Regent's Report
September 1997
Kevin Langdon
In this report, I want to reply to certain writings that appeared in Vidya #167.
In her "Message from the Membership Officer," Jacquelinne White wrote, "Obviously, we cannot cooperate with plans to break the law."
The California Medical Board has contacted me regarding my mail-order testing business and has alleged violation of section 2903 of the California Business and Professions Code. Although I disagree with the Medical Board's current interpretaiton of the statute, I have agreed to suspend my testing operation while considering my legal alternatives. (There are several legal means to continue this work, the simplest being to move the operation out of state.)
The Medical Board has not contacted me as Regent of the Triple Nine Society, although the Regent is the Chairman of the Executive Committee, the legal address of TNS is the Regent's address, and the TNS Constituion provides that only the Regent may speak for the society. They know where I am and could easily have contacted me in my capacity as Regent if they intended to allege a violation of the statute on the part of TNS. Such a course of action would raise major first-amendment freedom-of- association issues.
Section 2903 provides that engaging in certain activities, including the construction, administration, and interpretation of tests of mental abilities for a fee constitutes the practice of psychology and requires a license. The Triple Nine Society does not charge a fee for evaluating the credentials of prospective members, nor is there any interpretation involved in comparing scores submitted with a set of qualifying scores.
Officers of a membership organization cannot be expected to violate the law but they cannot place farfetched speculative interpretations of the law above their duty to uphold the Constitution and lawfully-established procedures of the society.
Tests of the new type exemplified by the LAIT and the Mega Test are highly g-loaded, yield respectable statistics, and are undoubtedly more accurate at the 99.9th percentile than the standard tests, as this level is close to the middle of their range and every test discriminates better at mid-range than at its range's extremes.
The attack on high-range testing is a threat to the very existence of the high-I.Q. societies with cutoffs above that of TNS (currently the Prometheus and Mega societies), for which the standard tests lack sufficient ceiling. It would be most dishonorable for the Triple Nine Society to fail to support the Prometheus and Mega societies against the forces which would destroy them.
In "Reports and Notices," John Hook wrote:
During recent weeks there have been significant events that should not be withheld from the general membership. They are reported here as briefly as is practicable, by presenting facts that are beyond dispute.
I agree with the first sentence, but these events are reported by Mr. Hook considerably more briefly than is practicable. A more complete chronology of these events will appear in the ExCom Memo. Mr. Hook's "facts" are not at all beyond dispute, and many of them are wrong. Proof of this will also be provided in the ExCom Memo.
Mr. Hook wrote:
At the time he pressured Mrs. White to send out the brochure he knew of the violation and as a result could be charged with a criminal offense under California law.
This is a crock. Jacquelinne White was always free to resign her office, but as long as she was an appointive officer of TNS she had an obligation to follow the admission standards established by the Psychometrics Committee appointed by the ExCom. As the action I required of Mrs. White on the authority of the Executive Committee is not illegal, there is no crime--and I would remind Mr. Hook and his allies that such allegations of criminality are actionable.
One possible source of misunderstanding is the following language from the letter from Lorna Clark of the California Medical Board, in response to a complaint by Mrs. White, quoted in Mr. Hook's "Reports": "The Board encourages you not to seek further services from Mr. Langdon thereby aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of psychology." This shows that Ms. Clark was unaware that the Langdon test TNS uses for admission, the LAIT, is no longer scored; use of this test does not involve any activity on my part, so there is nothing to aid and abet.
Mr. Hook wrote, "On August 1, Mr. Bob Kopp made e-mail contact, with John Hook, and then ascertained that John was available to assume the editorship of VIDYA. Mr. Kopp then resigned from that position."
Bob Kopp discussed resigning as Editor only in the context of a proposed reaarangement of the ExCom; Bob would have become Membership Officer under that rearrangement and was subsequently appointed to that office. Although it would have been convenient for me to contend that Jacquelinne White could not rescind her resignation, that resignation was not conveyed to me as Regent and I ruled that she was free to withdraw it when the point came up (she was removed from office by the ExCom on August 2). Bob Kopp certainly never conveyed his intention to resign unconditionally to me and thus there was no such resignation.
Mr. Hook has invited members interested in the state of affairs in TNS to telephone him or his allies. I would like to extend the same invitation to those who would like to hear my side of the story. My number is (510) 524-0345. (And, of course, those who are interested are also free to contact other officers and active participants in recent events.)
Whatever you hear from Hook, Ogg, and White, make sure you get it in writing and make sure it's put on the record. They've already demonstrated a pattern of telling each person what he or she wants to hear in order to gain supporters.