Sep 20, 2024 · 39m · american-optimist
Harvard Economist: The Truth About Police Brutality · Joe Lonsdale
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In this episode of American Optimist, host Joe Lonsdale interviews Harvard economist Roland Fryer about his empirical research on education reform, police use of force, and economic mobility. Fryer shares his personal journey from childhood hardship to becoming Harvard's youngest tenured Black professor, while highlighting how data science and his startup, Sigma Squared, can eliminate bias and foster true meritocracy.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Joe holds 20.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Joe as informed peer 3.0 Guest teaching 4.2 Guest disagreement 1.3 Joe pushing back 0.4
speaking balance: gold is Joe, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 21:20 Fryer's thermometer analogy on test invalidation
Fryer strongly critiques the reflex of throwing out predictive tests because of disparate outcomes, comparing it to discarding a thermometer when cold.
Hardest push from Joe ▶ 18:58 Host challenges disparate impact standards in government testingThe host argues forcefully that disparate impact jurisprudence has degraded competence in government hiring by eliminating standardized merit exams.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:25 Fryer breaks down pre-market skills vs labor market discriminationFryer educates the host on the landmark Neal and Johnson findings, explaining that pre-market K-12 skill differences account for four-fifths of the racial wage gap.
Joe holds their own ▶ 19:00 Host details the history of civil service testing and the PACE examThe host demonstrates specific historical knowledge about federal civil service examinations dating back to 1883 and the 1970s legal challenges under disparate impact.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Joe as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Joe pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video Trailer: Police Brutality, Data, and Meritocracy | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Introductory teaser and biographical overview. The host introduces Fryer warmly and asks about his upbringing, with Fryer reflecting on his childhood determination. | |
| From Odd Jobs to Youngest Tenured Black Harvard Professor | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Fryer gently corrects the host about his college jobs and details his rapid progression through economics at UT Arlington and Penn State. The interaction is cordial and conversational. | |
| Financial Incentives in Education: Paying Kids for Inputs | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Fryer details his experiments paying students for educational inputs versus outputs, noting unexpected findings about student savings behavior. The host offers personal anecdotes reinforcing the premise. | |
| Closing the Achievement Gap in Houston Public Schools | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Fryer explains applying five key charter school practices to traditional Houston public schools to close achievement gaps. The host serves purely as an enthusiastic listener. | |
| Analyzing Racial Disparities in Police Use of Force | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 | Fryer outlines his high-profile study on police use of force, contrasting findings on non-lethal versus lethal force and discussing academic backlash. The host expresses strong sympathy and agreement. | |
| Pre-Market Skill Differences and the Racial Wage Gap | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Fryer breaks down the 1995 Neal and Johnson study showing that pre-market skills account for most wage disparities, framing the developmental margin versus employment margin. | |
| Re-evaluating Merit-Based Testing and Disparate Impact | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | The host demonstrates domain knowledge regarding civil service merit exams and disparate impact law. Fryer educates on evaluating predictive validity rather than discarding tests automatically. | |
| Predictive Analytics for Hiring and Corporate Talent | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Fryer explains how Sigma Squared applies ML to HR data to identify predictive traits for job performance. The discussion is collaborative and focused on talent analytics. | |
| Promotion Dynamics and Persistent Median Income Disparities | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Fryer highlights census data showing persistent median wage gaps despite high-end convergence, and critiques standard corporate HR analytics dashboards. | |
| Data Science Mechanics and Custom Predictive Screener Testing | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Fryer discusses practical implementation of predictive screening in high-turnover industries like food and beverage, closing with an optimistic view of algorithmic talent discovery. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Fryer: Economics neglected equal opportunity in favor of silly topics
“What I noticed was these tools were beautiful, but used for silly things. And the things that were most important for American optimism like how do people get jobs that are equated with their skill level? How do you actually make true equal opportunity in Amer…”
Fryer: Paying students for inputs like homework was wildly successful
“When we paid kids to, so we did two types of experiments. One, we paid them for inputs, right? So we paid them to do specific behaviors or accomplish very specific things that we wanted them to do. Do your homework. Come to school. Don't beat people up. Stuff …”
Fryer: Paying students for academic outputs produced zero results
“On the other hand, when we designed experiments exactly as economic theory thought we should, which is you pay for the actual output, not the input, we got nothing.”
Fryer: Five practices explain 50% of charter school performance variance
“We went around to
charter schools, some successful and some not, and we used their flexibility and their natural variation in their policies and how they, what they do with kids and their pedagogy, et cetera, to extract from that five things that explain 50% …”
Fryer: Houston charter-practice experiment closed the racial math achievement gap
“We took those five things and we put them in a randomized experiment in Houston in the worst 20 schools there.
And what we showed was that
In three years in the secondary schools, you could close, ah, the racial achievement gap in math, and in five to seven ye…”
Fryer: Police Study Found Racial Bias in Non-Lethal Force, None in Shootings
“And what we found was that on the lower level uses of force, there are racial differences that we couldn't explain. And we put them through formal bias test, and there is bias that goes on in the lower level uses of force. What we didn't find was any, that tha…”
Fryer: Pre-market skills account for most Black-white wage disparity
“And what they found out was that that 33% went down to seven percent.”
Fryer: K-12 education matters more than workplace regulation for racial equality
“Well, their results would say, look, if 80% of the effect is happening before people ever hit the market, that means we need to spend more time in K through 12 education.”
Fryer: Disparities in test scores should not cause standardized tests to be thrown out
“It's not whether or not there's a disparity in the test scores that, that should cause you to throw out the test.”
Fryer: Pure meritocracy yields both higher productivity and diversity by eliminating bias
“If companies have bias, then
Meritocracy is completely consistent with a DEI strategy.
Because what you, because if you're getting to your talent frontier and you have bias, you're removing that bias and you're saying, look, I'm just going to hire the best p…”
Fryer: Black-White Median Wage Gap Is Unchanged Since 1950
“If you have the 90th percentile, there's been a lot of convergence between blacks and whites in the last 30 or 40 years, right? But if you're at the median, there's been no, the black white wage gap at the median is the same today as it was in 1950.”