Walter Williams

Today, there are increasing numbers of black professionals and scholars advocating reparations for slavery. New York Times staff writer Tamar Lewin, in her June 3 article "Calls for Slavery Reparations Getting Louder," says that a team of black lawyers have announced...

What should be the characteristics of laws in a free society? Let's think about baseball rules (laws) as a means to approach this question. Some players, through no fault of their own, hit fewer home runs than others. In order to create baseball justice, how about a...

THERE'S A STORY about a visitor to an Indian reservation who sees a Bureau of Indian Affairs officer uncontrollably crying. He asks, "Why are you crying?" The officer sobs, "My Indian died." The officer didn't give a hoot about the Indian, he was worried about his...

One needn't be a rocket scientist to create California's energy problems. According to the California Energy Commission, from 1996 to 1999 electricity demand, stimulated by a booming economy, grew by 12 percent while supply grew by less than 2 percent. Here's how...

Arthur M. Schlesinger wrote in "The Disuniting of America": "History is to the nation ... as memory is to the individual. An individual deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where he has been or where he is going, so a nation denied a conception...

During the '40s, when I attended primary and secondary school, one didn't hear of school shootings. Why? Did we have better laws banning guns in and around schools? Or hadn't guns been invented? Many of today's youngsters begin the school day passing through metal...

David Bell, Harvard law professor, counseled, "Black people will never gain full equality in this country." The late columnist Carl Rowan said, "Racism remains a terrible curse on this society, and ... nothing in sight suggests that that curse will end soon." New York...

It's generally agreed that American primary, secondary and, increasingly, undergraduate education is a failure. But that assessment depends upon just what evaluation criteria is chosen. By some criteria, American education might be deemed a remarkable success. Let's...

Last week, I reported that 73 percent of California State University's black college freshmen required remedial math and 66 percent required remedial English. In last week's speech to the American Council on Education, Richard C. Atkinson, president of the University...

Johnny Cochran and a group of successful trial lawyers plan to bring class-action suits against the federal government and some private companies they say profited from slavery. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has already introduced HR 40, titled "Commission to Study...

Racial charges by many black politicians, civil-rights spokesmen, self-appointed black leaders and guilt-ridden whites are just plain nonsense. They get away with them because we're ill-informed or are too timid to question their assumptions and assertions. Let's...

George Bush's secretary of labor nominee, Linda Chavez, withdrew her nomination under charges of hiring a worker and not paying minimum wages plus applicable taxes. This was just character assassination by those who didn't want to see her confirmed because of her...

Worrying about bacteria, New Jersey banned restaurants from serving eggs sunny side up. The ban has since been lifted. Some New Jersey localities have a ban on people pumping their own gasoline. Policemen issue citations for driving without a seatbelt. By law, new...

If the November elections had put Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, I would have expected John Conyers, D-Mich., to introduce legislation that would set up a committee to decide who would qualify for reparations for slavery, whether they should be...