Trump’s BLS nominee discussed controversial theory on gender IQ with interns

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics shared a controversial scientific theory of inherent differences in intellect between men and women during remarks to a conservative think tank’s interns last year, according to two people familiar with the remarks.

Trump nominated E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to lead the agency within the Labor Department that collects and distributes data on employment, consumer prices and other trends. Antoni would replace Erika McEntarfer, whom Trump fired Aug. 1 after accusing her, without evidence, of doctoring a report that showed the labor market slowing under the weight of the president’s tariffs.

Antoni made the remarks about intelligence in a discussion with summer interns at Heritage in 2024. He said that women’s IQs generally clustered around average scores, while men’s IQs varied more between “geniuses” and low-intelligence individuals, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Shortly afterward, Roger Severino, Heritage’s vice president of domestic policy, spoke with the interns and said Antoni should not have shared that viewpoint, one of the people said. Severino told the interns that Heritage had no official position on the question of gender IQ differences, the person told The Post.

Neither Antoni nor Severino responded to requests for comment.

In a statement, Mary Vought, Heritage’s vice president of strategic communications, said Antoni was presenting to interns on the subject of economic freedom when a participant posed a question on the workforce. She said Antoni cited what is commonly referred to as the “greater male variability hypothesis” among other statistics to answer the question.

“A statistician cited statistics when asked — that’s not a story or controversial. As BLS commissioner, Dr. Antoni will rely on objective data to restore integrity, accountability and America’s trust in the agency,” Vought said. “I’m proud to call him a colleague and a friend.”

Heritage representatives shared statements from three former interns who were present at Antoni’s talk, all of whom either did not respond to requests for comment from The Post or declined to comment when reached.

Liana Gordon, who is now a Heritage research assistant, said in a statement that Antoni “was asked a question about statistics and gave us an objective answer without editorializing. That is exactly what an economist should do.”

Carly Smith, now the communications director for the Georgia Republican Senatorial Committee, said, “Dr. Antoni showed us the data and led a discussion, period.”

Mary Heipel, a student at the University of Dallas, said Antoni led a “straightforward and insightful presentation on economic freedom.”

A Heritage spokesperson added that “there was no apology for Dr. Antoni’s presentation” and called The Post’s reporting “almost as bogus as writing a piece on an economist citing economic data.”

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers in a statement said, “Dr. E.J. Antoni will make decisions by evaluating the objective statistics, and will restore America’s trust in the BLS.”

The conservative British magazine the Spectator first reported Antoni’s remarks, which trace to the 19th-century writings of Charles Darwin, the scientist and explorer.

Darwin discussed variability between the sexes among animal physical traits and their relationship to mate selection. Multiple studies have tested the question over the years, with varying results. A 2003 study based on the aptitude test scores of Scottish 11-year-olds from 1932 found that “boys were over-represented at the low and high extremes of cognitive ability.”

A 2016 study that measured students’ scores on standardized tests published in Large-scale Assessments in Education, a publication from the International Educational Research Institute, declared, “The ‘greater male variability hypothesis’ is confirmed,” after reviewing datasets of academic scores from international standardized tests. An analysis of that work from 2019 broadly confirmed some gender-based variability in academic achievement but separately found countries that actively incorporated women into the workforce and empowered women politically also had increased variability among women.

Lawrence Summers, a prominent liberal economist and official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, faced scrutiny for remarks reflecting aspects of the variability hypothesis in 2005. The fallout in part led him to resign as president of Harvard University.

Separate from the remarks about IQ, some economists have expressed concern with Antoni’s qualifications. BLS leaders have traditionally been statistical experts with CVs full of peer-reviewed academic studies. Antoni has produced only one such work — his doctoral dissertation.

His work at Heritage, and his frequent media appearances, have been largely political rather than analytical.

A spokesperson for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told The Post that the panel would hold a hearing on Antoni’s nomination in the coming weeks. Most nominees for BLS commissioner are advanced on a bipartisan basis without a hearing.

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• Lauren Kaori Gurley and Abha Bhattarai contributed.