“Unintended Consequences” Of Proposition 209?

A friend and correspondent sends word of this excellent short article in the Economist. It is embarrassing, or should be, that a foreign magazine has, in a few paragraphs, captured the essence of the effects of Proposition 209 in California better than any mainstream media publication in this country, especially including glossy reports from prestigious educational institutions (yes, I mean the one discussed at length here).

“Ten years ago,” the Economist’s analysis begins,

the abolition of affirmative action was widely expected to transform the racial mix of California’s top universities and turn them into less diverse places. The first prediction turned out to be right; the second did not.

….

The proportion of black students has never returned to the level of the mid-1990s. But the University of California’s campuses have become more diverse anyway. Last year, 15% of newly admitted students were Hispanic and an astonishing 41% were Asian. Whites, who were supposed to benefit most from the demise of affirmative action, comprised 34% of the new intake—a smaller proportion than in 1995, and less than their share of California’s high-school graduates.

This analysis would have been stronger if it acknowledged that the numbers of blacks in both the university and state college systems is about the same as it was just before Prop. 209 went into effect, and even the proportion has not dropped as dramatically as most discussions suggest (as I pointed out here, from 4% to 3% in the university system and from 9% to 8% in the state college system). Also, exactly who was the Economist thinking of when it said whites “were supposed” to benefit from 209? Critics, of course, accused supporters on 209 of intending to help whites, but that was nothing more than a false, partisan canard.

This quibbles aside, this article gets more right in fewer words than just about every other mainstream media article on this subject. It even manages to mention an important fact that is almost never brought up in these discussions, and that is the difference between the number of admits and the yield (those who actually attend):

Last year, 47% of whites and 46% of blacks who were offered a place at the University of California took it up, compared with 65% of Asians.

You would think the fact that less than half of the blacks who were offered admission to the University of California system chose to attend would at least merit mention in the-sky-fell analyses of 209’s effects that are so common. (For more on admits vs. yield, see here, here and here.)

And finally:

California’s universities are at least providing a route to the upper-middle class for an immigrant group that suffers discrimination in other parts of America. And there are other changes, hard to imagine without Proposition 209, of which they can also be proud.

The decade-ago row over how many fairly successful black 18-year-olds ought to be admitted to the state’s top universities was always somewhat beside the point. The real scandal was, and is, the tiny numbers of successful black 18-year-olds. Thanks to strong unions and decades of underfunding, California may rank well above average in teachers’ pay: but it is below average on staff-to-student ratios and spending per pupil. Blacks and Hispanics are particularly badly served.

As soon as it became clear that affirmative action would be done away with, the state’s public universities began to concentrate their attentions on California’s schools. They sent their trainee teachers to some of the most troubled ones, and, by entering into partnerships, nudged them to improve. They offered places to the top 4% of pupils in every school that offered the right courses, regardless of how bad it was, on the ground that those who prevail in bad environments have at least shown gumption.

Even with that damning-with-faint-praise “at least” at the beginning, as though there were something second rate about allowing members of a minority group a pathway to success, these points are good.

It’s too bad so many preferentialists prefer to keep up their attempt to force preferences on an unwilling public than to explore non-discriminatory means to “diversity.” The ability to do that is the true lesson of 209, but so far there is precious little evidence than most liberals are willing to learn it.

Say What? (2)

  1. LA December 3, 2006 at 7:44 pm | | Reply

    You are assuming that the Universites in question actually enforce Prop. 209. That’s a mistake. I have yet to see any governmental agency that actually has a merit based approach to anything–hiring, promotion, etc. Don’t think for a second that race-based preferences don’t still exist. In fact, the only way you would know if they did or did not was to have the universities in question release all their admissions data. And none do. So there you go. Why not? The government even publishes state workers salaries and positions, yet no info on this. We all know why.

  2. John Rosenberg December 3, 2006 at 9:15 pm | | Reply

    Actually, the best point on this I’ve seen was an article by Stuart Taylor in The National Journal that I discussed here. Stuart actually favors a small amount of carefully, narrowly tailored racial preference at elite universities, but he supports absolute bans like Prop. 209 and MCRI because he figures that universities will evade them, in about the amount he would think reasonable if allowed.

Say What?