The Scientific Defense of Segregation, 1954-1967

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SES 99-07034 - John P. Jackson (Individual Award) "The Scientific Defense of Segregation, 1954-1967"This Postdoctoral Fellowship supports research on a group of scientists who, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, argued that segregation was justified because science had proven that African Americans were biologically inferior to white Americans. These scientists testified as expert witnesses in Federal Court trials that attempted to overturn Brown v. Board of Education. Segregationist scientists argued that the scientific consensus on the equality of the races was a vast conspiracy to silence what they claimed was the objective truth about racial differences. The research joins several ongoing debates in the history of science literature on the nature of "biological determinism." The research will be carried out in an extensive array of published and archival sources.This fellowship also includes a training component wherein the grantee is working with social psychologists, behavioral geneticists and other scholars of the scientific study of ethnicity and race. This training will enhance the grantee's understanding of the methodological and technical issues involved in the scientific study of ethnicity and race.The fellowship is being held at the University of Colorado's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race in the Americas in Boulder, Colorado.