Temple sociologist Matt Wray was quoted by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. in an opinion piece that questions the concept of race. According to Wray, the average 18-year-old American kid, mistakenly thinks of race "as a set of facts about who people are, which is somehow tied to blood and biology and ancestry... It has enabled in the United States for us to justify and legitimate the conquest of Indian land and the near genocide of Native American tribes. It enabled us for such a long time to justify slavery and ... Jim Crow."