Archived Columns From 2017

by Walter Williams

2017 January

Liberal Struggle Against RealityJanuary 04, 2017

We will never understand liberals and progressives until we recognize that they often see reality as a social construct subject to being challenged and chang...

The Black Community and CrimeJanuary 11, 2017

The FBI reported that the total number of homicides in 2015 was 15,696. Blacks were about 52 percent of homicide victims. That means about 8,100 black lives ...

International Trade ThuggeryJanuary 18, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump’s threats against American companies looking to relocate in foreign countries have won favorable review from many quarters. Supp...

Universities Cave to SnowflakesJanuary 25, 2017

One wonders just how far spineless college administrators will go when it comes to caving in to the demands of campus snowflakes. For those unfamiliar with t...

2017 February

Lower Conduct Standards for LiberalsFebruary 01, 2017

One can only imagine the widespread media, political and intellectual condemnation of Republicans and conservatives if, after the inauguration of Barack Obam...

Minimum Wage and DiscriminationFebruary 08, 2017

There is little question in most academic research that increases in the minimum wage lead to increases in unemployment. The debatable issue is the magnitude...

Pawns of LiberalsFebruary 15, 2017

Ordinary black people cannot afford to go along with the liberal agenda that calls for undermining police authority. That agenda makes for more black crime v...

There's Nothing FreeFebruary 22, 2017

It was Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman who made famous the adage, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Professor Friedman could have added that ...

2017 March

Undermining Academic AchievementMarch 01, 2017

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, “The president’s decision to ask Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education should offend ...

College Campus DisgraceMarch 08, 2017

While college administrators and professors accept disgraceful behavior, we as taxpayers, donors and parents should not foot the bill. Let’s look at some of ...

Liberty Is Not for WimpsMarch 15, 2017

Most Americans, whether liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, do not show much understanding or respect for the principles of personal liberty. ...

Transgender ChallengesMarch 22, 2017

Determining one’s own sex or that of another used to be a simple matter. First, there was the matter of appearance, whether a person looked like a male or lo...

Educational SabotageMarch 29, 2017

Nationally, black junior high and high school students are suspended at a rate more than three times as often as their white peers, twice as often as their L...

2017 April

Is Profiling OK?April 05, 2017

Profiling is needlessly a misunderstood concept. What’s called profiling is part of the optimal stock of human behavior and something we all do. Let’s begin ...

Metastasizing Academic CancerApril 12, 2017

The average American has little knowledge of the extent to which our institutions of higher learning have been infected with a spreading cancer. One aspect o...

Worse Than RacistsApril 19, 2017

As a group, black Americans have made the greatest gains — over some of the highest hurdles and in a very short span of time — of any racial group in mankind...

Environmentalists Are Dead WrongApril 26, 2017

Each year, Earth Day is accompanied by predictions of doom. Let’s take a look at past predictions to determine just how much confidence we can have in today’...

2017 May

Trade Ignorance and DemagogueryMay 03, 2017

When we discuss international trade and balance of payments, there are two types of accounts. There is the current account, which includes goods and services...

What Do Leftists Celebrate?May 10, 2017

May Day celebrations were held all across the fruited plain, with leftist radicals and unionists worshipping the ideals of communism. Communism is an ideolog...

Sheer Lunacy on CampusMay 17, 2017

Parents, taxpayers and donors have little idea of the levels of lunacy, evil and lawlessness that have become features of many of today’s institutions of hig...

How to Live in PeaceMay 24, 2017

Millions of people love Apple computers and wouldn’t be caught using a PC. By contrast, there are many millions of PC users who feel the same way about Apple...

Overpopulation HoaxMay 31, 2017

In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” He predicted that mankind’s birthrate would outstrip our ability to grow food and wo...

2017 June

Democrats' Hoodwinking of BlacksJune 07, 2017

Ask any black person which political party has been black people’s political ally. With near unanimity, blacks would answer the Democratic Party. Asked which...

Rewriting American HistoryJune 14, 2017

George Orwell said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” In the former USSR, censor...

A New Twist on Teaching EconomicsJune 21, 2017

Greg Caskey is a 27-year-old Abington, Pennsylvania, native who is a social sciences teacher at Delaware Military Academy. The academy is a thriving charter ...

Were Confederate Generals Traitors?June 28, 2017

My “Rewriting American History” column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail. Some argued there sho...

2017 July

Colleges: Islands of IntoleranceJuly 05, 2017

Is there no limit to the level of disgusting behavior on college campuses that parents, taxpayers, donors and legislators will accept? Colleges have become i...

Minimum Wage CrueltyJuly 12, 2017

There are political movements to push the federal minimum hourly wage to $15. Raising the minimum wage has popular support among Americans. Their reasons inc...

SlaveryJuly 19, 2017

Too many people believe that slavery is a “peculiar institution.” That’s what Kenneth Stampp called slavery in his book, “Peculiar Institution: Slavery in th...

Western Values Are SuperiorJuly 26, 2017

Here’s part of President Donald Trump’s speech in Poland: “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the c...

2017 August

Conflicting VisionsAugust 02, 2017

For the most part, people share common goals. Most of us want poor people to enjoy higher standards of living, greater traffic safety, more world peace, grea...

Is College Education Worth It?August 09, 2017

August is the month when parents bid farewell to not only their college-bound youngsters but also a sizable chunk of cash for tuition. More than 18 million s...

Women and Men Are EqualAugust 16, 2017

Google fired software engineer James Damore for writing a 10-page memo critical of the company’s diversity policy. The memo violated the company’s code of co...

Charlottesville DonnybrookAugust 23, 2017

Charlottesville, Virginia, a city named after Britain’s first black queen, was the scene of a bloody riot Saturday, Aug. 12. The fray resulted in the death o...

Racial Lies and RacismAugust 30, 2017

Earlier this month, The New York Times ran an article titled “U.S. Rights Unit Shifts to Study Antiwhite Bias” on its front page. The article says that Presi...

2017 September

Liberals in a TizzySeptember 06, 2017

Many blacks and their white liberal allies demand the removal of statues of Confederate generals and the Confederate battle flag, and they are working up ste...

We're All to BlameSeptember 13, 2017

The largest threat to our prosperity is government spending that far exceeds the authority enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Feder...

The Welfare State's LegacySeptember 20, 2017

That the problems of today’s black Americans are a result of a legacy of slavery, racial discrimination and poverty has achieved an axiomatic status, thought...

Not a Day CareSeptember 27, 2017

Our college-age population consists mostly of 18- to 30-year-olds, and likewise our armed forces. I wonder whether they shared common responses to the 2016 p...

2017 October

Blacks vs. PoliceOctober 04, 2017

Let’s throw out a few numbers so we can put in perspective the NFL players taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem. Many say they are protest...

Our Broken Moral CompassesOctober 11, 2017

As George Orwell said, “some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” Many stupid ideas originate with academics on college campuses. If th...

Who Pays What in Taxes?October 18, 2017

Politicians exploit public ignorance. Few areas of public ignorance provide as many opportunities for political demagoguery as taxation. Today some politicia...

Undermining AmericaOctober 25, 2017

Our nation’s leftist progressives have long sought to undermine the American values expressed in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Though typ...

2017 November

Let's Help Our Media FriendsNovember 01, 2017

I am not nearly so coldhearted and unsympathetic toward the mainstream media as some of my conservative friends, such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hann...

Ignorance Versus StupidityNovember 08, 2017

One of the most challenging and important jobs for an economics professor is to teach students how little we know and can possibly know. My longtime friend a...

Stalking HorsesNovember 15, 2017

When hunting was the major source of food, hunters often used stalking horses as a means of sneaking up on their prey. They would synchronize their steps on ...

Diversity ObsessionNovember 22, 2017

A common feature of our time is the extent to which many in our nation have become preoccupied with diversity. But true diversity obsession, almost a mania, ...

Black Self-SabotageNovember 29, 2017

The educational achievement of white youngsters is nothing to write home about, but that achieved by blacks is nothing less than disgraceful. Let’s look at a...

2017 December

Independence HypocrisyDecember 06, 2017

Officials in Catalonia, Spain’s richest and most highly industrialized region, whose capital is Barcelona, recently held a referendum in which there was a 92...

Moral Values and Customs vs. LawsDecember 13, 2017

I’m approaching my 82nd birthday, and my daughter will occasionally suggest that modernity is perplexing to me because I’m from prehistoric times. As such, i...

Fascism and CommunismDecember 20, 2017

Before the question, how about a few statistics? The 20th century was mankind’s most brutal century. Roughly 16 million people lost their lives during World ...

Educational RotDecember 27, 2017

My recent columns have focused on the extremely poor educational outcomes for black students. There’s enough blame for all involved to have their fair share....