This is not news, though it is papered over by the major media and academic administrators who care less about the long term outlook for minorities than they care about the short term appearance of politically correct admissions policies.
Over the last few weeks, the Center for Equal Opportunity has released studies documenting the extent to which race and ethnicity are weighed in law school admissions at three universities: the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and the University of Nebraska.
The analysis is based on data supplied by the law schools themselves. The studies were prepared by Dr. Althea Nagai, a resident fellow at CEO, and can be viewed on the organization’s website.
The article goes on to describe the very considerable weight given to race/ethnicity in law school admissions at the universities under study. It is comprehensive, and radical.
Obviously this policy is not a great thing for the students who are discriminated against. How about for the students who are admitted?
Well, it may not be so great for them either. If you are black or Latino, your classmates, professors, and future employers, clients, and patients will all assume that you aren’t as qualified as your classmates whose color and national origin did not receive preferences. That will often be true, but not always. You have affirmative action to thank for the stereotyping.“
I’m not sure why, but it is often considered racist simply to point out the obvious; since affirmative action/quota based/standard lowering admissions policies weed out more qualified people for the less qualified, of course people will wonder about the actual achievement and competence of blacks and Latinos, even those who didn’t especially benefit from “affirmative action” or “diversity admission” policies. No one can simply talk to, say, a black doctor, or a Latino lawyer, and determine if he or she was a “diversity admission” or earned it competitively according to the same standards as anyone else.
It hurts blacks in another way, too. A liberal UCLA law professor, Richard Sander, has collected a vast amount of data from law schools across the country, analyzed it carefully, and concluded that, because mismatching students and law schools results in more classroom failures, dropouts, and bar-exam flunking, there are actually fewer black lawyers today than there would have been without racial preferences in law-school admissions.
