A study why affirmative action doesn't work

[Fieldmouse]

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/08/Academic%20Mismatch%20I.htm

A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2008, AND THEREAFTER

Academic Mismatch I

Which serves the interests of the black community better: a black student admitted to a top-tier law school, such as Harvard, Stanford or Yale, and winds up in the bottom 10 percent of his class, flunks out, or cannot pass the bar examination, or a black student admitted to a far less prestigious law school, performs just as well as his white peers, graduates and passes the bar? I, and hopefully any other American, would say that doing well and graduating from a less prestigious law school is preferable to doing poorly and flunking out of a prestigious one.

Professor Gail Heriot, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights commissioner and member of the University of San Diego law faculty, addresses academic mismatch in her article "Affirmative Action in American Law Schools," in The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues (2008). Citing UCLA law professor Richard Sander's research, Professor Heriot says that at elite law schools 52 percent of black students had first-year grades that put them in the bottom 10 percent of their class as opposed to 7 percent white students. Black students had a higher failing and dropout rate, 19 percent compared to 8 percent for white students. Only 45 percent of blacks passed the bar exam on their first try compared with 78 percent of whites. Even after multiple attempts, only 57 percent of blacks succeeded in passing the bar.

Professor Heriot points out that this tragedy is reversed when black and white law students with similar academic credentials compete against each other at the same school. They earn about the same grades. When these students with the same grades from the same-tier school took the bar examination, they passed at the same rate.

In the name of affirmative action, diversity and multiculturalism, black students are being admitted to law schools where their academic credentials are far lower than whites. The LSAT, which ranges from 120 to 180, is an admissions test for most law schools. According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the mean LSAT score at Harvard, Stanford and Yale law schools was 170. In 2004, nationally only .03 percent of blacks scored that high compared to 3.1 percent of whites. Overall the mean LSAT score for blacks is 142; for whites it's 152. Many blacks admitted to top-tier law schools are brought into a highly competitive environment where the chances for success are quite remote. In order for second- and third-tier law schools to have what they see as their quota of black students, they must in turn lower their admission standards. As a result, those black students wind up in the bottom of their class. It is truly a vicious, mean agenda, where black students, who would be successes at a second- or third-tier law school, have been recruited and admitted to the highly competitive environment of first-tier schools in the name of diversity and turned into failures.

Think of it this way. Suppose you asked, "Williams, would you teach me how to box?" I say yes and the first matchup I arrange for you is against Lennox Lewis. You might have the potential to ultimately be an excellent boxer, but you're going to get your brains beaten out before you learn how to bob and weave. It's the same with any student -- black or white. He is less likely to succeed if he is placed in an academic environment where his credentials don't begin to match those of his peers. He is likely to do much better in a slower paced, less competitive environment where he might receive more personal help.

I have frequently made this argument only to be asked: If top-tier colleges don't have racially different admissions policies, how are they going to have enough black students? My response is that's their problem. Black people can't afford to have our youngsters turned into failures so that in the name of diversity race hustlers and white liberals can feel better.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

[/align]

[kevin1]

When admissions to those same schools are made based solely on academic achievement instead of politically correct quotas those percentages will surely reflect that Affirmative Action is a sham at best, and nothing more than reverse discrimination. Anyone who thinks AA is a positive program is either an entitledminority or has their head lodged firmly up their liberal ass.

[Fieldmouse]

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/08/Academic%20Mismatch%20II.htm
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2008, AND THEREAFTER

Academic Mismatch II

Last week's column demonstrated the harm, suffered by black students, that results from law school race-based admission policies. The bottom line was that black students who might have done well at lower-tier law schools were recruited to more highly competitive law schools and turned into failures. One might be tempted to place the full blame for such callousness on deans of law schools, but the true villain is the American Bar Association.

The American Bar Association is the accreditation agency for all law schools. If a law school has not been accredited by the ABA, it is ineligible for federal funding; its students are ineligible for student loans; most states do not allow graduates of a non-ABA-accredited law school to sit for the bar examination. As Professor Gail Heriot says in her article "Affirmative Action in American Law Schools," in the Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues (2008), "A law school that is not in the good graces of the ABA is thus not a law school at all."

George Mason University Law School's experience provides an excellent example of ABA abuse. In 2004, the ABA summoned the university president and the law school dean before its Accreditation Committee and threatened the institution with revocation of its accreditation for its supposed lack of diversity. Shivering in their boots, the GMU administration reported a diversity improvement since the ABA's site visit in 2000. Their entering class of 2003 was 17 percent minority and their 2004 class was 19 percent minority and they had appointed a diversity czar. Despite these efforts, the ABA was not satisfied. They complained that of the 99 minority students admitted in 2003, only 23 were black, and of the 111 minorities admitted in 2004, still only 23 were black, even though, in 2004, 63 black students had been offered admission.

Virginia has two other major public law schools, College of William & Mary and the University of Virginia. They did not win the ire of the ABA because unlike GMU, they practiced a racially discriminatory admissions policy. The Center for Equal Opportunity monitors racially discriminatory college policy. Their publication, "Racial and Ethnic Preferences at the Three Virginia Public Law Schools" (http://www.ceousa.org/content/view/467/119/), reported that at the University of Virginia, a student with a LSAT score of 160 and an undergraduate GPA of 3.25 had a 96 percent chance of admission if he or she was black, but only a 3 percent chance of admission if white. At William & Mary, a black with a LSAT score of 155 and an undergraduate GPA of 3.0 had a 92 percent chance of being admitted while a white with the same credentials had a 3 percent chance of admission. At GMU, not having racist policies, the chances for admission were roughly the same. Blacks with a LSAT of 155 and an undergraduate GPA of 3.0 had a 53 percent chance of admission while similar whites had a 50 percent chance.

The bullying practices of the ABA are truly a wicked, disgusting perversion. George Mason University Law School, which does not practice racially discriminatory admissions policy, is brought on the carpet by the ABA whilst University of Virginia and William & Mary, which have racially discriminatory admissions policies, have little problem. The sad fact of the matter is the ABA holds enormous life and death power over law schools and they must cave in to ABA demands or else.

Several years ago, I taught "Economic Foundations of Legal Studies" at George Mason University Law School. I have attended many of their lecture series and social functions. As such I can attest to the high quality and moral stature of their faculty and administration. It pains me to see my very distinguished colleagues being forced to cave in to the racist demands of the American Bar Association.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

[Buck Hunter 1]

Do you really need a study to relize this? You really don't have to go far down the street to realize AA has hurt all of our communitites. It is a mantra utttered by the Dems of created equal and all the same! Hand out for people of ethnicity, who by the way have more social programs going for them than the white population does. Has it done some good, yes it has had some positive effect but overall the program is a failure. It's not about merit or working for it. W

[Lanse couche couche]

I think that the original "spirit" of Affirmative Action was to get qualified AA students into ANY law program. In that regard it was a success since it is pretty much demonstrated that many schools did discriminate based on race. However, where it went off track was when it got distorted to the point thatpoorly qualified students were being forced into top-tier programs or even lower tier schools.

[kybuck20032001]

Now qualified students not covered by AA, can't get in.

[younggun308]

It's the pains of trying to find a solution, mistakes in system development like that happens, but the thing about mistakes is, once you've made them, fix 'em, doing nothing won't.