Born in Philadelphia in 1936, Walter E. Williams holds a bachelor's degree in economics from California State University (1965) and a master's degree (1967) and doctorate (1972) in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1980, he joined the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and is currently the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics. He has also served on the faculties of Los Angeles City College (1967-69), California State University (1967-1971) and Temple University (1973-1980). From 1963 to 1967, he was a group supervisor of juvenile delinquents for the Los Angeles County Probation Department. More than 50 of his publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review and Social Science Quarterly and popular publications such as Reader's Digest, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. He has made many TV and radio appearances on such programs as Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose," William F. Buckley's "Firing Line," "Face The Nation," "Nightline" and "Crossfire." He is also the author of several books. Among these are The State Against Blacks, later made into a television documentary, America: A Minority Viewpoint, All It Takes Is Guts, and South Africa's War On Capitalism. In 1981, he began writing his weekly column called "A Minority View" for Heritage Features Syndicate. And in 1991, he joined Creators Syndicate as part of its friendly takeover of Heritage Features. Williams sits on many advisory boards, including the Review Board of Economics Studies for the National Science Foundation, the Research Foundation, the National Tax Limitation Committee, the Taxpayer's Foundation and the Hoover Institution. The awards and honors Williams have received are many. These include the National Fellow at the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution, and Peace; the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship; the National Service Award from the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies; and the George Washington Medal of Honor from the Valley Forge Freedom Foundation. In 1984-1985, he received the Faculty Member of the Year Award from the George Mason University Alumni. He is also a member of the American Economic Association, the Mont Pelerin Society and is a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. Williams participates in many debates and conferences, is a frequent public speaker and often gives testimony before both houses of Congress. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams http://media.townhall.com/TownHall/icons/TH-feed-icon-128x128.gif http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams TownHall.com, Where your opinion counts. 128 Copyright (c) 2009 Townhall.com, A Salem Communications Web. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED jim.dearras@townhall.com (Jim De Arras) Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/ Why did the founders of our nation give us the Bill of Rights? The answer is easy. They knew Congress could not be trusted with our God-given rights. Think about it. Why in the world would they have written the First... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/07/01/why_a_bill_of_rights 7308018b-12e7-4b16-ac86-5220f62ac1ea Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT Ward Connerly, former University of California Regent, has an article, "Study, Study, Study -- A Bad Career Move" in the June 2, 2009 edition of Minding the Campus (www.mindingthecampus.com) that should raise any... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/06/24/vicious_academic_liberals 5e712ecc-fa2c-4a34-b6a9-01c9a6a621f6 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT "Live Free or Die" is the title of author and columnist Mark Steyn's speech at Hillsdale College, reproduced in Imprimis (April 2009), a Hillsdale publication that's free for the asking. Canadian born, now living in... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/06/17/live_free_or_die 958eb3f9-53f1-49da-ae1b-3245b0374feb Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT Philosopher Bertrand Russell suggested that "Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education." And, it was Albert Einstein who explained, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/06/10/americans_love_government af9f38b3-24eb-41a5-9de1-791473aebf48 Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparison of 15-year-olds conducted by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that measures applied learning and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/06/03/dumbest_generation_getting_dumber bef9c508-f1c3-4636-a924-a0f35ff40db0 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT Hot off the press is my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell's 43rd book, "The Housing Boom and Bust." The book is an eye-opener for anyone interested in the truth about the collapse of the housing market that played a major... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/05/27/the_housing_boom_and_bust ce9704e9-57a3-462f-8bef-7a26480159f3 Wed, 27 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT President Obama's articulated criteria for his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court is: "We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize -- the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/05/20/empathy_versus_law 32d63bdf-517f-40cb-93ff-5b190fe25a01 Wed, 20 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT What to call black people has to be confusing to white people. Having been around for 73 years, I have been through a number of names. Among the polite ones are: colored, Negro, Afro-American, black, and now... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/05/13/race_talk 86fb9af3-a790-453d-a236-966c41e52f8a Wed, 13 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT Soon college students will come home and present parents with their grades. To avoid delusion, parents should do some serious discounting because of rampant grade inflation. If grade inflation continues, a college... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/05/06/fraud_in_academia 943c5323-32c7-4f1f-a1c1-922c65d55a72 Wed, 06 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT A civilized society's first line of defense is not the law, police and courts but customs, traditions and moral values. Behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings, represent... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/04/29/law_vs_moral_values 656dea72-b3df-41c2-8704-7b2797986268 Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:01:00 GMT Texas Gov. Rick Perry rattled cages when he suggested that Texans might at some point become so disgusted with Washington's gross violation of the U.S. Constitution that they would want to secede from the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/04/22/parting_company 5a5faef4-3102-4bb5-a904-ad17ddb76168 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:01:00 GMT Democracy and majority rule give an aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyranny. Think about it. How many decisions in our day-to-day lives would we like to be made through majority rule or the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/04/15/democracy_and_majority_rule c7364b71-58c7-41f0-ada3-187ca18ef9c0 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:01:00 GMT Most Americans accept the continuing attack on tobacco companies and smokers, but how do they feel about the massive government deception? In 1998, 46 state attorneys general and major tobacco companies signed the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/04/08/government_deception 3efa98bf-feb0-40f8-9d81-a211d1793901 Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:01:00 GMT Most of our nation's great problems, including our economic problems, have as their root decaying moral values. Whether we have the stomach to own up to it or not, we have become an immoral people left with little more... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/04/01/our_problem_is_immorality c87280e7-0668-4d89-a6f6-e974e669d50a Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:01:00 GMT Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war. Today it's the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/03/25/states_rebellion_pending 5a0df4c7-8e4b-4f50-8bae-96d0f17b95fe Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:01:00 GMT Ask the average person which is the correct answer to the following question: Which president gave the biggest tax cuts for the rich -- Reagan or Bush? I would bet the rent money that you would not get the correct... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/03/18/prosperity_lost 080fe5a5-edc5-4287-9f5a-1a9db685df4f Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:01:00 GMT During winter months, I work out 10 minutes on the treadmill and lift weights at seven stations four mornings a week. Over the years, during the spring through fall months, I racked up about 2,000 miles on my road... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/03/11/good_ideas 3e76c800-e3b2-47a6-ae36-1606e1a08ee6 Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:01:00 GMT Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). That's until its poor delivery of health care services became known. A recent study by David Green and Laura... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/03/04/swedens_government_health_care e96cd714-6691-4ea8-809a-a978b728393d Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:01:00 GMT Attorney General Eric Holder said the United States is "a nation of cowards" when it comes to race relations. In one sense, he is absolutely right. Many whites, from university administrators and professors,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/02/25/a_nation_of_cowards ec12a026-eba5-4715-bdb1-c459f852ea4a Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:01:00 GMT The idea that even the brightest person or group of bright people, much less the U.S. Congress, can wisely manage an economy has to be the height of arrogance and conceit. Why? It is impossible for anyone to possess... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/02/18/economic_miracle b87960de-2b1c-4036-b8d2-2bee98fa6f11 Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:01:00 GMT Dr. Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Oakland-based Independent Institute, penned an article in The Christian Science Monitor (2/9/2009) that suggests the most intelligent recommendation that I've read to fix our... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/02/11/the_hell_with_our_constitution de86d123-fa72-4e2f-a3bf-566fb008b9a6 Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:01:00 GMT The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was set up to combat fraudulent practices. The SEC's website explains that "Ponzi schemes are a type of illegal pyramid scheme named for Charles Ponzi, who duped... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/02/04/the_national_ponzi_scheme 93da3894-76cd-42cb-8965-e9acb26e8e76 Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:01:00 GMT Here is what my George Mason University colleague Professor Richard Wagner wrote, which was published by Office of the House Republican Leader: "Any so-called stimulus program is a ruse. The government can increase its... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/01/28/there_is_no_santa 457eda26-627f-4f10-b82b-2575a615de67 Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:01:00 GMT President Obama was sworn into office placing his hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible. That is the last Bible I would use to be sworn into office. You say, "Why? Didn't Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation free your... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/01/21/a_minority_view 9110906f-ad99-4b28-bc57-18e1df75794e Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:01:02 GMT News media people, often plagued with little understanding, fail miserably in their duty to inform the public. This is particularly evident in their reporting on the current financial meltdown, suggesting it was caused... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/01/14/congress_financial_mess a756db7f-c982-4a19-affa-49fbb4cd2558 Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:01:00 GMT Sometimes I wish there were a humane way to get rid of the rich. Without the rich for whipping boys, we might be able to concentrate on what's best for the 99 and a half percent of the rest of us. Warren Buffett and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/01/07/rich_people_versus_politicians a39c6de3-de4b-4a1d-86f2-25d106e96e33 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:01:00 GMT Many professors, mostly on the liberal side of the political spectrum, use their classrooms to proselytize students. I have taught economics for the past 40 years and challenge anyone to find even one student, among... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/12/31/teaching_economics 62ef2375-0518-4d73-9b89-fdb1e946fc70 Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:01:00 GMT Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy our planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil.... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/12/24/global_warming_rope-a-dope 59f77836-8e96-4e2b-ba4c-a93b090dde00 Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:01:00 GMT Congress is on a spending binge. With all the calls for bailouts, economic stimulus and other assorted handouts, there is a real risk of inflation in our future. If we do have a rapid inflation, it's likely that... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/12/17/counterfeiting_versus_monetary_policy 9b4a24a3-aef8-4489-bce1-e0f9395adba4 Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:01:00 GMT Let's not allow Congress and members of the bailout parade panic us into allowing them to do things, as was done in the 1930s, that would convert a mild economic downturn into a true calamity. Right now the Big Three... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/12/10/bailouts_and_bankruptcy 2d7df118-12f2-4323-98d5-1b75c427fed3 Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:01:00 GMT How about a few civics questions? Name the three branches of government. If you answered the executive, legislative and judicial, you are more informed than 50 percent of Americans. The Delaware-based Intercollegiate... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/12/03/ignorance_reigns_supreme fb5c40b8-08c9-4a68-a192-69773fddf32e Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:01:00 GMT There's a growing anti-trade sentiment in our country. Much of the dialogue is grossly misinformed. Let's try to untangle it a bit with a few questions and observations. First, does the U.S. trade with Japan and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/11/26/trade_versus_protectionism b14a9547-d3c3-4288-9d64-a2752bf46363 Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:01:00 GMT Evil acts can be given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding socialistic expressions such as spreading the wealth, income redistribution or caring for the less fortunate. Let's think about socialism. Imagine... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/11/19/evil_concealed_by_money 8257c7e8-c135-443b-aec1-6fecd4c0a1c9 Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:01:00 GMT Despite the fact that President-elect Barack Obama's vision for our nation leaves a lot to be desired, the fact that he was elected represents a remarkable national achievement. When the War of 1861 ended, neither a fo http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/11/12/getting_beyond_race b17b8066-1236-4ee1-a102-6b5c05a5337e Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:01:00 GMT There has always been contempt for economic liberty. Historically, our nation was an important, not complete, exception. It took the calamity of the Great Depression to bring about today's level of restrictions on... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/11/05/capitalism_and_the_financial_crisis d44a39eb-9105-4b3d-b5aa-6ef1cd0234c9 Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:01:00 GMT For the U.S. Congress, news media, pundits and much of the American public, a lot of economic phenomena can be explained by what people want, human greed and what seems plausible. I'm going to name this branch of... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/10/29/wackonomics b695289b-3357-428d-bc5b-60ce7a7c65fe Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:01:00 GMT One of the campaign themes this election cycle is "affordable" health care. Shouldn't we ask ourselves whether we want the politicians who brought us the "affordable" housing, that created the current financial... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/10/22/affordable_health_care 4158cac8-7a6d-4b0c-82c1-3fb5172ef7ff Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:01:00 GMT The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, is the document most frequently referred to when trying to get a feel for the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. One... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/10/15/political_monopoly_power d1764125-6e47-4d96-83f2-57ed71298ff8 Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:01:00 GMT In my more cynical moments, I think that we Americans deserve what we get from our politicians, many of whom can be generally described as nothing less than loathsome. You say, "Williams, that's a pretty heavy... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/10/08/lessons_from_the_bailout 16a97399-467a-4466-8fc6-4893a3a2353e Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:01:00 GMT Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." The freedom of individuals from compulsion or... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/10/01/destroying_liberty 8476700c-0498-49d5-a97a-9546599a0fe5 Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:01:00 GMT There is a H.L. Mencken quotation that captures the essence of this year's politics: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/09/24/scaring_us_to_death 6892bc71-f72a-426f-b67c-9940c7363d9a Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:01:00 GMT Here's what the U.S. Constitution says: "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills." How many times have we... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/09/17/stubborn_ignorance 96c1ee4d-6fe7-4970-be14-28d30ab1f73e Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:01:00 GMT Last week's column demonstrated the harm, suffered by black students, that results from law school race-based admission policies. The bottom line was that black students who might have done well at lower-tier law... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/09/10/academic_mismatch_ii 26c286f4-f172-4e5f-9454-67d5535e4350 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:01:00 GMT Which serves the interests of the black community better: a black student admitted to a top-tier law school, such as Harvard, Stanford or Yale, and winds up in the bottom 10 percent of his class, flunks out, or cannot... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/09/03/academic_mismatch_i 6880987b-4b00-4bda-b57b-5cc08028c8b0 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:01:00 GMT As parents pack their youngsters off to college, they might ask themselves whether it's worth both the money they will spend and their children's time. Dr. Marty Nemko has researched that question in an article aptly... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/27/is_college_worth_it 68c90b54-6366-4b4f-af71-a8a1779de107 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:01:00 GMT By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits, but in the meantime check out Professor John R. Lott's "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/20/economic_myths 02ff9990-a831-4530-a936-d4543d8e81ce Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:01:00 GMT Most people know the tragic state of black education today. We know that billions of dollars are spent on federal government programs such as No Child Left Behind and the billions spent by state and local governments.... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/13/patterns_of_black_excellence 750391ee-1f64-44e2-9657-1f4bd8f284d8 Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:01:00 GMT Edgar K. Browning, professor of economics at Texas A&M University, has a new book aptly titled "Stealing from Each Other." Its subtitle, "How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit," goes to the heart of... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/06/a_nation_of_thieves e52643d2-b34c-47fd-82c6-0e837e5cf0a8 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:01:00 GMT Let's face it. The average individual American has little or no clout with Congress and can be safely ignored. But it's a different story with groups such as Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and The Nature... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/07/30/environmentalists_hold_on_congress 99c73706-0957-4619-9dcf-cf7ac7a71180 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:01:00 GMT "Hard Times at Douglass High," is an HBO documentary that aired last June. It captured much of the 2004-2005 school year at Baltimore's predominantly black Frederick Douglass High School. The tragedy is that what is... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/07/23/black_education f716f7cf-e7a3-4bc0-94fd-e4ee802dbb80 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:01:00 GMT