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“In my view, cultures are important and cultures can differ — otherwise, why are we discussing multiculturalism and reasonable accommodation?”

And yet that discussion quickly becomes “controversial” when groups as a whole are touted as successful, the way Ms. Chua and Mr. Rubenfeld present cultural groups in The Triple Package.

“The implication,” he said, “is that others aren’t.”

Categorizing certain groups as superior to others — even if the focus is squared on what the rest of the world might learn from them — is fundamentally racist, says Frances Henry, a professor emerita in the department of anthropology at York University, whose focus is racial studies.

She calls the ranking “dangerous, in terms of the spread of stereotyping.”

It’s who is excluded, which is as important as who she does include

“It’s who is excluded, which is as important as who she does include,” she said of Ms. Chua’s list.

“Rankings like that, the Nazis did that too, and other oppressors did that — they ranked people based upon supposed group characteristics. And if you want to go back earlier in history, that’s the way 19th century racist philosophers used to think about differences in cultural groups; that some were in the realm of civilization, they were the great ones, and the bottom of the list were ordinary savages.”

It’s more valuable to focus on the characteristics of individuals, not groups, she said. Indeed, cultures have a way of attaching value to certain characteristics, Prof. Henry said, but that doesn’t make it right to paint an entire culture with the same brush.