Welcome to the repository of thought-provoking insights from Heather Mac Donald, a prominent American political commentator, essayist, and author known for her incisive commentary on issues ranging from crime and policing to feminism and multiculturalism. Through her articulate analysis and rigorous research, Mac Donald challenges prevailing narratives and offers compelling perspectives on some of the most pressing social and political issues of our time.
With a background in literature and law, Heather Mac Donald brings a unique blend of intellectual rigor and cultural insight to her work. Her writings, which have appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, delve deep into the complexities of contemporary society, shedding light on the often overlooked nuances that shape our understanding of crime, race, and public policy.
In the following sections, you’ll find a curated selection of Heather Mac Donald’s quotes that encapsulate her viewpoints on various topics. Whether you’re seeking inspiration, enlightenment, or simply a fresh perspective, these quotes serve as poignant reminders of the importance of critical thinking and intellectual engagement in navigating the complexities of the modern world.
Received left-wing wisdom holds that the police cannot lower crime, only massive welfare spending and the redistribution of wealth can. Heather Mac Donald
I think a lot of people are clueless about the degree of hatred of whites. Heather Mac Donald
A proper respect for female difference is one of the great civilizing disciplines; a society that truly treated males and females as equal, interchangeable parts would be not worth living in. Heather Mac Donald
A strong police presence keeps individuals involved in ‘street life’ from triggering the most severe penalties of the law by providing a surrogate for the self-control and parental oversight that they lack. Heather Mac Donald
American students arrive at college knowing almost nothing about history, literature, art, or philosophy. Heather Mac Donald
For decades, universities have nurtured the most lunatic forms of feminism, denying the biological differences between males and females, promoting the idea that Western civilization is endemically sexist, and encouraging in their students ever-more-delusional forms of victimhood. Heather Mac Donald
I don’t understand how people of intelligence can reconcile what I see as constant proof of divine indifference to human outcomes with a reverence for God. To me it’s a mystery. Heather Mac Donald
Western classical music had long known syncopation. But no one had felt compelled to snap his fingers to music before American jazz and musical theater, which sent a previously undiscovered current coursing through the body, demanding outlet. Heather Mac Donald
The pressure to take irrelevant characteristics like race and sex into account in academic science is dangerous enough. But Silicon Valley continues to remake itself in the image of the campus diversity bureaucracy. Heather Mac Donald
Federal consent decrees – agreements between the federal government and a local agency to change how that agency operates – are burdensome, costly, and rarely justified. Heather Mac Donald
Official scientific organizations have all turned obsessively to the diversity agenda. Heather Mac Donald
Federal transfers are not even a zero-sum proposition; they are a negative-sum proposition, leaking value at every step of the way, thanks to the costs of collecting federal tax dollars, then trickling them back out to the states’ own costly bureaucracies via federal paper-pushers who write and oversee grant programs. Heather Mac Donald
The persistent belief that we are living through an epidemic of racially biased police shootings is a creation of selective reporting. Heather Mac Donald
The far Right’s identity politics are the mirror image of that dominant left-wing ideology, which sees the world exclusively through the lens of race and sex. Heather Mac Donald
If the American people or Congress agrees with the illegal-alien lobby that deportation is morally abhorrent, the immigration laws should be changed. Heather Mac Donald
The inevitable campaign for ‘gender balance’ in Silicon Valley will also be indifferent to the fact that females are fast surpassing males in other sectors of the U.S. economy. Heather Mac Donald
Conservatives should single-mindedly privilege marriage as the solution to poverty and the best path for raising successful children, and not rationalize the real of destructive cultural change. Heather Mac Donald
Besides interrupting more serious criminal activity, intensive misdemeanor enforcement and proactive street stops send the message to criminals and law-abiding residents alike that the rule of law is still in effect in troubled neighborhoods and that the police are watching. Heather Mac Donald
One of the greatest accomplishments of Western civilization is the development of the scientific method and the scientific disposition, which entail the development of falsifiable hypotheses about the world and the unwillingness to take unverified and untheorized claims about the world as truth, simply because someone states that they are true. Heather Mac Donald
The Obama Justice Department put more police departments under federal control for alleged systemic bias than any previous administration had. Heather Mac Donald
Feminists declare that men and women are equal in all respects. They petulantly decry any atavistic male courtesy towards females as a relic of a still oppressive patriarchal culture. Heather Mac Donald
Biological fathers are of slight importance to the raising of children, after all, and the larger the welfare state, the more employment for crucial members of the Democratic base. Heather Mac Donald
But in fact it makes a lot of sense to have a Blue Lives Matter movement because officers are putting their lives on the line every day. Heather Mac Donald
No one has advanced the argument that all-male fighting forces have been handicapped in their war-making abilities over the millennia because they did not include women in their ranks. Heather Mac Donald
Children with no father at home are between four and five times more likely to be poor as the children of married parents, whether they are black or white. Heather Mac Donald
Any female who thinks that she needs a female in front of her in order to learn as much as she can, or to envision a career in a particular field, has declared herself a follower rather than a pioneer – and a follower based on a characteristic irrelevant to intellectual achievement. Heather Mac Donald
No one doubts that having a criminal record – whether it results in community probation or prison – is a serious handicap. Heather Mac Donald
Trade protectionism has an American lineage dating back to the Founders; that lineage is distinct from white nationalism. Heather Mac Donald
Communities do not benefit from criminals in their midst. Heather Mac Donald
Strong women together create a special vibe and special power, we are told; thus the ongoing existence of all-female schools and clubs at a time when any remaining all-male organizations are in the crosshairs. Heather Mac Donald
This ideal of the Socratic academy is so reasonable that it may seem foolish to quibble with it. Of course, students should engage with ideas that they disagree with rather than silencing anything that challenges their worldview. Heather Mac Donald
There is no reason to protect illegal-alien criminals from deportation. And cities that defy the law should face serious consequences. Heather Mac Donald
No cabinet official has delivered on Donald Trump’s key campaign promises more resoundingly than Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Heather Mac Donald
If Republicans want to change their stance on immigration, they should do so on the merits, not out of a belief that only immigration policy stands between them and a Republican Hispanic majority. Heather Mac Donald
Multiculturalism and academic feminism started disparaging works of genius on the basis of their authors’ sex and race. Heather Mac Donald
I think that some part of society is worried that the racial achievement gap is not going to close. And so we’ve become obsessed with trying to find instances of racism to explain it. Heather Mac Donald
Opponents of New York City’s proactive style of policing struggle mightily to downplay its most obvious benefit: the largest crime drop on record, concentrated overwhelmingly in minority neighborhoods. Heather Mac Donald
A lot of Hollywood kids went to my grammar school growing up. I’m completely unmoved by it. Heather Mac Donald
Mandatory stints in the private economy before college enrollment could do wonders for study skills. Heather Mac Donald
Questioning someone who is acting as a lookout for a burglary might not result in an arrest, because there is not enough evidence of a crime in progress to support one, but that intervention will likely avert the break-in. Heather Mac Donald
Ideally, informal social controls, above all the family, preserve public order. But when the family disintegrates, the police are the second-best solution for protecting the law-abiding. Heather Mac Donald
There’s an ideology that’s taken hold of universities, that has taken hold of elite establishments, that is committed to the myth of endemic white racism. Heather Mac Donald
Blacks were more likely to be sentenced to prison following a conviction, but that result reflected their past crimes and the gravity of their current offense. Heather Mac Donald
Companies want to be able to hire employees with an elite university diploma to make their personnel lists look impressive. Heather Mac Donald
Human-resources departments in corporations across the country are pervaded by the view that the corporation’s white-male employees are incapable of fairly judging females and underrepresented minorities without large dollops of diversity training. Heather Mac Donald
A riot’s unchecked destruction of livelihoods and property is certainly newsworthy, threatening as it does the very possibility of civilization. Heather Mac Donald
Hispanics’ welfare consumption – and their affinity for the Democratic message – will decline over time as they climb the economic ladder. Heather Mac Donald
Police departments are under enormous political pressure to hire based on race, despite existing efforts to recruit minorities, on the theory that doing so will decrease police shootings of minorities. Heather Mac Donald
A core plank of left-wing academic thought is that gender and race are ‘socially constructed.’ Heather Mac Donald
If we grant immigrants moral agency, we assume that they are capable of abiding by the law, and that they are legally responsible when they do not. Heather Mac Donald
President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions want to change the false Black Lives Matter narrative, but it doesn’t look like they will have many allies among liberal mayors and their police commanders. Heather Mac Donald
Though you’d never know it from reading the academic literature, some people in minority communities even see prison as potentially positive for individuals as well as for communities. Heather Mac Donald
The rising tide of single-parent households threatens American society. Heather Mac Donald
But a married spouse at whatever income level is almost always going to improve the economy of a household over a lifetime, whether that spouse is adding the proceeds of a minimum-wage job or the inestimable value of being a stay-at-home parent while the other one works. Heather Mac Donald
For decades, liberal criminologists have tried to corroborate the Left’s cherished belief that the criminal-justice system responds to similarly situated whites and blacks unequally. Heather Mac Donald
Moreover, Hispanics’ sympathy for big government represents a cultural predilection as well as an economic one. Heather Mac Donald
It has always been a sign of desperation that racial-preference supporters argue that the government can honor the constitutional mandate not to discriminate on the basis of race only by discriminating on the basis of race. Heather Mac Donald
There are virtually no females who would be able to lug a fallen male solider weighing 200 pounds naked, before donning battle equipment, 200 yards out of the line of fire. Heather Mac Donald
The more frequently officers encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the greater the chance that members of that racial group will be shot by a police officer. Heather Mac Donald
Hispanics’ support for the Democratic economic agenda, both in California and nationally, stems in part from their receipt of government assistance. Heather Mac Donald
There are few student species more nakedly ambitious, focused, and future-oriented than the average Harvard law student. Heather Mac Donald
Females have always been the biggest consumers of spiritual hoaxes such as astrology, crystals, seances, and other metaphysical claims about the world that rest simply on assertion rather than scientific proof. Heather Mac Donald
Chivalry is one of the great civilizing forces, taming men and introducing social graces and nuance to what would otherwise be a brutish social world. Heather Mac Donald
European operetta and German singspiel provided the American musical its combination of spoken dialogue and song; the inclusion of dance traced a lineage to French baroque opera. But what a difference! Heather Mac Donald
Well, identity politics is everywhere. Heather Mac Donald
Every voice with a national bully pulpit that is willing to take on the lies of the anti-cop Left is still vitally important. Heather Mac Donald
Marriage civilizes males by making them responsible for their children and by imposing on boys the need to develop the bourgeois habits of self-discipline and work that make them attractive mates. Heather Mac Donald
Welfare reform was a good-faith effort to break the cycle of intergenerational dependence. Heather Mac Donald
Anyone who is willing for an instant to credit the claims of astral influence is a walking demonstration of the tragic failure of science education. Heather Mac Donald
Before you can challenge a received narrative about the past, you should be expert in its established contours. Heather Mac Donald
Students regularly act out little psycho-dramas of oppression before an appreciative audience of diversity deanlets who use the occasion to expand their dominion. Heather Mac Donald
The open-borders Right regularly insists that immigrants and their children are assimilating at a brisk clip. It would be nice to see them advocating as well, then, an English-only practice in all government communications. Heather Mac Donald
Well, the 80s was when it started in my view. That is when you got radical multiculturalism that hit. Heather Mac Donald
Race and gender quotas, whether in publishing, the media, or scientific research labs, are becoming more extreme and more ineluctable. Heather Mac Donald
Obamacare’s terrifyingly cumbersome, competition-hostile apparatus for controlling medical costs is one of its most obvious flaws. Heather Mac Donald
The enemy capture of female soldiers during a hot war will in fact provoke even greater than usual political pressure to quickly rescue them, if necessary overriding sounder but more time-consuming strategies. Heather Mac Donald
A second parent in the home provides back-up support in discipline when the other is at the breaking point, and a doubling of the emotional, intellectual, and moral resources that a child can draw on. Heather Mac Donald
It is not the case that I can predict your views knowing that you are a white male. I cannot predict your views if you are a black female, and it is height of both arrogance and condescension to think that somebody can be type casted on the base of. Heather Mac Donald
The important thing to understand about eliminating racial preferences in college admissions is that doing so does not lower the number of minority college students, it just redistributes them to schools for which they are actually qualified, rather than catapulting them into academic environments where they will inevitably struggle. Heather Mac Donald
The Democratic Party now is an extension of this poisonous identity politics on college campuses and to be honest, I can only hope it continues because American by and large are not buying it. Heather Mac Donald
Big-city police chiefs feel more pressure from race activists than from the hard-working residents of high-crime areas, who fiercely want more policing but have no spokesmen to defend their interests. Heather Mac Donald
A federal government with enough money to buy iPads for local gym teachers is not a federal government that has been cut to the bone. Heather Mac Donald
Too many high-school graduates are reflexively going to college as it is, without a clue what they are doing there or how to take advantage of higher education. Heather Mac Donald
Proactive policing has saved tens of thousands of minority lives since the mid-1990s. Heather Mac Donald
Lowered crime is a precondition to economic revival, not its consequence. Heather Mac Donald
The wider public is clueless about the social breakdown in high-crime areas and its effect on street life. Heather Mac Donald
As products of the victimology university enter the workplace, they are bringing their ideology with them. Heather Mac Donald
I don’t have a fondness for movies, which leaves me stranded when it comes to cocktail party chat, but I prefer language and books. Heather Mac Donald
Without question, women can act with bravery, foresight, and tactical intelligence. Heather Mac Donald
Republican politicians regularly churn out earnest policy wonkery and programs in the hope of raising more black children out of poverty. Black uplift remains an obsessive concern of white Republican philanthropists. Heather Mac Donald
If, by deferring or maybe even skipping college entirely, students were foregoing their one hope for immersion in Western civilization, there would indeed be grounds for regret. Heather Mac Donald
The most urgent task of any college is the transmission of knowledge, pure and simple. Heather Mac Donald
Any claim that our fighting forces are not reaching their maximum potential because females are not included is absurd. Heather Mac Donald
Unless you think hard about political questions in our culture, you are liberal by default. You have to think your way out of liberalism. Heather Mac Donald
It is, at the very least, ironic that we are requiring men to behave with more respect for female sensibilities at the same time that the combat gender-integrators are insisting that women on the frontlines will be and should be given no special consideration. Heather Mac Donald
In the 1970s colleges were under the reign of a very odd form of literary theory called deconstruction or post-structuralism. Heather Mac Donald
I don’t know a single conservative donor who is not fervently trying to improve urban schools or provide scholarships in order to liberate pupils from that educational wasteland. Heather Mac Donald
Significantly reorienting our immigration system towards skilled workers and away from unskilled aliens should be a non-negotiable quid pro quo for amnesty. Heather Mac Donald
