Science for Segregation: Race, Law, and the Case against Brown v. Board of Education

8. Back to the Underground?

Back to the Underground? The views of the segregationist scientists fell into increasing disrepute after 1964. George, slightly older than the others and with fading eyesight, would contribute little to the cause after 1964. Garrett would continue writing and publishing (with Draper’s money), warning the public on the dangers of desegregation until his death in 1972. For, the New York branch of the IAAEE—Gregor, Swan, and Kuttner—their career paths would take markedly different turns. Putnam would continue his attacks on the scientific establishment, though his public presence would never be as great as it was before 1964. His fervor and his certainty that his own position was the only acceptable one began to hurt his cause, though he did not seem to notice it. Buckley and Putnam In the years after World War II, conservatives of many stripes criticized what they perceived as the leftist drift of university education.1 William F. Buckley Jr. sounded the opening salvo with his first, 1951 book, God and Man at Yale, where he charged Yale with indoctrinating “collectivism” rather than “individualism.” This, Buckley charged, was part of Karl Marx’s subtle plan “to destroy the bourgeoisie . . . through extended social services, taxation, and regulation, to a point where a smooth transition could be effected from an individualist to a collectivist society.”2 Other conservatives soon followed Buckley’s lead and charged the universities with inculcating communism among unsuspecting college students .3 In this atmosphere, the notion that anthropological science had been co-opted by a leftist political agenda bent on weakening the nation would certainly have been appealing to the respectable Right represented 8 179 by National Review. Indeed, two IAAEE stalwarts, Ernest van den Haag and Nathaniel Weyl, were both closely associated with Buckley’s magazine . When mainstream conservatives such as Buckley’s colleague E. Merrill Root proclaimed that “a small minority of communists have been able to ‘condition’ the large majority of non-Communists” into collectivist thinking, such a stand could have given credibility to charges that a small clique of leftist, Boasian coconspirators had inculcated false doctrines of racial equality.4 Any hope of an alliance between Buckley and the IAAEE, however, was dashed as soon as Putnam came in contact with Buckley in 1965. Putnam sent Buckley a copy of one of his publications with a note that Buckley should stop concentrating on the dangers of communism because “all the talk in the world about Communism will do no good until you unmask the fraud that makes our people sympathetic to Communist ideals.” After receiving a polite response from Buckley that made it clear he was unconvinced by Putnam’s materials, Putnam became more forthright . He pointed out that if conservatives like Buckley had publicized the Stell case, “it could have blown the roof off public opinion as to the whole rotten foundation under Brown v. Board of Education.”5 Buckley refused to rise to Putnam’s bait. He explained that any objections he had to integration were not based on race but on coercion: he rejected coerced segregation as well as coerced integration, echoing the position that van den Haag had taken in his published writings, which considered all integration to be “coerced” or “forced.” Buckley argued that Christianity recognized all people were equal before the Lord. If modern science had different findings, it was irrelevant to the issue. “My observation ,” concluded Buckley, “which appears to go beyond your grasp, is that religion goes beyond the grasp of the little scientists who are always asseverating their latest little discoveries and constructing theologies around them.” Buckley told Putnam that “I would send my son only to the best school I could afford to send him to. If it had Negroes in it, I would not the least mind.”6 The question that faced the mainstream anthropological establishment at the opening of the preceding chapter now faced the Mankind Quarterly crowd: What to do about Carleton Putnam? Many were recognizing that he was the proverbial bull in the china shop. The situation was discussed openly by a friend of both Putnam and Buckley, Nathaniel Weyl, who was a reliable writer for both Mankind Quarterly and National Review. 180 | Back to the Underground? In comparison to many writers for Mankind Quarterly, Weyl was fairly moderate, even daring to admit in private that he could see some circumstances under which miscegenation might be permissible. That being said...