48 Facts About Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is an American economist, author, and social commentator who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Thomas Sowell was a recipient of the National Humanities Medal from President George W Bush in 2002.

Thomas Sowell earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

Thomas Sowell has worked at think tanks including the Urban Institute.

Thomas Sowell was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner in the Ford administration, and was considered for posts including US Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, but declined both times.

Thomas Sowell is the author of more than 45 books on a variety of subjects including politics, economics, education and race, and he has been a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers.

Thomas Sowell's views are described as conservative, especially on social issues; libertarian, especially on economics; or libertarian-conservative.

Thomas Sowell was born in 1930 into a poor family in segregated Gastonia, North Carolina.

Thomas Sowell's father died shortly before he was born, leaving behind Sowell's mother, a housemaid who already had four children.

Thomas Sowell's mother died a few years later of complications while giving birth to another child.

Thomas Sowell recalls that his first memories were living in a small wooden house in Charlotte, North Carolina, which he stated was typical of most Black neighborhoods.

When Thomas Sowell was nine years old, he and his extended family moved from North Carolina, to Harlem, New York City, for greater opportunities, joining in the large-scale trend of African-American migration from the American south to the north.

Thomas Sowell worked a number of odd jobs, including long hours at a machine shop, and as a delivery man for Western Union.

Thomas Sowell tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948.

Thomas Sowell was drafted into the armed services in 1951 during the Korean War and was assigned to the US Marine Corps.

Thomas Sowell earned a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University the following year.

Thomas Sowell initially chosen Columbia University to study under George Stigler, who would later receive the Nobel Prize in Economics, but when he learned that Stigler had moved to the University of Chicago, he followed him there and studied for his doctorate under Stigler upon arriving in the fall of 1959.

Thomas Sowell ultimately received his Doctor of Philosophy in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

Thomas Sowell's dissertation was titled "Say's Law and the General Glut Controversy".

From 1965 to 1969, Thomas Sowell was an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University.

Thomas Sowell has taught economics at Howard University, Rutgers, Cornell, Brandeis University, Amherst College, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

At Howard, Thomas Sowell wrote, he was offered the position as head of the economics department, but he declined.

Thomas Sowell has written that he gradually lost faith in the academic system, citing low academic standards and counterproductive university bureaucracy, and he resolved to leave teaching after his time at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Thomas Sowell said in another interview that he was offered the post of United States Secretary of Education but declined.

In 1980, after Reagan's election, Sowell and Henry Lucas organized the Black Alternatives Conference to bring together black and white conservatives; one attendee was a young Clarence Thomas, then a congressional aide.

Thomas Sowell was appointed as a member of the Economic Policy Advisory Committee of the Reagan administration, but resigned after the first meeting, disliking travel from the West Coast and lengthy discussions in Washington; of his decision to resign, Thomas Sowell cited "the opinion of Milton Friedman, that some individuals can contribute more by staying out of government".

In 1987, Thomas Sowell testified in favor of federal appeals court judge Robert Bork during the hearings for Bork's nomination to the US Supreme Court.

Themes of Thomas Sowell's writing range from social policy on race, ethnic groups, education, and decision-making, to classical and Marxian economics, to the problems of children perceived as having disabilities.

Thomas Sowell had a nationally syndicated column distributed by Creators Syndicate that was published in Forbes magazine, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The New York Post, and other major newspapers, as well as online on websites such as RealClearPolitics, Townhall, WorldNetDaily, and the Jewish World Review.

Thomas Sowell was a frequent guest on The Rush Limbaugh Show, in conversations with Walter E Williams, who was a substitute host for Limbaugh.

On December 27,2016, Thomas Sowell announced the end of his syndicated column, writing that, at age 86, "the question is not why I am quitting, but why I kept at it so long," and cited a desire to focus on his photography hobby.

Thomas Sowell primarily writes on economic subjects, generally advocating a free market approach to capitalism.

Thomas Sowell opposes the Federal Reserve, arguing that it has been unsuccessful in preventing economic depressions and limiting inflation.

Thomas Sowell described his study of Karl Marx in his autobiography; as a former Marxist who early in his career became disillusioned with it, he emphatically opposes Marxism, providing a critique in his book Marxism: Philosophy and Economics.

Thomas Sowell has supported conservative political positions on race, and is known for caustic, sarcastic criticism of liberal black civil rights figures.

Thomas Sowell is critical of affirmative action and race-based quotas.

Thomas Sowell takes strong issue with the notion of government as a helper or savior of minorities, arguing that the historical record shows quite the opposite.

In Intellectuals and Race, Thomas Sowell argues that intelligence quotient gaps are hardly startling or unusual between, or within, ethnic groups.

Thomas Sowell wrote The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, a follow-up to his Late-Talking Children, discussing a condition he termed the Einstein syndrome.

Thomas Sowell includes the research of Stephen Camarata and Steven Pinker, among others, in this overview of a poorly understood developmental trait.

Thomas Sowell makes the case for the theory that some children develop unevenly for a period in childhood due to rapid and extraordinary development in the analytical functions of the brain.

Thomas Sowell indicated that he would vote in the general election against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, due to fears about the appointments Clinton would possibly make to the Supreme Court.

In 2020, Thomas Sowell wrote that if the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, it could signal a point of no return for the United States, a tipping point akin to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Thomas Sowell has argued for the need for reform of the school system in the United States.

Thomas Sowell argues that many US schools are failing children; contends that "indoctrination" has taken the place of proper education; and argues that teachers' unions have promoted harmful education policies.

Thomas Sowell contends that many schools have become monopolies for educational bureaucracies.

Particularly in black communities in the 1980s Thomas Sowell became, in historian Michael Ondaatje's words, "persona non grata, someone known to talk about, rather than with, African Americans".

Thomas Sowell was married to Alma Jean Parr from 1964 to 1975, and married Mary Ash in 1981.