One of the most destructive fallacies of critical race theory is its insistence that racial disparities are caused by discrimination. The CRT premise is that any gap in racial attainment calls for an explanation, and—in the absence of any convincing explanation—they are compelled to conclude that such gaps are caused by discrimination.

Many readers will be familiar with Thomas Sowell’s refutation of that argument. In arguing that disparities do not prove discrimination, Sowell challenges the premise that, in the absence of discrimination, we should expect all human beings to have equal life opportunities, experiences, and outcomes. In his book, Disparities and Discrimination Sowell “argues that there is an underlying assumption that if discrimination was absent equality would prevail, which historically has been proven wrong.” It is wrong to expect equal attainment from human beings—people have different skills, abilities, and talents, so we would have no reason to expect that, if they are all given an “equal” starting point, they would all exhibit uniform and equal levels of attainment.