Harvard professor says ‘all hell broke loose’ when his study found no racial bias in police shootings
Roland Fryer said he lived under police protection during the fallout of his study
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A Harvard professor said that "all hell broke loose" and he was forced to go out in public with armed security after he published a study that found no evidence of racial bias in police shootings.
During a sit-down conversation with Bari Weiss of The Free Press, Harvard Economics Professor Roland Fryer discussed the fallout from a 2016 study he published on racial bias in Houston policing.
The study found that police were more than twice as likely to manhandle, beat or use some other kind of nonfatal force against blacks and Hispanics than against people of other races. However, the data also determined that officers were 23.8 percent less likely to shoot at blacks and 8.5 percent less likely to shoot at Hispanics than they were to shoot at whites.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}When Fryer claimed the data showed "no racial differences in officer-involved shootings," he said, "all hell broke loose," and his life was upended.
Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Roland Fryer speaks during the annual Clinton Global Initiative in New York, New York. ((Photo by Ramin Talaie/Corbis via Getty Images))
Fryer received the first of many complaints and threats four minutes after publication.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"You're full of s—t," the sender said.
Fryer said people quickly "lost their minds" and some of his colleagues refused to believe the results after months of asking him not to print the data.
"I had colleagues take me to the side and say, 'Don't publish this. You'll ruin your career,'" Fryer revealed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The world-renowned economist knew from comments by faculty that he was likely to garner backlash. Fryer admitted that he anticipated the results of the study would be different and would confirm suspicions of racial bias against minorities. When the results found no racial bias, Fryer hired eight new assistants and redid the study. The data came back the same.
After the report was published, Fryer lived under police protection for over a month. He had a seven-day-old daughter at the time and went shopping for diapers.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former Harvard President Claudine Gay, who made headlines for refusing to say if genocide of Jews was against Harvard policy during a congressional hearing, was also accused of multiple accounts of plagiarism. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
"I was going to the grocery store to get diapers with the armed guard. It was crazy. It was really, truly crazy," he said.
Fryer, who became the youngest tenured Black professor at Harvard at age 30, was suspended for two years from the university in 2019 after he allegedly engaged in "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. He continues to deny the allegations.
At the time, then-Harvard dean Claudine Gay claimed Fryer's research and conduct with other employees "exhibited a pattern of behavior" that failed to meet expectations within the community.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The totality of these behaviors is a clear violation of institutional norms and a betrayal of the trust," she said.
Gay resigned from her position as Harvard president in early January after widespread plagiarism allegations and criticism of her testimony to Congress, where she failed to fully clarify whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard's policies against bullying and harassment.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Weiss, referencing Gay in her conversation with Fryer, asked him if he believes in karma.
"I hear it's a motherf---er," he replied.
Harvard did not return Fox News Digital's request for comment,