Other students questioned the book's research methods.

"As he has done in many previous works, [Murray] has totally ignored the impact of socio-economic circumstances and goes further to fabricate some other preposterous explanations," said former BSA President Alvin Bragg '95. "It's not scholarship as far as I'm concerned."

Pidot also said he questions the book's use of statistical evidence to support its findings.

"It takes a leap of faith to go from what are widely accepted views that there are significant differences between the races on IQ scores [to believing] this is an accurate or even a relevant measure of intelligence," Pidot said.

Bragg also questioned the political motivation for the book.

"Basically, his intent is really clear to me," he said. "He looks for ways to further the government's retreat from intervention."

Ho agreed.

"I think basically that the authors of the book decided that they wanted to make a political statement justifying the status of Blacks in society," he said.

But several leaders who disagreed with the book's findings said that its publication may have positive aspects.

"When something like this comes out I think it's positive because it shows people that biases still exist," Gutierrez said. "Prejudices still exist and people still have the conception that there are inferior traits in certain people."

The Other Side

Other students said the book should not be rejected without serious consideration.

Pidot said it could have both negative and positive ramifications.

"If [Hernstein and Murray] are trying to say that one race is genetically, intellectually superior and therefore there's going to naturally develop some sort of intellectual elite that's highly correlated with race, then no, that's not productive," he said.

"On the other hand, if the book is trying to locate where the parallels in performance, achievements, lie, than that is productive," he added.