we've worked out these things before, we'll settle it again. And it takes time for people to realize the King is not going to be there to save us. We're going to have to go our own way. And people who've always lived under the King in a British world, and they love being British because to be British was to be connected to the freest people in the world and the people who kept defeating the French, that's always good if you're British, of course. And so it was a big deal to repudiate their identity as British and their king. So Paine with his brilliant rhetoric, remember, he had only showed up in, I think late 74 from England, and he wound up writing and he really had developed a terrific pen and he writes common sense that says the problem is the King and the problem isn't just the King. The problem is monarchy. So it's not just that you're staying connected to Britain. It is that it is absurd to have a king and is absurd for an island to rule a continent which addresses the second element, the imperial dimension. So people are still, they're ambiguous, they're getting frustrated with the King, but all they've known is being British and being British is connected to the liberties they want to preserve.

[Scott Bertram]

Dr. Richard Samuelson with us talking about common sense. We'll discuss remember the ladies and the Adams in just A few minutes in common sense. Paine's using biblical imagery, using moral language constantly. How important was that? How important was religion to the revolutionary argument?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

Well, this is a very. This is a Bible reading people and fairly religious people, mostly Protestant, more dissenting Protestant than establishment Protestant, but. And so the image is really hit. John Adams actually asked Paine about. They said, yeah, I use that because it appealed to the people. And the sermons. By the way, if you track the parts of the Old Testament that we use in sermon, you're turning to parts that Paine quotes where Samuel says, don't go for a king, Israel, that's not what God wants from you. Right. And that's mean. It's a punishment. You don't want to be like every other nation that has a king. They'll just take stuff from you. Right. And so Paine uses that very effectively in that Bible reading culture and Bible listening culture, by the way, still in oral culture, to take the argument that it's absurd to have a king. Right. And so he's hitting the right force, the right way at the right time. People are trying to figure out what to do. And he's saying, God, we don't want. You know, the problem is the king. And you're starting to have this turn against the king and the turn against Britain. And remember, in their constitutional ideas, their only connection with Britain was the king. They were not subject to Parliament's jurisdiction. And they kept hoping the king would step in and stop it. And they're starting to realize that the king will not. And Payne helped move public opinion to the recognition that the king was not going to be there for them. And his turn to biblical imagery and biblical language was part of his appeal. He was using language that was familiar to the colonists to get them to think through this on moral and biblical terms that would appeal to them.

[Scott Bertram]

Let's step back for a minute just to give a little context. Look, common sense spreads through the colonies. And these days you think, well, you pick it up at the corner store or it's online. It's very easy to access that sort of thing. How literally physically does common sense spread among the people? Back in 1776, in a few ways.

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

It was published and There's a new second edition in July. I think it's February 14th as a date of Paine's introduction already. And you have 80, 100,000 copies in a population of what, 3 million ish? And that's half the population's under 16. And it's excerpted in newspapers and there are what, 20, 25 newspapers. And often this is an oral culture. So you'll hang out in the tavern or the pub and people will read aloud extracts from common sense, and then they'll discuss it and talk about it. Maybe asked to repeat the founding in the. On the stage. This is age where the popular were the people. It's in the early 19th century. They demand encores. Do that scene again. So I can imagine they would say, read that passage against the king again, where you call him the royal brute, right? Or what he calls the William the Conqueror, a French bastard and an armed banditti is the ancestor of your king. This is the guy you revere. And so it's spread both through print and through sharing in before hearths and fireplaces and in taverns. And maybe as people are traveling on stages, those who did so it's just. It's everywhere insofar as something could be everywhere at the time.

[Scott Bertram]

Dr. Richard Samuelson with us talking about common sense as we walk up to America 250. Was Paine admired by the founders? Did they like the work that he was trying to accomplish? Was he too much for some? Was he dangerous, unsettling for others?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

Well, it depends who you ask, right? The John Adams said he has a better hand at tearing down the. Building up his theory of government. And he does have the idea of essentially we get together and we create a new government. He kind of almost has a. It's a religious ceremony. You take the king, you take the new law, you immolate it, and that's. You put a crown on the law is king.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Right?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

But he does. He's not much for checks and balances when you get into his actual political theory. And of course, you're trying to get the French Revolution, his rights of man would be controversial here. There'd be different opinions about how sound his theory would be. And so it depends who you ask just how much. But one other thing to look at in common sense, he makes a radical distinction between society and government. And he thinks society is when we come together naturally to pursue our goods. And government exists because of our wickedness. People misbehave, and because of that, we all got to suffer and have a government. And the purpose of government is security, maybe safety and maybe freedom. But what does the Declaration say? Safety and happiness. You know, happiness in the recitalian sense, that is a life well lived, fully realized, whereas pain puts that in society outside of government. Maybe there's more room in the mainstream American political thought for the old notion that man is political by nature. Hence the citizens engagement in politics is a good. It's not just, necessarily evil. And in Paine's account, it looks more like a necessary evil. So there's some lines of distinction there. But Paine, of course, did yeoman's service there. And of course, his great crisis essay right before the Delaware campaign. These are the times that try men's souls. He did invaluable service to the public in moving public opinion against the king and for independence.

[Scott Bertram]

You mentioned this earlier in the conversation, but Paine, in common sense, is attacking the monarchy itself and not just King George. How radical did that idea of attacking not one person, King George perhaps, but the monarchy itself. How radical Was that in 1776?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

It was a change. It was something they're working with. What's interesting is British nationality, of course, is bound up with the king to be a British subject. You're born in the king's soil, you essentially belong to the king. You can't cease being his subject without his explicit consent. Hence signing the declaration was a bold act of defiance because it's all the evidence they need in your treason trial. And so Paine is attacking that whole concept. It's bound up your identity as a Britain. I love my king. I'm attached to my king. It's how you're raised. And so he's not just attacking that, attacking the root of monarchy. And he mocks it. He says it's unbiblical, he says it's absurd. And he's attacking. But it hit because it was time, it was timely. It wouldn't have had a year earlier. Maybe people were ready to think they're thinking through this and think what happens in, well, spring, early summer of 76. They've all long been fighting for the rights of Englishmen or the rights of Britons. The problem is they can no longer enjoy them so long as they are English or British. And what I do in the blackboard, I write, writes of Englishmen, I cross out the word English and they become the rights of men. Right. And so you're moving the move against monarchy, and not just against George iii, is very much in line with that move once. In order to enjoy the rights of Englishmen, you have to stop being English. You also have to move against not just the king, but against monarchy itself, or at least that's what they do. And Paine was invaluable that he hit the right people at the right time, the right way to make that argument against monarchy.

[Scott Bertram]

So many conversations happening in this walk up to July of 1776. And we transition to another conversation between a husband and wife in March of 1776. This letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams where she says this phrase, remember the ladies set up this moment for us. Dr. Samuelson, where are Abigail Adams and John Adams when this famous letter exchange happens?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

John's in Congress. He's the leading advocate of independence. He's probably the first man in Congress on I don't know how many committees and in charge of most of them, but incredibly busy. And Abigail Capes, he doesn't write enough, but he shows who begins the letter. It's 3-31-76. Now, note this is about two weeks after Boston was evacuated. 3-17-76 is when the British were forced out of Boston by the movement of cannon from captured Fort Ticonderoga with engineering of Henry Knox, who had been just a bookseller who studied military engineering. They used ledges in the winter to get these cannon across the state.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Scott Bertram or another host)]

Right.

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

It's before I90. And they mounted them on Dorchester Heights. And the British had to bug out. And that was a big deal. So now things look a little different. They're trying to figure out where are they going next. But he's saying. And Abdul begins by saying, I wish you'd ever write a letter to me as half as long as I write you. And we don't know where the fleet's gone. But she begins with that. But then she says, I have sometimes been ready to think the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs. And she's talking about Virginia and slavery, so she's thinking more largely about the implications of liberty. And it's interesting, she turns from there. In this letter, though we facilitate ourselves for Boston being free. Well, I have longed to hear that you declared independency by which the new code of laws by which you will inevitably you need to create when that's ready to make. I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them. Your ancestors do not put such unlimited power into the hands of their husbands. Remember, all men will be tyrants if they could. So those two parts of the letter are very much connected. This notion that the tyranny of slavery and the tyranny of men over women in which there is a client. Remember, this is the world of coverture. Women do not have a separate identity from their fathers when their children, from their husbands when they're married. And of course, it's also the right of a Husband to be his wife. Abigail's pushing back against that and probably to a certain degree, for the notion that she can hold property herself now that she's running the farm. Say, why can't I legally manage the property as a reality? And so she's thinking about what to whom, how does equality apply? It applies to women, too. And she quotes. She says all men would be tyrants if they could. Quoting John Adams, her husband, back to himself. So the wives always do to us. Right. So she's very much thinking, how far do these rights go? Once you open up the question of liberty, it applies to new situations. And, you know, as you move from the rights of Englishmen to the rights of men, what would truly be a free country? What's it going to look like as you're thinking about founding a new country that's no longer simply British?

[Scott Bertram]

Now, John's response to this is playful and somewhat dismissive at the same time. How should we. Well, I guess tell. Tell our listeners how he responds, and then how should we read his tone?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

He says, he calls her tone saucy. Now, your saucy letter. He says, well, we knew as we were going along, new people would rise up and demand liberty, but now a new tribe has arisen, the most dangerous of them all. And he says, you know very well that you run everything. You're really in charge. You kind of give us the illusion of being in power. He plays the henpecked husband. Right. And there's some truth to that. Suppose in their marriage, but not entirely right. The law allowed it. And she. And she's being saucy. He knows that, but she's also being serious, and she's a little frustrated that he didn't take her point more seriously. But if you read John Adams writings for the rest of his life, every now and then he'll say, yeah, there's a serious question here about the rights of men and the rights of women. In what senses are men and women different? Therefore, law should be somewhat different. And in what senses are there they're equal and therefore the law should be same, Say, perhaps the right to vote? Adams thinks no. He thinks the family is a natural unit, but he understands one of his grandchildren just dismisses it and laughs it off, says, no, no, this is a serious question. We have to engage it. So on the fly in 76, he says, well, he kind of dismisses it, but long term, he knows, is a very serious question to raise as you move towards independence and towards equality. As we understood outlined in the Declaration, the question of the equality of men and women as human or equally human and adult. That's going to be raised and that's there. So note both slavery, equality of black white and the question of equality of men and women is all on the table in the spring of 1776. Those ideas are already logically identified as coming out of the ideas that are part of the movement towards independence as you move against monarchy and for the rights of men. This is man, to use a shorthand, in the Genesis 1 sense, God created. This is in English at least male and female. He created them. God created man versus in Genesis 2, there's a Da man and then Eve woman. So it's a sense that man is male and female. We're equal in some senses and different in some other ways. And John and Abigail, they definitely raised that. And of course, John is a leading figure in Congress and Abigail is pushing him to think about some of the more deeper implications of this move towards independence. And she's a pretty serious thinker herself. She is.

[Scott Bertram]

Is she expressing concerns and questions that many women of this time in 1776 are perhaps asking privately or sharing amongst themselves, or is this a woman that is clearly ahead of her time?

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

Well, a certain number of women are. She's friendly with Mercy, Otis Warren, the Warrens, the Adams are close friends until. Well, for. Until there's some conflicts about future politics, but not, not that many. It's hard to tell because we don't have the written records for women as much as do men. But women, remember, are very involved in the movement because to the degree that they were responsible for the boycott or as one showed in class, the girl cut of goods in the 1760s, they were the ones not buying British goods. When we stop from. In order to protest the Stamp act or the in terrible acts or the. The Townsend Acts. And so they were involved in the movement. They're seeing themselves get involved in politics. But one thing to keep in mind is throughout history, when men go to war, women assume duties on the home front. And some don't like the change when they get back. But in the American Revolutionary era, you have the idea of equality, which gives you an argument for why you should keep some of the changes that have been made as opposed to simply, well, we temporary war happened, yes, we'll have to step up, but we can go back to the way things used to be. And so that is one of the key elements of the story of the American Revolution. The question not of to what degree how does the principle of the equality of men equality of humans apply in your new codes of law. And remember, John Adams had written partly in response to Paine and others pamphlet thoughts on government coming out in April 76 how should we create a new government for a state? Calling your state not officially states yet. And he says we need checks and balances. We need separation of power. And he says we were living a time when the greatest logger was antiquity, which to have lived. So the least thinking about we're making a whole regime like Lycurgus and Solon of the ancient world. And so Abigail's pushing him. You know, think about this more deeply,

[Scott Bertram]

John Dr. Richard Samuelson talking with us as we walk up to America 250 common sense and remember the Ladies. He is associate professor of government at Hillsdale in D.C. and the next time we talk, we'll discuss the May 15 resolution and the Lee resolution as we inch closer to July 4th. Dr. Samuel's and thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.

[Dr. Richard Samuelson]

Thank you very much. It's been great to be here.

[Scott Bertram]

That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Heather MacDonald, author of When Race Trumps Merit, and Dr. Richard Samuelson from Hillsdale in D.C. remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews, like with Heather McDonald and or listen anytime to the podcast. Find it at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertrath, and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.