Recently I discussed (here) a provocative new study that suggests affirmative action reduces the number of black lawyers. That study, yet to be actually published, continues to generate a storm of controversy, some of it quite revealing.
The critics all agree that affirmative action, i.e., racial preference in admissions, is a Good Thing, but they don’t agree on what it is or why it is necessary. A publication at Indiana University, for example, criticizes the study by confidently asserting that
Affirmative action is designed to ensure that institutions are not intentionally discriminating against minority groups. If the program was reduced, we would be taking a step backward.
Let me get this straight. Universities have voluntarily implemented preference programs in order to prevent themselves from intentionally discriminating? If they stopped giving preferences to minorities, they would suddenly begin discriminating against them? Even aside from the not insignificant consideration that intentional discrimination is illegal, this argument is, to put it charitably, nonsense.
Meanwhile, Megan Barnett, the dean of admissions at proudly elitist Yale Law School, is sure the Sander study has nothing to say to Yale.
The Law School admits only students it believes are capable of handling the workload, Yale Law School Dean of Admissions Megan Barnett said.
“All of our students are really exceptional,” said Barnett. “We get the most talented students in the country so they all end up very successful after they graduate — so I am not sure [the study] is applicable to Yale.”
Does Dean Barnett imply that other, lesser law schools admit students who are not capable of doing the work? I’m sure she would be too diplomatic so say so, but other defenders of racial preference are not so reticent. In a critique of the Sander study that they have submitted to the Stanford Law Review, Professors David Chambers and Richard Lempert of the Univ. of Michigan law school, Timothy Clydesdale of the College of New Jersey, and William Kidder of the Equal Justice Society refer without batting an eye to “the 24 percent of African American candidates who could no longer secure admission anywhere” if racial preferences were abandoned (p. 4 of the pdf).
So, “everyone is qualified”? Well, three out of four isn’t bad.
UPDATE [14 Nov.]
Linda Seebach, who I’m happy to say is a Discriminations reader, has an excellent column on the Sander study in the Rocky Mountain News.
She does a good job summarizing Sander’s argument, but to her
it’s the critique that is particularly interesting, because the authors’ arguments could be taken wholesale from the anti-preference side. It’s almost as if they were so desperate to discredit Sander’s results that they forgot these are exactly the arguments they’ve been trying so long and so hard to deny.
….
Without preferences, they say, “many of the black students who today get into the 14th-ranked schools would be admitted only to the 60th- or 70th-ranked school.”
Top schools would have only 1 percent to 2 percent of African-Americans, they say, instead of the 7 percent to 12 percent they have now in states where racial preferences are permitted.
I have to remind you that these are people who are defending the current system, conceding the huge role racial preferences play in admissions while the official spin is that race is only one of many “plus factors,” that all affirmative action students are qualified, and that they are just as likely to succeed.
Not so….
Here’s a clip of what I wrote on my blog on this issue.
—
But here’s where Lempert and Chambers really reveal something meaningful. On page 16 of their critique, they say, “Sander has no adequate foundation for concluding that, if affirmative action [sic – race preferences] were ended, African American students would perform as well as whites in the law schools they would then attend and graduate at the same rate. In fact, African American students would almost certainly perform less well than whites.” I’ll preface this by saying I don’t believe Lempert and Chambers are racist or were ill-intentioned in saying this – but that passage has an overtone to it. In the same breath, Lempert and Chambers accuse Sanders of being overly “optimistic” – revealing preferences for what they are – a deep-seated pessimism of the human spirit, in particular, the spirit of a particular group. It is the “soft bigotry” of Lempert and Champers expectations that are precisely the problem.
The coup de grace of the Lempert and Chambers critique though comes from a passage I’ll agree with entirely. “A starting comment about Sander’s belief about what “would” happen (one that applies to many parts of his projections) is simply that few people, even few economists, believe that they can accurately predict complex human behavior in the future with such certainty even when they have much more complete and current information than Sander had available to him.” Finding the truth within a counterpart’s claims is often the most persuasive way of showing the failings in their larger argument. It is certainly true that social science has difficulty accurately predicting human behavior, but that truth applies to the “scientific justifications” for race preferences as much as it does those against it. In Lempert and Chambers’ critique, the phrase “We believe…” litters their 31 page tome. The critique of Sander’s scientific inability to predict behavior is the same critique that should have been applied to the University of Michigan’s use of science supporting preferences. Lempert and Chambers “beliefs” are nothing more than faith, couched in statistics. Its a faith in race preferences. Since, as Lempert and Chambers admit, there can be no “accurate” scientific answer to this debate, the Supreme Court should never have “deferred” to the “science” offered by U-Michigan, Patricia Gurin, and its other minions. Science can not answer what is fundamentally a philosophical and moral question; which is the fundamental error the high Court seems to have been deceived into making.
It always surprises at how easy it is for some people to exaggerate. Megan Barnett makes three assertions, none of which are likely to be true.
1. All Yale students are really exceptional. Really? You never let a bad seed slip into the program?
2. We get the most talented students in the country. Clearly there is no room for diversity of talent level at Yale. Everyone admitted must qualify as “most talented.”
3. They all end up very successful after they graduate. I admit this could be true if Barnett defines success very loosely as in “still breathing = very successful”
Why should anyone be surprised that AA might turn out to backfire? What liberal program born of the Great Society era did not backfire? The liberal worldview is based upon false premises and, since ideas have consequences, false premises lead to bad conclusions.
KRM writes:
>>>Why should anyone be surprised that AA might turn out to backfire? What liberal program born of the Great Society era did not backfire? The liberal worldview is based upon false premises and, since ideas have consequences, false premises lead to bad conclusions.>>Let me get this straight. Universities have voluntarily implemented preference programs in order to prevent themselves from intentionally discriminating? If they stopped giving preferences to minorities, they would suddenly begin discriminating against them? Even aside from the not insignificant consideration that intentional discrimination is illegal, this argument is, to put it charitably, nonsense.
Statistics do not prove discrimination. In any event, what I think is satire is the argument that an institution that voluntarily discriminates in favor of minorities will suddenly start discriminating against them if it stops discriminating in favor of them. If this is not satire it is not only nonsense but TOTAL nonsense. It makes about as much sense as saying that treating people without regard to their race is discriminating against them because of their race. But wait a minute, you believe that, too, don’t you?
John writes:
>>>Statistics do not prove discrimination.
Yet in your post you use this quote:
>>>Timothy Clydesdale of the College of New Jersey, and William Kidder of the Equal Justice Society refer without batting an eye to “the 24 percent of African American candidates who could no longer secure admission anywhere” if racial preferences were abandoned (p. 4 of the pdf).
That seems like a use a statistics to me. Correct me if I’m wrong.
–Cobra
“What program has ever been perfect?”
None. But programs intended to *help* a certain group or class of people should not leave them worse off than having done nothing. When a program has the opposite of its intended result, that is a backfire not just an imperfection in the program. The Great Society had a lot of backfires.
I don’t get your point. I quoted guys who support racial preferences claiming that without preferences 24% of minority law school applicants couldn’t be admitted to any law school. This is supposed to mean that I believe statistics can prove discrimination?
John,
No. You cite a statement using statistics in the context of a question about discrimination. I’m just asking why you felt it relevant if you believe “statistics do not prove discrimination.” And what, in your opinion, besides a video taped sworn confession by the discriminator WOULD be proof?
KRM,
Are you saying that Affirmative Action didn’t provide white women and minorities opportunities white men had denied them before its existance? I would say that if it did accomplish that goal–providing opportunities, then it is a SUCCESSFUL program. Conservatives have a fondness for attacking programs that benefit the have nots. Social Security, AFDC, Welfare, Medicare, Affirmative Action, Unions, Public Education, and even MEALS ON WHEELS for seniors. Despite the demonizing by the right, these programs have helped MILLIONS of people. Now, if that is “backfiring”, we could use more of it for sure.
–Cobra
First of all, the estimate that 25%-35% of minority applicants would not be admitted to any law school in the absence of racial preference that is offered by several of Sander’s critics is not statistics at all. It is a guess, an estimate, and so is not evidence of anything. Beyond that, if statistics were proof we wouldn’t need juries, or even trials. We’d just need to look at the numbers, which is the implication (confirmed by your posts) in all arguments that deviation from strict proportional representation can only be explained by discrimination.
The defense of race preferences is so riddled with contradiction and inconsistency, that the contradiction and inconsistency in the critique of Sander is almost lost in its routineness.
Chetly Zarko writes:
>>>”The defense of race preferences is so riddled with contradiction and inconsistency, that the contradiction and inconsistency in the critique of Sander is almost lost in its routineness.”
I guess that makes defending race preferences authentically American, because this nation is riddled with contradiction and inconsistency in its historical treatment of non-white males.
–Cobra
African-American
Quotas
I haven’t read as much as I would have liked about this hyped article on law schools and affirmative action. However, John presents some interesting arguments being made by colleges in response to it. I say they should stop intentionally…
Cobra —
If your point is that racial preferences are comparable to historical discrimination, I agree with you.
However, if you really believe statistics are proof of discrimination, then I guess the nation’s university system has been discriminating in favor of Jews and Asians (historically oppressed groups) for over a century.
Moreover, what the 25%-35% statement establishes is simply that the defenders of AA believe that AA plays a major role in admissions — nothing more, nothing less. That’s what makes their denial on the same issue troubling.
Finally — I believe KRM’s point is that most great society programs, specifically, were flawed. Programs that actually work, like the GI bill, are another matter.
— John
Latino-American
P.S.: No one here really cares what your ethnicity is. Which, of course, is how it should be.