On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Mike Gibbons, a wealthy financier and one of the leading Republican candidates for Senate in Ohio, stereotyped Asian-Americans in a speech referencing a discredited "race science" academic during a podcast on doing business in China several years ago.
“'I’ve often thought that when I’ve run into Asians they’re all — you know, if you’ve ever read ‘The Bell Curve,’ it’s a book, a very controversial book, I can’t even remember who wrote, I think his name is Murray wrote this book," Gibbons said in the Nov. 3, 2013, podcast, reports The New York Times. "And it said that the smartest people in the world as far as measurable I.Q. were Ashkenazi Jews. And then right below them was basically everybody in China, India and, you know, throughout the Asian countries.'"
Gibbons went on to tout Asians for being good at math, but not as good at verbal skills.
"'It was astounding to me how much they studied, how they were incredibly bright, but they memorized formulas," he said. "And when we ran into a word problem — and you know, I think this is a function of the educational track they put them on — they got lost in the weeds."
Murray's 1994 work, which posited there are difference in people's mental capacity based on their race, has been broadly discredited by social scientists. Additionally, the Asian "model minority" myth has long been decried by Asian-American groups as harmful to their communities, and ignorant of the way that Asian-American communities were shaped by racist immigration laws throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Gibbons is one of several Republicans vying for the nomination to replace the retiring Sen. Rob Portman, including former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, former Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken, venture capitalist and author J.D. Vance, and state Sen. Matt Dolan. Most of these candidates are seeking former President Donald Trump's endorsement, who has not publicly weighed in on the race yet.
