In the book The Bell Curve (1994), he and co-author Richard Herrnstein argue that in 20th-century American society, intelligence became a better predictor than parental socioeconomic status or education level of many individual outcomes, including income, job performance, pregnancy out of wedlock, and crime, and that social welfare programs and education efforts to improve social outcomes for the disadvantaged are largely counterproductive.

The Bell Curve also argues that average intelligence quotient (IQ) differences between racial and ethnic groups are at least partly genetic in origin, a view that is now considered discredited by mainstream science.

[7][8][9][10] Of Scotch-Irish ancestry,[11][12] Murray was born on January 8, 1943, in Newton, Iowa,[13] and raised in a Republican, "Norman Rockwell kind of family" that stressed moral responsibility.

[15] As a teen, he played pool at a hangout for juvenile delinquents, developed debating skills, espoused labor unionism (to his parents' annoyance), and on one occasion helped burn a cross that he and his friends had erected near a police station.

"Back in 1961, the test helped get me into Harvard from a small Iowa town by giving me a way to show that I could compete with applicants from Exeter and Andover," wrote Murray.

"[22] His tenure with the Peace Corps ended in 1968, and during the remainder of his time in Thailand he worked on an American Institutes for Research (AIR) covert counter-insurgency program for the US military in cooperation with the CIA.

[27][28] By the 1980s, his marriage to Suchart Dej-Udom had been unhappy for years, but "his childhood lessons on the importance of responsibility brought him slowly to the idea that divorce was an honorable alternative, especially with young children involved.

Cox was initially dubious when she saw his conservative reading choices, and she spent long hours "trying to reconcile his shocking views with what she saw as his deep decency".

Its central thesis is that in American society in the 20th century intelligence had become a better predictor of many factors including income, job performance, unwed pregnancy, and crime than one's parents' socio-economic status or education level.

[47] The book's most controversial argument hinged on a hypothesized relationship between race and intelligence, specifically the hypothesis that differences in average IQ test performance between racial groups are at least partially genetic in origin.

He focuses on white Americans in order to argue that economic decline in that period was not experienced solely by minorities, whom he brings into his argument in the last few chapters of the book.

Murray also posits that the new [white] 'lower class' is less industrious, less likely to marry and raise children in a two-parent household, and more politically and socially disengaged.

"[54] Critics have suggested that he cherry-picked the data and time period under analysis, with Nell Irvin Painter, for example, writing that "behaviors that seem to have begun in the 1960s belong to a much longer and more complex history than ideologically driven writers like Mr. Murray would have us believe.

"[55] Murray has written opinion pieces for The New Republic, Commentary, The Public Interest, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and The Washington Post.

Murray was invited to attend the college by Middlebury's American Enterprise Institute Club, who received co-sponsorship of the event from a professor in the political science department.

After the interview, there was a violent confrontation between protesters—both from the college and the surrounding community—and Murray, Vice President for Communications Bill Burger, and Stanger (who was hospitalized with a neck injury and concussion) as they left the McCullough Student Center.

The United States Congress, acting with large bipartisan majorities, at the urging of the President, enacted as the law of the land that all children are to be above average."

"[88] This stands in contrast to the contemporary and subsequent consensus of mainstream researchers, who do not find that racial disparities in educational attainment or measured intelligence are explained by between-group genetic differences.

[89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97] Citing assertions made by Murray in The Bell Curve, The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled him a "white nationalist", charging that his ideas were rooted in eugenics.

"[99] Other intellectuals have defended Murray against allegations of racism, including Sam Harris,[100] Glenn Loury,[100] Andrew Sullivan,[101] James Flynn,[102] and Kyle Smith.

[103] In addition to these books, Murray has published articles in Commentary magazine, The New Criterion, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.