Roland Fryer: Courage Under Fire

"I Was Just After Truth"

There may not be a better example in recent years of what Courageous Leadership is than Harvard Professor, Dr. Roland Fryer. In 2019, I wrote about Dr. Fryer in my book, The Courageous Police Leader and I discussed the results of his study on police use of force and the suffering that came his way in the aftermath of a peer reviewed research project that showed no police bias in deadly force. One purveyor to that suffering was from former Harvard President Claudine Gay and in light of her recent issues, Dr. Fryer has been brought back into the spotlight.

The entire law enforcement profession should be thankful to Dr. Fryer because if it wasn’t for his rigor to academic research and his refusal to play the academic games of remaining in the political narrative, there would be no legitimate research on the issue of police force and the treatment of Fryer all but guarantees there will be none in the future.

Cowards aren’t just in the law enforcement profession.

Dr. Fryer is no coward and he offers something much greater than doing the job that we expect all researchers to do, tell the truth.

Against All Odds

The narrative would have you to believe that Dr. Roland Fryer should have never existed. He was brought home from the hospital as an infant by his grandmother. Fryer would not meet his mother until he was in his 20’s and his father went to prison when he was 12 years old. Fryer is now 46 years old and no one he grew up with, including his own family is still alive.

Fryer’s grandmother deserves a tremendous amount of credit. An english teacher in the inner city, she navigated Roland away from the dangers that plague so many youth growing up without parents in impoverished communities. For Roland, it would have been easy to follow the masses. His cousins were drug dealers and he watched as a boy as they were sent to prison for decades.

Fryer grew up around friends and family that told him going to prison and being poor “was cool” but as he says, “I never bought into the idea…There was never a moment where I thought I wasn’t going to get out.”

Drive For Excellence

The life of Dr. Fryer should be heralded by every American and an encouragement to those growing up in similar circumstances but that hasn’t exactly been the story. Following the death of Michael Brown, Dr. Fryer, the youngest black professor to gain tenure at Harvard, wanted to contribute to the call for police reform so he launched a study to determine whether there was racial bias in police use of force. According to Fryer, he knew there was and he was biased himself against law enforcement. But Dr. Roland Fryer is a truth teller and what he found would reign chaos on his life.

The below video is nine minutes but I cannot stress how important it is to listen to what he has to say. His courage should be a calling for each of us.

Truth Teller

It seems weird to say that courageous leadership is simply telling the truth but that is what drives Dr. Fryer and the reactions to that truth does not sway him. Law enforcement leaders can learn a lot from this but it goes deeper than telling the truth. Fryer is driven by a deep commitment to helping others and to bring real solutions to underprivileged communities.

“Every day I have to look myself in the mirror and ask myself what are you here for. What do you want to leave behind. I am here because I want to solve problems. I’m not going to lie.”

Bari Weiss asks Dr. Fryer how he can be so courageous when most aren’t. She called it a “decision point” when others “would make the opposite choice.”

Leaders need to hear his answer:

Dr. Roland Fryer is not just a economics professor but he is a professor with deep rooted principles and if you possess principles, a fundamental belief and value system that never changes, no amount of chaos or cancel culture will alter that.

At the heart of Courageous Leadership is what Dr. Fryer referred to several times in the full length video…”Being a truth teller is so important.”

Courage Changes The World

I am deeply committed to Courageous Leadership because it is the only solution to solving the problems and issues within law enforcement. As Dr. Fryer says, “changing the world is not down size risk protection.”

If you aren’t familiar with the principles of Courageous Police Leadership, I encourage you to look at them, embrace them, and never waiver.

Cowards may rule the day, but Courageous Leadership will make a difference and leave a legacy that our departments and communities so desperately need.

If you would like to expose your organization or conference to the principles of Courageous Leadership, reach out and I’ll do all that I can to make it happen.

You can watch the complete interview with Dr. Fryer here.

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Dr. Travis Yates retired as a commander with a large municipal police department after 30 years of service. He is the author of “The Courageous Police Leader: A Survival Guide for Combating Cowards, Chaos & Lies.” His risk management and leadership seminars have been taught to thousands of professionals across the world. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy with a Doctorate Degree in Strategic Leadership and the CEO of the Courageous Police Leadership Alliance.