NYU politics professor Lawrence Mead has come under fire for racist comments he made during a panel hosted last month by an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. During the event, Mead attributed high rates of poverty in the United States to cultural differences. The professor has a history of causing controversy due to his work in the past, drawing criticism from his colleagues and administrators. 

At the panel, titled “The Cultural Impact of Immigration,” Mead said that in “non-Western” countries, life is focused on survival rather than achievement, claiming that some “non-Western” societies prefer to be told what to do instead of leading. He also spoke about the need to limit legal migration to the United States.

John Beckman, a spokesperson for NYU, said that although the university recognizes the right of its faculty to free speech, Mead’s remarks go against the university’s values. Mead continues to teach at the university.

“It is generally the practice of the university not to comment on the writings and remarks of faculty members,” Beckman wrote to WSN. “However, when the remarks are as odious, misguided, and troubling as the sweeping characterizations of cultures offered by Professor Mead at the Center for Immigration Studies, they must be called out as such and disavowed.”

The Center for Immigration Studies — the nonprofit that organized the panel Mead participated in — was co-founded by eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton, and has been called an anti-immigrant hate group.

In an interview with WSN, Mead spoke about the comments he made at the panel, and once again made multiple racially charged statements. He said that the cultural upbringing and environment of certain minority groups instills a “survival mindset,” and specifically, that low-income Black people have a “short-term” psychology.

“Blacks and Hispanics have enormous privileges that ordinary white people don’t have because there’s such a desperate desire to have them succeed or appear to succeed,” Mead said. “So they get given good jobs without having, really, to compete for them.”

Other NYU politics faculty have made controversial remarks about race in the recent past. David Denoon, a professor of politics and economics, said in a 2021 interview with Nikkei Asia that claims of widespread anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. were “misinformed or attempts to create ethnic friction.” Denoon’s remarks came after a number of violent incidents targeting Asian communities in previous months.

Mead has a history of making remarks that have typecast immigrants and other groups. In his 2019 book, “Burdens of Freedom: Cultural Difference and American Power,” Mead claims that the largest problems facing the United States are resultant of “non-Western” cultures. He also argues that immigrants and people from lower socioeconomic classes are less motivated than what he calls “the norm.”

In 2020, Mead claimed that racism and a lack of available jobs are not responsible for longterm poverty, and that minority groups struggle to get ahead because of their “non-Western cultures.” Society, the journal that published the article, retracted it after backlash from academics, and some called for Mead’s termination.

Mead claimed to be a “well-known figure in Washington,” adding that if Republicans take over the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections, he intends to exert his political influence over welfare-related issues.

Contact Logan Wong at [email protected].