Affirmative Action in Law Schools
[Guest post by DRJ]
Via Instapundit and Professor Bainbridge, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission issued a press release today warning that affirmative action harms minority law students:
“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.”
As noted by Professor Bainbridge, this report follows earlier research by UCLA’s Richard Sander addressed recently by Gail Heriot, a US Civil Rights Commission member, in a WSJ article (h/t Driver).
Thomas Sowell was right. Affirmative action can hurt minorities.
Why can’t liberals take what Dr. King said at face value…about the content of character being more important than the color of skin?
It gets proven every time….and now, it is said by the government, which will drive the liberals completely insane….
I love it….
reff (f3109d) — 8/28/2007 @ 8:11 pmOuch – This will leave a mark. Another sacred cow. The left won’t let this one go without a fight.
Two dissenters on the Commission. A Native American who happens to be a National Co-Chair of Hillary’s campaign, Arlan Melendez, and Michael Yaki, who claims he may have some native Hawaiian blood, but was also a member of the San Francisco Board Of Supervisors.
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/28/2007 @ 8:46 pmAlberto R. Gonzales is proof that Affirmative Action doesn’t work at the AG level either.
Perfect Sense (b6ec8c) — 8/28/2007 @ 9:20 pmSomehow I don’t think the academic left and their friends will take this in the spirit of constructive criticism. Prepare for allegations of racism in 5. . . 4. . . 3. . .2. . .
JVW (6a3590) — 8/28/2007 @ 9:37 pmThomas Sowell is right about most things and this is one of them. In his columns he has addressed the subject of affirmative action many times, and every time he presented arguments against it.
Frtiz (0c0f42) — 8/29/2007 @ 3:07 amLet’s see, we tell Blacks that they are too dumb to go to CAL and so they have to go to Shit City Tech in order to feel good about themselves, actually pass the Bar Exam, and then they can go out upon the land as “Too Stupid for Prime Time” lawyers who will do their best to do their jobs. Tell me there is something right about this. Tell me you can sell this stuff politically. I saw at UCLA the number of Blacks who just couldn’t cut it but were “guided through” the school—sort of like the Black athletes—and then given their degrees and “honors” at a separate graduation. The “minorities” have brought this upon themselves and only the minorities can correct the situation at this late date.
Howard Veit (4ba8d4) — 8/29/2007 @ 5:11 amHoward,
That’s quite a rant. Tone it down, please.
Law students of all races graduate from second and third tier law schools and go on to fine careers. The point is to find a good match.
DRJ (bfe07e) — 8/29/2007 @ 5:27 am[…] one of my best cyber-buddies, is guest-hosting at a top-3K blog this week—Patterico’s Pontifications—-pretty cool! (hey, I was psyched when I broke into the top 800K.) Although we’ve never […]
Shameless name-dropper that I am…. at Amused Cynic (691ade) — 8/29/2007 @ 5:32 amTime to declair AFFERMATIVE ACTION as unconstitutional and tell JESSIE JACKASSON to TAKE A HIKE
krazy kagu (044dd0) — 8/29/2007 @ 12:46 pmAs liberal Communistic traitors go, I’m not a great fan of race-based Affirmative Action. (An acquaintance of mine adopted two girls, one white and one black, you can figure out the rest of the story.) Nevertheless, I have a real problem with the “They could have gotten into the next-tier school without affirmative action.” That may be true, but I notice that line of reasoning is never applied to the whites who are displaced by AA admits. For example, of the two leading authors of Prop 209, one was a professor, and the other claimed that the hiring of unqualified minorities had pushed him out of the professoriate. Given the small number of minorities (qualified or not) in higher education, under this displacement principle, he must have already been at the very bottom of the ladder to begin with. I suspect this isn’t true. I also suspect this idea that in the absence of AA, the minority students will merely end up one tier down isn’t perfectly accurate either.
One of my friends likes to introduce me by saying, “I’ve really liked Andy ever since I heard someone ask him if he was upset how hard it had been for him to find a job with Affirmative Action hires, and he replied, ‘The women who finished their Ph.D.s with me cheated: instead of relying on Affirmative Action, they also wrote better dissertations than mine.'”
Andrew J. Lazarus (7d46f9) — 8/29/2007 @ 1:07 pmAJL – I’m pretty sure the ones who finished with me cheated by sleeping with the profs.
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/29/2007 @ 1:39 pmI see, preventing them from getting into law school is actually doing them a favor. Up is down, left is right – 1984.
Psyberian (9a155b) — 8/30/2007 @ 3:59 amAlthough “mass opinion generally supports ‘affirmative action’ when it is defined as encouragement, training, and education for qualified minorities and women,” the vast majority of “opinions differ sharply over preferences and ‘quotas’ in hiring, promotions, and admissions.” (Dye p. 256-257) Despite popular opinion, affirmative action affects all individuals in society—not solely blacks and whites. Individuals of lesser qualifications routinely are admitted into schools, selected for public jobs, and are more easily accepted into certain programs than other individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, and financial status. If such programs continue to exist and indirectly applaud individuals by granting them these coveted positions, who have not demonstrated the same level of skill or achievement, our society and country will decline.
Atman Kadakia (ec00aa) — 11/20/2007 @ 10:07 pmGreat information! Thanks for writing this. It is an honor to participate in the discussion.
Education Blog (4f8f8f) — 8/22/2008 @ 9:13 pm