Radiolab - G: Problem Space

In the first episode of G, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, we went back to the 1970s to meet a group of Black parents who put the IQ test on trial. The lawsuit, Larry P v Riles, ended with a ban on IQ tests for all Black students in the state of California, a ban that’s still in place today. This week, we meet the families in California dealing with that ban forty years later. Families the ban was designed to protect, but who now say it discriminates against their children. How much have IQ tests changed since the 70s? And can they be used for good? We talk to the people responsible for designing the most widely used modern IQ test, and along the way, we find out that at the very same moment the IQ test was being put on trial in California, on the other side of the country, it was being used to solve one of the biggest public health problems of the 20th century. This episode was reported and produced by Pat Walters, Rachael Cusick and Jad Abumrad, with production help from Bethel Habte. Music by Alex Overington. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly. Special thanks to Lee Romney, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Moira Gunn and Tech Nation, and Lee Rosevere for his song All the Answers. Radiolab’s “G” is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Duration: 42m
Broadcast on: 14 Jun 2019
Audio Format: other

This week, we meet the families in California dealing with that ban forty years later. Families the ban was designed to protect, but who now say it discriminates against their children. How much have IQ tests changed since the 70s? And can they be used for good? We talk to the people responsible for designing the most widely used modern IQ test, and along the way, we find out that at the very same moment the IQ test was being put on trial in California, on the other side of the country, it was being used to solve one of the biggest public health problems of the 20th century.

This episode was reported and produced by Pat Walters, Rachael Cusick and Jad Abumrad, with production help from Bethel Habte.

Music by Alex Overington. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly.

Special thanks to Lee Romney, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Moira Gunn and Tech Nation, and Lee Rosevere for his song All the Answers.

Radiolab’s “G” is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.

Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.

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Oh wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC. Hey this is G, I'm Radio Lab miniseries, episode 2, I'm Pat Walters, and in episode one we told the story of a guy who was given an IQ test when he was a boy and it changed the course of his life, not for the better. His name was Darryl, but he came to be known as Larry P. He took on that pseudonym when he became the center of a court case that basically put the IQ test itself on trial. For months lawyers presented evidence that the tests Darryl took were racially biased and in 1979 a federal judge banned the IQ test for use on African-American children for making decisions about special education in the state of California. The test could still be given to white kids, Hispanic kids, Asian kids, just not to black kids. Imagine this has caused some issues, test, test, test, chapter 2 begins about 25 years later. Okay, we're in Hayward, California, a little town just south of Oakland, not too far from where Darryl lived, and it starts with a couple. Alright, well my name is Pamela Lewis, and my name is Ricky Lewis. I am Nicholas Lewis' mother. I'm the dad of Nicholas, the son that we fought for to have equal rights, that's it. It's 2004, Pam and Ricky have five kids, one's in middle school, one's in high school, and their youngest, Nicholas, is in kindergarten. And how did you learn about this thing? It was just by pure accident, I picked up a stupid paper that my husband brought home from work one day because he worked for the day of the review. Back then, Ricky had a job delivering papers to local businesses. Yes, if they had extras, I would take one, mainly for the sports, so you got all your warriors gear on. Yes, I do go warriors. Anyhow, one day Ricky comes in with some extra papers, Pam grabs a piece of it, and she sees this article. And it was just a little tiny thing about a court case. Not the Larry P. Case, a different court case, but it mentions the Larry P. Case, and it said black kids in California cannot be given IQ tests. And I seen it, and when I was reading it, I was like, "This can't be true. In this day and age?" She says she immediately thought of Nicholas. He didn't look Caucasian. None of my kids look Caucasian. You can tell they're biracial. And she thought, "Is this going to affect him? Are people going to be making decisions about what tests he can and can't have because of the color of his skin?" It sparked me to call the school and find out, "Is this true?" And he told us it was a 1968 court ruling, and it was true. Now, just for the record, the case was decided in '79, not '68, but whatever. At that point, were you thinking, "Well, I was dumbfounded. This ruling has lasted all these years." Did he explain that the ruling banned tests that were found to be biased against African-American students? I did not care, Pat. I did not care.

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