Heritage Defends Richwine on Fernando Espuelas Show

The Jason Richwine Saga continues, and the latest comes from a Buzzfeed article about how the Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez stood up for (yet also distanced himself from) Richwine on Univision America’s Fernando Espuelas Show.

Yesterday Richwine was identified by the Washington Post as a co-author of Heritage’s latest controversial immigration study but is also facing the heat for a 2009 that basically concluded that Hispanic immigrants have lower IQs than Anglos. In the segment with Espuelas, Gonzalez repeated his previous statement that Richwine’s previous publications do not reflect the views of the Heritage Foundation. He also gave the standard “out of context” comment.

According to the Buzzfeed article, Espuelas asked Gonzalez if Richwine was going to be fired. Here is the exchange:

“Are you going to fire him or are you standing by him?” Espuelas asked.
“We really — you know, I don’t want to comment on that,” Gonzalez responded.
Pressed on the quotes from Richwine’s 2009 dissertation, Gonzalez said Richwine’s critics may have the facts wrong.
“Have you read his dissertation? Let me ask you,” Gonzalez asked Espuelas. When the radio host said he had only read the sections cited in the media, Gonzalez said, “If you read the excerpts than they may be quoted out of context, right?”
Gonzalez said he doesn’t know what Richwine wrote in 2009 and said he would like to before he makes a judgment,
“I have not read the dissertation,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about it until 24 hours ago.”

At the end of the Buzzfeed story, Espuelas offered his thoughts about the interview:

“What I heard from Gonzalez in my interview is that Heritage stands by Richwine,” the host told BuzzFeed after the interview. “I don’t know how they can ever separate Richwine’s clearly racist world view from his contribution to the Heritage anti-immigrant report published this week. Moreover, how can they maintain any credibility as a serious think tank by keeping him on staff?”