Many, perhaps far too many, of Michigan’s racial preference defense eggs were placed in a basket of survey data woven by Univ. of Michigan psychologist Patricia Gurin purporting to show the benefits of diversity. The large holes in that basket have been pointed out before, most notably in a report by the National Association of Scholars, but now Chetly Zarko, an independent researcher in Ann Arbor, has charged in a new article that Michigan suppressed two previous analyses of Gurin’s data that reached opposite conclusions and in effect lied to the Supreme Court. Since one of the co-authors was Gurin’s husband, it is unlikely that she was unaware of these reports that she did not cite. (Link thanks to Joanne Jacobs)
The earlier, allegedly suppressed reports apparently contained results on quite a few fronts that undermine the arguments for “diversity.” For example, few differences in outlook, perspectives, values, etc., were found between minority students and others, but minority students felt stigmatized by what they took to be a widespread view that they were less qualified.
Query to any legal beagles who stop by here: if the plaintiffs’ lawyers looked into this matter and concluded that there was good evidence of fraud (such as purposefully suppressed contradictory data) surrounding the Gurin Report, is there any mechanism for bringing that issue to the Supremes’ attention now? Given the importance of the Gurin Report to Michigan’s defense, that issue certainly seems relevant and important.
UPDATE – See Kimberly Swygert’s discussion of these findings on her fine blog, Number 2 Pencil.
