CSC speaker is probing racial struggles

Although not yet 30 years old, Roland Fryer is an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, where he has attracted widespread attention while searching for answers on why African-Americans lag behind in educational and economic circles.

He was only 25 when he was invited to join the Society of Fellows at Harvard, one of academia’s most prestigious research positions.

Harvard humanities scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is quoted in the New York Times Magazine as saying that Fryer is “destined to be a star. I mean, he’s a star already, just a baby star. I think he’ll raise the analysis of the African-American experience to new levels of rigor and bring economics into the mainstream area of inquiry.”

Fryer grew up in Daytona Beach, Fla., where several of his relatives were sent to prison for selling crack and one was murdered. He forged his birth certificate when he was 13 to get a job at McDonald’s and owned a 1984 Monte Carlo before he was old enough to legally drive it.

At 18, Fryer went to the University of Texas at Arlington on an athletic scholarship. For the first time, he began studying and earned a degree in 2 ½ years. He then entered graduate school at Penn State and later attended the University of Chicago. The dissertation for his doctorate was “Mathematical Models of Discrimination and Inequity.”

Since then he has published papers on topics such as the racial achievement gap, the causes and consequences of distinctively black names, affirmative action, mixed-race children, the impact of the crack cocaine epidemic and “acting white.”

Fryer has been listed as one of Fortune Magazine’s “rising stars” and was featured in Esquire’s “Genius Issue.”

A profile from the agency that arranges his speaking engagements says Fryer believes today’s technologies combined with a newfound willingness for open dialogue and cross disciplinary action are making it possible to learn from and analyze black history like never before, bringing unprecedented progress.

Fryer’s appearance at Chadron State is part of the college’s Distinguished Speaker Series. A portion of his talk is expected to focus on why poverty is a detriment to educational success.

The New York Times Magazine article says that when Fryer presents a paper he “is earnest and genial and excitable, sometimes carrying on like a Southern preacher.”