"Black women less attractive" blogpost: Anger grows

Anger is growing amongst student groups at the London School of Economics after one of its lecturers wrote a blog post discussing "why black women are less physically attractive".

Student groups have called for the dismissal of Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, lecturer in evolutionary psychologist at LSE, and online petitions are growing in number as more people learn of the blog post.

On his blog, The Scientific Fundamentalist, Kanazawa claims that findings from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health show "black women are far less attractive than white, Asian, and Native American women."

The blog post has been removed from the Psychology Today website but a Google stored version is available.

Kanazawa then suggests a number of reasons behind this including higher body mass index and increased genetic mutations but rejects these for his suggested reason of higher testosterone levels amongst black people.

Calls for the lecturer's dismissal have come from The University of London students' union and a Facebook page asks "Should LSE sack Satoshi Kanazawa?"

Criticism can be found across the internet and Change.org has created a petition already signed by over 2,000 people demanding "Psychology Today: Stop Publishing Racist & Sexist Articles"

Sherelle Davids, anti-racism officer-elect of LSE Students' Union said in a press release "Kanazawa deliberately manipulates findings to justify racist ideology,"

"As a Black woman I feel his conclusions are a direct attack on Black women everywhere who are not included in social ideas of beauty."

On National Public Radio, an American station, the editor of Psychology Today, Kaja Perina said bloggers were: "credential[ed] social scientists and for this reason they are invited to post to the site on topics of their choosing."

"We in turn reserve the right to remove posts for any number of reasons. Because the post was not commissioned or solicited there was no editorial intent to address questions of race and physical attractiveness."

The LSE has tried to distance itself from the author, citing the importance of academic freedom. A spokesman told the Guardian: "This academic's views are his own and do not represent the LSE."