Itzkoff withdraws from community forum

December 6, 1994

Itzkoff withdraws from community forum

The Smith College Community Forum on Genes, Intelligence, and Public Policy went on without Professor Seymour Itzkoff after he sent a letter to the event’s sponsor, the Committee on Community Policy (CCP), stating his withdrawal from the forum. In his letter, Itzkoff said he was withdrawing because of his concerns over the format of the event; he expressed a desire for the event be limited to Smith community members, demanded that protesters, including silent ones, be kept out of the auditorium, and claimed that the fifteen minutes he was allotted was not enough to express his views. Speakers at the 6 p.m. Wright Hall forum explored the issue of genetics and intelligence by drawing not only from Itzkoff’s book, The Decline of Intelligence: A Strategy for National Renewal, but also a similarly themed book called The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.

The full Sophian article on Itzkoff’s withdrawal and the forum can be found here.

[Last updated on October 31, 2018]