To abnobel:

Thanks for reading--and for keeping me honest. I should be more clear about the current research on IQ. It seems to show that one's total potential IQ is fixed through heredity, but whether you ever reach that potential is determined by your early childhood development. The main point is that it calls into question the research Herrnstein was writing about. He was using a then-recent study by a Harvard collegue named Jensen who published on black-white IQ disparities. Jensen's premise was that if in 1969, 15 years after Brown v. Board ended school segregation, blacks still had lower average IQs, it was surely because of their limited capacities. You've got to be pretty far to the right (and pretty blind to the facts) to consider America one year after MLK's assassination to be some kind of racial egalitarian wonderland. In fact, Great Society programs like HeadStart were created to address the very clear remaining disparities in the childhoods of black and white children.

As for the high-watermark of social mobility in America, it was the 1960s and 70s. My ficticious "Uncle Ron" fits that generation but you're right in pointing out Mr. Herrnstein, a youth of the 1930s and 40s, surely faced barriers to mobility on account of his Jewishness. City College, however, was an exception. It was eager to accept bright Jews and was truly "need blind" in a way today's schools never really are. It had no tuition at all.