Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. As with many others in his neighborhood, Thomas Sowell left home early and did not finish high school. The next few years were difficult ones, but eventually he joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War. After leaving the service, Thomas Sowell entered Harvard University, worked a part-time job as a photographer and studied the science that would become his passion and profession: economics. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), Thomas Sowell went on to receive his master's in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968). In the early '60s, Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Department of Labor and AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In 1965, at Cornell University, Sowell began the first of many professorships. Thomas Sowell's other teaching assignments include Rutgers University, Amherst College, Brandeis University and the University of California at Los Angeles, where he taught in the early '70s and also from 1984 to 1989. Thomas Sowell has published a large volume of writing. His dozen books, as well as numerous articles and essays, cover a wide range of topics, from classic economic theory to judicial activism, from civil rights to choosing the right college. Moreover, much of his writing is considered ground-breaking -- work that will outlive the great majority of scholarship done today. Though Thomas Sowell had been a regular contributor to newspapers in the late '70s and early '80s, he did not begin his career as a newspaper columnist until 1984. George F. Will's writing, says Sowell, proved to him that someone could say something of substance in so short a space (750 words). And besides, writing for the general public enables him to address the heart of issues without the smoke and mirrors that so often accompany academic writing. In 1990, he won the prestigious Francis Boyer Award, presented by The American Enterprise Institute. Currently Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford, Calif. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell http://media.townhall.com/TownHall/icons/TH-feed-icon-128x128.gif http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell TownHall.com, Where your opinion counts. 128 Copyright (c) 2013 Townhall.com, A Salem Communications Web. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED jim.dearras@townhall.com (Jim De Arras) Wed, 22 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT Wed, 22 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/ This time of year, as college students return home for the summer, many parents may notice how many politically correct ideas they have acquired on campus. Some of those parents may wonder how they can undo some of the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/05/22/undoing-the-brainwashing-n1601499 611fb703-f201-466d-bb2f-72e16a149a39 Wed, 22 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT An all too familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting on May 4th to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that dealt... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/05/21/wimps-versus-barbarians-n1601497 46a60318-6378-49da-ad6a-a0e0ba2b6946 Tue, 21 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT There can be honest differences of opinion on many subjects. But there can also be dishonest differences. Last week's testimony under oath about events in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 makes painfully clear that what... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/05/14/lies-about-libya-n1593913 b922a2e1-6309-4ece-9e71-5a4894550041 Tue, 14 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT If there is ever a contest for words that substitute for thought, "diversity" should be recognized as the undisputed world champion. You don't need a speck of evidence, or a single step of logic, when you rhapsodize... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/05/08/words-that-replace-thought-n1588497 c2d69e3d-0387-42c1-9eb0-9efb57eb19af Wed, 08 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT If you are driving along and suddenly see a big red rubber ball come bouncing out into the street, you might want to put your foot on the brake pedal, because a small child may well come running out into the street... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/05/07/bouncing-ball-politics-n1588495 bb3d40a3-8e1a-4955-a525-90c81db73d57 Tue, 07 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT While it is not possible to answer all the e-mails and letters from readers, many are thought-provoking, whether those thoughts are positive or negative.An e-mail from one young man simply asked for the sources of some... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/05/01/is-thinking-obsolete-n1581910 c95ad555-3b3a-4324-ba18-ba0c4b5c267c Wed, 01 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT Someone called politics "the art of the possible." But, in the era of the modern welfare state, politics is largely the art of the impossible. Those people morbid enough to keep track of politicians' promises may... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/04/30/the-art-of-the-impossible-n1581909 ff374ecf-f234-4076-8ce7-f69d3f969230 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT Whose interests are immigration laws supposed to serve -- and whose interests do current immigration reform proposals actually serve?In order to have any immigration policy serve any purpose, the border must first be... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/04/25/immigration-gambles-part-ii-n1576138 2819286c-39ca-47b5-ab52-a3e1ec514725 Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:10:00 GMT Britain's late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said it all when she wrote that the world has "never ceased to be dangerous," but the West has "ceased to be vigilant."Nothing better illustrates her point than the fact... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/04/24/immigration-gambles-n1576137 479f36c6-c35b-4525-bf91-fe5338d44a74 Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT During decades of watching both collegiate and professional football, I have seen hundreds of touchdowns scored by black players -- but not one extra point kicked by a black player.Is this because blacks are genetically... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/04/23/genes-and-racism-n1575229 c628ec05-f41e-4880-ab37-9ef75154b108 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT Most laws are meant to stop people from doing something, and to penalize those who disregard those laws. More generally, laws are meant to protect the society from the law breakers.But our immigration laws are... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/04/17/immigration-sophistry-n1568320 b158b8d5-dc65-41da-9e90-2276177a9656 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT Amid all the heated, emotional advocacy of gun control, have you ever heard even one person present convincing hard evidence that tighter gun control laws have in fact reduced murders? Think about all the states,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/04/16/factfree-crusades-n1568319 d88add57-e7a4-4a6d-a724-d9ab650aa173 Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT New York City's Stuyvesant High School is one of those all too rare public schools for intellectually outstanding students. Such students are often bored to death in schools where the work is geared to the lowest common... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/04/10/tests-and-tiger-moms-n1561653 e42186da-b8d0-476e-b3a8-ab7d9ef473de Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT Since when has it been considered smart to tell your enemies what your plans are?Yet there on the front page of the April 8th New York Times was a story about how unnamed "American officials" were planning a... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2013/04/09/proportional-response-n1561650 92074d48-d590-4724-b17d-8722f70c5883 Tue, 09 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT