Ernest van den Haag

Ernest van den Haag (September 15, 1914 – March 21, 2002) was a Dutch-born American sociologist, social critic, and author.

He was John M. Olin Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy at Fordham University.

He was best known for his contributions to National Review.

Ernest van den Haag was born in 1914 in the Hague to Moses "Max" Melamerson and Flora Haag Melamerson.

In the late 1930s, he was a left-wing activist and communist.

During this time, Italy was ruled by Benito Mussolini's fascist regime.

In 1937, van den Haag was nearly murdered by a political assassin who shot him five times.

After being shot, he spent nearly three years in prison.

Nearly eighteen months of those three years were spent in solitary confinement.

After release, fearing re-imprisonment, van den Haag drifted between European countries in an attempt to evade Italy and Mussolini.

He changed his surname in the early 1940s.

While van den Haag was still young, his family moved to Italy.

Van den Haag grew up in Italy, and following his education began a life in politics.

In 1940, he made his way to Portugal and fled to the United States, arriving at Ellis Island, not knowing any English.

Living in New York, van den Haag worked as a bus boy and sold vegetables; eventually he was able to secure admission to the University at Iowa, where a group of faculty members recognized his intellectual gifts and agreed to pay for his tuition.

In 1942, van den Haag graduated with an M.A in economics.

The same year, van den Haag met the political philosopher Sidney Hook.

His friendship with Hook forever changed van den Haag, converting him from being a left-wing activist and communist, to the opposite end of the spectrum; van den Haag was now a conservative.

Over the years, van den Haag took particular interest in the field of capital punishment and the death penalty.

In another article, from 1965, he opposed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which replaced an immigration system largely excluding Asians and discriminating against southern and eastern Europeans with a race-neutral program based on skills and family connections to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, which enabled an increase in immigration from Asia.

Van den Haag instead advocated greater rather than less immigration restriction.

He also expressly defended the practice of fashioning immigration policies in favor of European ethnicity, arguing that "The wish to preserve... the identity of one's nation requires no justification."

He likened such a practice to a harmless expression of sentiment, similar to preferring to associate with one's own family rather than strangers.

"The wish not to see one's country overrun by groups one regards as alien need not be based on feelings of superiority or 'racism.'"

Van den Haag's particular field of interest, the field he contributed the most to in terms of publications, was the death penalty.

Van den Haag was a respected debater, and when he was not contributing to the National Review or other publications, he was active in debating the issue of the death penalty.

His main argument in its defense stemmed from key themes such as deterrence, and punishment for severe criminals.

In his book Punishing Criminals, van den Haag defines the primary role of government as "securing rights and duties by specifying them through laws and enforcing the laws."

Van den Haag believed the paramount duty of government is to "provide legal order in which citizens can be secure in their lives, their liberties, and their pursuit of happiness."

The law exists to provide legal order.

Van den Haag disputed claims that capital punishment is just a form of legal retribution by claiming that if laws are knowingly broken, legal order can only be maintained by enforcement.

Justice, van den Haag claimed, is blindfolded, while retribution carries the weight of passion behind it; justice being delivered to someone who violates social order knowingly is equal, thus the term legal retribution is void.

In 1966, he testified before the International Court of Justice in support of apartheid in South Africa.

His book Punishing Criminals: Concerning a Very Old and Painful Question (1975) developed his reputation on being one of the foremost thinkers and proponents on the death penalty.

Van den Haag was considered by his colleagues to be an expert on the issue of capital punishment.

Van den Haag died in Mendham, New Jersey.

He was an early opponent of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education which found segregation in schools unconstitutional, and testified in favor of segregation.

He also argued that continued school segregation was desirable because of the "genetic intellectual inferiority" of black students.

In a National Review cover-page article, van den Haag dismissed recent research undermining the notion of innate ethnic differences in intelligence, stating that he believed such differences existed and accounted for "much" of the poorer academic performance of black students, thus necessitating separate schooling.

This article caused controversy among readers of the National Review, several of whom wrote angry letters against the decision to print such "bigotry."