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The Glenn Show

Glenn Loury

Race, inequality, and economics in the US and throughout the world from Glenn Loury.

glennloury.substack.com

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Monday · 1 min
TGS Live: Roland Fryer on Breaking Through Self-Censorship
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn welcomes economist Roland Fryer—his former student and a John Bates Clark Medal and MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient—for a wide-ranging conversation. Fryer discusses the Carob Trust Prize, a new $1 million award he co-founded with Bill Ackman (on whose selection committee Glenn sits) to reward independent, courageous social science research. The two also revisit Fryer's path into economics, Glenn's early mentorship of him, the conditions for effective DEI policy, the economics of addiction, and the controversy surrounding Fryer's use of cash incentives to boost student learning. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content.
Friday · 42 min
TGS Live: John McWhorter and Nathan Cofnas on Race and Intelligence [Free Version]
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com John McWhorter and Glenn talk with Nathan Cofnas, a philosopher of biology who exposed Jason Arday's plagiarism, for a discussion of that affair and Cofnas's own "race realist" views—that racial IQ differences are real and largely innate. McWhorter voices skepticism, questioning whether Cofnas has reckoned with the implications of his position. Glenn argues society lacks evidence to treat these differences as fixed, while maintaining the topic itself must remain open to discussion. Full version The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
September 14 · 1 min
TGS Live: John McWhorter and Nathan Cofnas on Race and Intelligence
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn and John McWhorter reflect on 9/11 twenty-five years on, weighing the pride felt in its aftermath against more ambivalent views of America's subsequent military response. The episode then turns to Nathan Cofnas, a philosopher of biology who exposed Jason Arday's plagiarism, for a discussion of that affair and Cofnas's own "race realist" views—that racial IQ differences are real and largely innate. McWhorter voices skepticism, questioning whether Cofnas has reckoned with the implications of his position. Glenn argues society lacks evidence to treat these differences as fixed, while maintaining the topic itself must remain open to discussion. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content.
September 11 · 1 hr 1 min
TGS Live: Ian Rowe, Bradford Wilcox & Delano Squires on Family Structure and Education
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com On this episode of The Glenn Show, Ian Rowe, Bradford Wilcox, and Delano Squires argue that children generally fare best when raised by two married parents in the same household, and that this discussion is too often avoided. Ian and Brad point to a recent American Enterprise Institute report arguing that the National Assessment of Educational Progress should publish the family-structure data it already collects. Ian, Brad, and Delano contend that preparing kids for eventual marriage starts in childhood, through honest information about which choices improve life outcomes. But the debate is far from settled. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
September 9 · 59 min
Robert Patton-Spruill – A Wrongheaded Doc about “Black Erasure” in Boston [Bonus Episode]
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com In this bonus episode of The Glenn Show, Glenn and TGS co-producer Robert Patton-Spruill talk about Sabrina Salvati's documentary Removed: Black Erasure in Boston, and how his own attempt to build affordable housing in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. According to Rob, redlining isn't the cause of present-day housing problems for black Bostonians. It's often the community itself that stands in the way. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
September 4 · 1 hr 1 min
John McWhorter & Tess Chakkalakal – Was the First Black Novelist Actually Black?
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Earlier this summer, I had Tess Chakkalakal, professor of Africana Studies and English at Bowdoin College and author of A Matter of Complexion, a wonderful biography of the writer Charles Chesnutt, on the livestream. That stream was for full subscribers here on the Substack, but today I’m releasing this fascinating conversation for all to enjoy. If you don’t know who Chesnutt is, you’re not alone. Chesnutt was a pathbreaking African American novelist and short story writer publishing in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Despite his accomplishments, his work fell into semi-obscurity after his death in 1932. Yet he is arguably the first major African American novelist. A subtle ironist and a significant figure in turn-of-the-century race debates, he was part of the first generation of black Americans to come of age post-Emancipation. His life and work provide a fascinating window into a period—“Post-Bellum, Pre-Harlem,” as he calls the era in his last speech—that has received comparatively little attention in the literary history of African American literature. So why don’t you know who he is? Tess talks John McWhorter and me through his work, his life, and his afterlife, and explain how this great writer fell out of favor and why he’s the object of renewed interest. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
August 28 · 54 min
The John Show Live: The Jason Arday Affair
Support The Glen Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Last Friday, with Glenn still on the other side of the world, John McWhorter slid into the host chair for the weekly livestream. The major topic under discussion was the career and death of Jason Arday. As most of you probably know, we cut a segment on Arday from last week’s episode, because it was recorded the day before news of Arday’s death broke. Though British officials have not yet made public a cause of death, most commentators speculate that Arday took his own life. It’s a tragic end to a story that bordered on farce. We’re going to be talking about this for some time. In this episode, John weighs in with his early thoughts and takes questions on the subject from the Substack and YouTube chats. Near the end of the episode, we introduce some lighter topics, like John’s self-described Jewish-adjacency and whether bilingual people’s personalities change depending on which language they’re using. Note: There was a glitch in Mark's audio recording that we could not get rid of during post-production. Apologies for the sub-optimal listening experience. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
August 28 · 1 min
Jason Arday and Elite Academia’s Rarefied Air
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Due to travel, I wasn’t able to offer my thoughts on the Jason Arday affair as its sad final chapter unfolded. In lieu of a full-length conversation—which I hope to have soon—I want to offer these brief comments on Arday, meritocracy, and the academy.
August 21 · 28 min
John McWhorter and Tyler Austin Harper – Why Tyler Left Academia
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn and John McWhorter sit down with Tyler Austin Harper, whose Atlantic cover story documents his decision to resign from a tenure-track position at Bates College. Harper offers an insider's account of an institution compromising scholarly standards and treating him as a token in the service of sweeping racial justice policies — a story of administrative pressure, faculty self-censorship, and mission drift. Note: this episode was originally recorded with an additional segment on Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor who was found dead on August 14th. Out of respect, that portion has been withheld; a separate episode addressing the full Arday story is forthcoming. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
August 14 · 1 hr 59 min
TGS Live: Norman Finkelstein and Eli Lake on Israel and Palestine (with John McWhorter)
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Buy Norman Finkelstein's new book, Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places Nearly three years after October 7th, Glenn and John McWhorter host two guests with sharply opposing views on Israel and Gaza — in succession rather than debate, to prioritize clarity over conflict. First, Norman Finkelstein discusses his forthcoming book Gaza's Gravediggers, which examines failures within the international human rights community to protect vulnerable civilian populations. Then Free Press columnist Eli Lake argues that Israel's military response has been broadly justified and warns against the growing influence of anti-Israel sentiment in Democratic politics. Glenn and John interrogate both positions in good faith — not to reach a tidy verdict, but to model the kind of serious engagement the subject demands. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
August 7 · 2 hr 2 min
TGS Live: Delano Squires on Rebuilding the Black Family
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn welcomes back Delano Squires, director of the Heritage Foundation's DeVos Center for Human Flourishing, to discuss his new book, The Vanishing Black Family: How Welfare and Feminism Made Marriage Optional and Children Vulnerable. Squires argues that failures of black political and religious leadership, combined with a welfare system that has done more harm than good, have contributed to the near-disappearance of two-parent households in many black working-class communities. Glenn pushes back on some of Squires's more ambitious claims — including his opposition to gay marriage and his framework of children's rights from conception — while finding common ground on the urgent need to strengthen the black family. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
July 31 · 1 hr
TGS Live: John Mcwhorter on Race and Test Scores + Subscriber Q&A
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn and John McWhorter open with John's recent New York Times column on Stuyvesant High School's vanishingly small number of black admits. Both reject calls to eliminate the admissions test as racist, arguing the problem is inadequate preparation — and that the real damage is done by those telling black students that academic excellence isn't for them. A wide-ranging subscriber Q&A follows, touching on AI, phonics, contrarianism, and Social Security. Then English professor Tess Chakkalakal joins to discuss her biography of Charles Chesnutt, the underappreciated African American writer whose opposition to racial categorization altogether makes him a provocative figure to reckon with in 2026. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
July 29 · 59 min
TGS Live Bonus Episode: Steven Teles on Ideological Diversity on Campus
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn sits down with political scientist Steven Teles of Johns Hopkins to discuss one of higher education's most stubborn problems: ideological homogeneity. University faculties lean dramatically further left than the broader population, and in some humanities and social science disciplines, the imbalance has become self-reinforcing — conservatives self-censor or don't enter the field at all, shutting down internal debate and compromising academic freedom from within. Teles is working to change that through Johns Hopkins's new Agora Institute and School for Government and Policy, building cross-ideological bridges with institutional backing. Glenn sees the effort as urgent: the Trump administration's funding threats have turned an epistemological problem into an existential one. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
July 24 · 1 hr
TGS Live: Andrew Day on Trump, Israel, and Iran
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn brings back Andrew Day, senior editor at The American Conservative, to make sense of the war-skeptical right's position on the Iran War. With seventeen Americans already killed and peace talks stalled, Day argues Trump's decision to go to war is flatly incompatible with America First principles — delivering no clear national benefit while disrupting supply chains and rattling markets. Day's sharpest claim: Israel's interests drove the U.S. into this conflict, and with American opinion toward Israel souring even among Republicans, continuing to act in lockstep with Tel Aviv could prove fatal to the MAGA coalition by 2028. Another ill-advised Middle East war, another political casualty in the making. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
July 17 · 59 min
TGS Live: Karmelo Anthony and the Content of Our Character
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com John McWhorter returns as Glenn and John reflect on the nation's 250th birthday and the state of Black America. Both express disappointment — not at racism's persistence, but at cultural attitudes that continue to hold Black Americans back. Using the Karmelo Anthony case as a touchstone, they push back hard against victimhood narratives that treat race as a mitigating factor for individual wrongdoing. But Glenn and John diverge on colorblindness: while John laments the persistence of racial identity, Glenn argues that race as a positive site of collective identification — embodied in institutions like the black church — remains valuable and shouldn't be abandoned in the name of an abstract principle. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
July 10 · 2 hr
TGS Live: 250 Years of Contradiction with Rajiv Sethi
Subscribe to The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Last week’s Independence Day installment of The Glenn Show brought the team together—along with special guest Rajiv Sethi—to talk about American identity, broadly conceived, on the occasion of the nation’s 250th birthday. Who were we, and who are we? What face do we present to the rest of the world? What makes American culture “American”? How do we manage the social challenges facing a coherent nation comprising an uncountable plurality of ethnic, racial, religious, and political groups? The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
July 5 · 1 min
June 2026 Q&A
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com BB asks what Glenn and John think of Steven A. Smith’s political commentary. Russell Harvey wants to know what the role of debate is in our society, and whether a debate has ever changed Glenn's or John's mind on any substantial issues. Stan asks why college-educated white women support “wokeness” at such high rates. Jason asks whether Glenn and John ever had intellectual discussions with AI tools. Michael asks John for his opinion of Zohran Mamdani’s first six months as New York City mayor. Robert Redd asks how much damage Trump has done to conservatives’ image, and is it their responsibility to repair that damage. And finally, Max asks if Glenn and John have engaged with any arguments from natural theology, and whether they have intellectual—rather than spiritual—accounts of their own beliefs about the existence or non-existence of God. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. Go to https://glennloury.substack.com
July 3 · 59 min
John McWhorter on Karmelo Anthony's Grand Narrative
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Recorded amid Glenn's vacation, this month's conversation with John McWhorter covers New York politics, crime, and culture. They discuss Mayor Zohran Mamdani's growing influence after his endorsed candidates swept their Democratic primaries, signaling a possible left-wing realignment within the party akin to the Tea Party's and MAGA's reshaping of the right. They also dig into the trial and sentencing of Karmelo Anthony for the killing of Austin Metcalf, weighing competing explanations — including a Sowellian theory of cultural inheritance — and Glenn's skepticism toward treating the case as fundamentally racial rather than personal and circumstantial. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
June 26 · 1 hr 6 min
TGS Live: Robert Wright on an AI-Driven Global Community
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Longtime friend of the show Robert Wright joins Glenn to talk about The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning, which argues AI deserves serious attention — including from its doomers. Wright contends that responsible global coordination, however improbable it seems amid current geopolitical turmoil, is essential to steering AI toward humanity's benefit rather than catastrophe. He points to the near-miss global minimum corporate tax agreement as a hopeful precedent. Glenn reflects on how quickly once-speculative science fiction scenarios, like recursive self-improving AI, have become urgent real-world dilemmas. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
June 19 · 59 min
TGS Live: Harvey Mansfield on Where Harvard Went Wrong
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Harvey Mansfield, the eminent political philosopher who spent over seven decades at Harvard, joins Glenn to discuss his new book, Where Harvard Went Wrong: Fifty Years of Commentary that Fell on Deaf Ears. Mansfield argues that Harvard has traded its commitment to truth for an overbearing political emphasis on equality — fueling grade inflation, racially discriminatory admissions practices, and the erosion of genuine academic standards. Glenn reflects on the irony that meaningful reform began only after Mansfield's retirement, and suggests that decades of ignored warnings may have contributed to Harvard's recent string of public embarrassments. A searching conversation about elite institutions, democratic values, and what universities owe the students they serve. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get access to weekly livestreams, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, commenting privileges, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

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