The Leeds University academic at the center of a racism row has defended his view that black people have a lower average IQ than white people

BBC News:

Dr Frank Ellis, a Russian tutor, says data stretching back 100 years points to a "persistent deviation" in the average IQ of black and white people.

More than 500 students have signed a petition calling for him to be sacked.

Leeds University said his views were "abhorrent" but there was no evidence he had discriminated against students.

Dr Ellis has expressed support for the Bell Curve theory, examined in a book by Richard Hernnstein and Charles Murray, which concludes that ethnicity can play a part in IQ levels.

"I have read an enormous amount of literature on this subject and I find it extremely convincing," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

He praised the work of scholars such as Hans Eysenck and Arthur Jensen who have come to similar conclusions.

Their opponents were worried about the implications for equal opportunities, he said.

He said these ideas do not preclude the existence of some black people of exceptional intelligence.

"But we have to accept, I believe, that there are these differences," he continued.

"The way to deal with this is not to treat people as groups, but to treat them as individuals."

Dr Ellis said the assumption that IQ tests are the most valid way of testing intelligence was the "dirty little secret" of psychology, because society as a whole did not accept this.

He said he became interested in the issue of censoring sensitive debates through his studies of the media under Soviet and post-Soviet regimes.

He added that labelling him a racist was "an attempt to close down any discussion" and an attack on his freedom of speech.

"These days a racist is anything you don't like - it's a hate word. I have no strong feelings towards black people either way."

He said he had never treated any black student in a different way to any white student, and he had "done absolutely nothing wrong".

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