Walter Williams

Here's what the Harvard University Civil Rights Project's "scholars" said in a July 2001 press release: "Almost half a century after the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that Southern school segregation was unconstitutional and 'inherently unequal,' new statistics from...

Do Americans really cherish freedom of association? Are there any justifiable restrictions on freedom of association? In my book, any restriction on one's right to associate freely with anyone he pleases, on mutually agreeable terms, is both offensive and a gross...

"America: A Sissified Nation" was the title of a past column that brought in hundreds of favorable responses, mostly from American men and women who were not sissies. In that column, I argued that we Americans have become sissified and are meekly giving up essential...

Benjamin Franklin warned, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." But that's what the Bush administration and Congress have asked of Americans -- to give up essential liberty for safety that's...

Every day, we hear something about markets. Your 6 o'clock news anchor might say, "The market had a bad day." Last year, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan talked about the market's irrational exuberance. I guess now he'd say the market has irrational...

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Cleveland school voucher case, Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris, that taxpayer funds that go to parents who might use the money to enroll their children in religious schools was constitutional. One need not be a rocket scientist to...

We have no less than unadulterated idiots in charge of airport security. You say, "What is it this time, Williams?" Last month, while boarding a Midwest Express flight to Milwaukee, former Vice President Al Gore was pulled aside at the boarding gate. He was frisked...

Profits are misunderstood, seen as unearned and sometimes condemned as evil. Maybe that's why people often reverently pronounce, with an air of moral superiority, "We're a nonprofit organization." Before people mount their moral high horse, they should remember that...

President Bush said he was "deeply concerned" about some of the accounting practices in corporate America and called "outrageous" the disclosure that WorldCom, which is $32 billion in debt, had hidden $3.8 billion in expenses. The president added, "We will fully...

If someone does something wonderful, but didn't intend to, does it count? Should we see ourselves as blessed? You say, "Williams, what are you talking about?" Try this. In 1846, there were 735 U.S. whaling ships, 80 percent of the world's whaling fleet. American...

Institutions -- established law, custom and practices -- matter and should not be ignored. How is it that Western Europe and the United States managed to amass unprecedented wealth while countries of the former Soviet Union, China, Africa, South America and the Middle...

What's so good about democracy -- generally understood as having trust in the general will of a democratic people, as expressed by a vote of the majority, to make all important decisions? If a majority of our 535 congressmen votes for one measure or another, is that...

There are six-person and there are three-person families. So is it fair that a six-person family live crowded in a 1,500 square foot house, while that three-person family enjoys 5,000 square feet? It's the same thing with cars. I've seen five-person families squeezed...

How often do we hear politicians, labor bosses, business leaders and other Americans expressing concern about the nation's children and their children? I generally dismiss such concern as disgusting hypocrisy because their actions don't begin to match their words. If...

The Enron case made headlines because fraud and deception of such magnitude is fairly unusual in the corporate world. Washington fraud and deception of a much greater magnitude doesn't make the headlines because fraud and deception in government is standard practice....

Europe has been at peace for an unprecedented nearly six decades. Why? It surely is not because of peace treaties between enemy states, and it's surely not because of disarmament. All that was tried before and failed. The best explanation for Europe's unprecedented...

A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed Loyola University (Maryland) professor of economics Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln," a book that presented abundant evidence that most of the Founders took the right of state secession for granted. Despite that evidence, some...