A Stitch in Haste

Where is the line between "economic theory" and "cultural stereotype"?

A professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas may be punished because he offended one of his students by saying in a lesson on economic planning that homosexuals tend to plan less for the future than other groups, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Hans Hoppe, described as a conservative libertarian economist with 20 years experience at UNLV, says that during the lesson he gave several examples of groups that tend not to plan for the future, among them the very young, the very old, childless couples and homosexuals. He said discussion of homosexuals took up about 90 seconds of a 75-minute lecture.

Within days of the lecture a student had lodged an informal complaint about its content. The university is now threatening Hoppe with a letter of reprimand and wants him to give up his next pay increase.

Hoppe is fighting back, with the help of the ACLU. It is not his job, he said, to consider how a student might feel about economic theories.

"Our task is to teach what we consider to be right," he said. The offended student, he said, should have been told to "grow up."

Also, from the LV R-J article:

Reasons for the phenomenon include the fact that homosexuals tend not to have children, he said. They also tend to live riskier lifestyles than heterosexuals, Hoppe said.

Oh really?

The first thing that pops into my mind is "give up his next pay increase"? What's that about? The second thing that pops into my mind is "with 'libertarians' like this, who needs James Dobson?"

But seriously, I have no problem with pointing out the demographic, sociological and economic trends, whether flattering or embarrassing, of gays as a group -- assuming that any such data actually exist. I challenge Hoppe or any other academic to point to any reliable study on the subject of gay life-cycle economics. We don't even have reliable Census data on gays (and don't get me started on polling data) -- we're now going to start making sweeping pronouncements about comparative risk-aversion and financial planning in gay versus straight households?

"Academic freedom" does not include the freedom to lie or to "make stuff up." If you want to be politically (sociologically?) incorrect in the spirit of Charles Murray, then be my guest and more power to you. But you better damn well have some numbers to back it up. Otherwise you're just another bigot.

Hat tip to Tongue Tied. More thoughts at Beaverhausen and Positive Liberty.

UPDATE: Tom G. Palmer has an update and there's a link in the comments of his post to the disciplinary letter Hoppe received from the UNLV administration. I don't think Hoppe should be fired or even formally reprimanded -- just publicly humiliated.

Related Posts:
"Gays are So Rich... (How Rich are They? ...)"
A Million Gays for Bush?