Prometheus 6

U.S. Civil Rights Commission Warns That Affirmative Action Might Harm Minority Law Students

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is releasing the path-breaking briefing report Affirmative Action in American Law Schools, a critical evaluation of the use of racial preferences in American law school admissions. This Commission finds that "admitting students into law schools for which they might not academically be prepared could harm their academic performance and hinder their ability to obtain secure and gainful employment..." Moreover, the Commission finds that racial preferences might also contribute to racial income and wealth disparities. The Commission expresses particular concern about the lack of transparency in law school admissions, urging legislation to require federally-funded law schools to publicly disclose their use of racial preferences....

Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds commented, "Race-based admissions have been found to harm minority law students by setting them up for failure. Law schools that continue to use racial preferences despite this evidence should at least disclose the risks of academic mismatch to minority student applicants." Continuing, Chairman Reynolds said, "A true civil rights strategy would focus on these students much earlier in their educational development, rather than providing them with inadequate training and then using preferential treatment to admit them into schools at which they are likely to fail."

Might, might, might, might, might. This "path-breaking briefing" is based on the work of one Richard Sander. It dates back to 2004 and was refuted then. The Chronicle of Higher Education had a good overview of the arguments Sandler at the time.

His study, "A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools," found that:

• After the first year of law school, 51 percent of black students have grade-point averages that place them in the bottom tenth of their classes, compared with 5 percent of white students. "Evidence suggests that when you're doing that badly, you're learning less than if you were in the middle of a class" at a less-prestigious law school, Mr. Sander says.

  [P6: And yet this

  Two of the authors -- David L. Chambers, an emeritus professor of law, and Richard O. Lempert, a law professor, both at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor -- are no strangers to the affirmative-action debate. In 2000 they published a study that found that minority students who graduated from Michigan's law school between 1970 and 1996 were just as successful in their careers as their white peers, even though they started with significantly lower law-school grades and standardized-test scores.

  shows evidence suggests those particular indicators just aren't a good gauge.]

• Among students who entered law school in 1991, about 80 percent of white students graduated and passed the bar on their first attempt, compared with just 45 percent of black students. In a race-blind admissions system, the number of black graduates passing the bar the first time would jump to 74 percent, he says, based on his statistical analysis of how higher grades in less competitive schools would result in higher bar scores. Black students are nearly six times as likely as whites not to pass state bar exams after multiple attempts.
• Ending affirmative action would increase the number of new black lawyers by 8.8 percent because students would attend law schools where they would struggle less and learn more, earn higher grades, and have better success on the job market.

All specious as hell from the student's perspective.

Kathy Hart, a 2003 Harvard Law School graduate who is now working for a law firm in Boston, says racial preferences are not the issue.

"The problem is not so much the entry; it's what happens while you're there," says Ms. Hart, who is black. As a minority law student, "you're more likely to feel isolated and marginalized, and feel like 'nobody gets my experience.'"

That, in turn, can undermine a student's confidence, she says.

And since when does struggling less mean learning more?

His last point i found especially interesting

With the exception of the most-elite law schools, good grades matter more to employers than the law school's prestige.

…because we are, after all, talking about the very most-elite law schools he admits are the exception.

Here are the detailed refutations.

The Black Student Mismatch Myth in Legal Education:
The Systemic Flaws in Richard Sander’s Affirmative Action Study (PDF)
Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
Winter 2004/2005 Issue

Updated August 2005: EJS co-authored a rebuttal to Richard Sander's new study in the Stanford Law Review, in which he argues that affirmative action decreases the number of African American attorneys nationwide. This critique was an invited submission to the Stanford Law Review by David Chambers and Richard Lempert of the University of Michigan Law School, EJS researcher William Kidder, and Tim Clydesdale, sociologist at the College of New Jersey, and it demonstrates that Sander's forecasts are untenable.

We show that available data on law school admissions, law school performance, and bar exam performance indicate that Sander's article is premised upon a series of statistical errors, oversights, and implausible assumptions. We conclude that if affirmative action in law school admissions were eliminated tomorrow, there would probably be a 30-40 percent decline in the numbers of African Americans entering the legal profession, not the rosy 7.9 percent improvement that Sander forecasts.

Download the published essay as a PDF

Update February 22, 2006: Following last summer's articles in the Stanford Law Review criticizing Richard Sander's "A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action" study, the review gave Sanders the last word in print with his "A Reply to Critics."

Richard Lempert, Tim Clydesdale, David Chambers and Bill Kidder wrote a working paper, which includes a point-by-point response (with an executive summary) to Sander's reply. The authors argue that Sander has elected to "stay on message" about the harms of affirmative action "mismatch" despite mounting empirical evidence to the contrary.

Download the response (PDF)

Reynolds' blithe assertionis typical of what the U.S. Civil Rights Commission has become. Typical of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has become.

Let us be real. Highly competitive institutions reject thousands of people who are perfectly capable of successfully completing the course work. What the elite schools provide that makes attending one a valuable experience is connections.

And since we know from Prof. Chambers and Lempert's work the success of one's education is not totally reflected by the grade markers in use (and we know this as regard women as well), since we know stereotype threat is a real problem because it transcends both race and gender, I would think we need more research along the lines of Factors Affecting the Completion of Undergraduate Degrees in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics for Underrepresented Minority Students, done for California State University, or Work in Progress - Cognitive, Affective and Social Factors Contributing to the Success in Undergraduate Computer Science and Engineering Education, proposed at the 34th annual Frontiers in Education conference. Research that finds those additional factors for success so they can be used across the board.