I have added a couple of sentences to my discussion of the meaning of the racial numbers involving the University of Michigan law school offered by a University of Michigan expert witness, Dr. Stephen Raudenbush, in this post below. I put them in the text (preceded by an italicized note), rather than an Addendum at the end, because the post was so long the point to which they refer might have been forgotten.
On the other hand, since the point made in that discussion can stand alone, I’m going to re-post the relevant numbers and the following, amended paragraph here, beginning with the numbers taken from Dr. Raudenbush’s report:
- 170 “underrepresented minorities” were preferentially offered admission.
- 58 of them enrolled, making up 14.5% of the total entering class of 400 students.
- Under “race-blind” admissions, 46 minorities would have been offered admission and 16 of them, 4% of the entering class, would have enrolled.
Thus, according to Michigan, 124 white, Asian, or unpreferred minority applicants were prevented from attending the UM law school in one year because of their race or ethnicity. The 2000 entering class of 400 students contained 42 students, or a bit over 10% of the class, who in Michigan’s estimation would not have been there if their race or ethnicity had not been taken into account. [The remainder of this paragraph added 2 April] 27% of the “underrepresented minorities” who applied would have been accepted under a non-discriminatory, colorblind admissions system; 73% of those who were offered admission would not have been admitted without the racial preference they were given. Thus, 124 whites, Asians, etc., who would have been admitted under a race-blind admissions system were denied admission in order to produce a yield of 42 more “underrepresented minority” admits than a race-blind system would have produced, or about three race-based denials for every one of the preferentially admitted entering students.
Those, again, are from the numbers presented in court by the University of Michigan in its defense.
