I am skeptical of reading briefs to get a true picture of scholarly research. I have written too many such briefs over the years :).
I also think this is one of those areas where the research is going to mean something different to admissions people than “normal” people. It is one of the reasons I think the Court would be best served to continue to move slowly in this area.
Ohiodad, the methodological critiques of Sander are worth reading, if you have a mathematical bent. The statisticians are saying that Sanders simply can’t make the conclusion he makes from the analyses he says he did, because the analyses are mathematically unsound.
For example, Sanders compares bar passage rates between black graduates of higher tier law schools with black graduates of lower tier law schools. This is sloppy-- what if going to a higher tier law school made a student a lot more likely to graduate, and a little more likely to pass the bar? Then Sander’s analysis would falsely claim that going to the law school would make the student less likely to pass the bar.
An analogy is medical treatments. Suppose I argued that we shouldn’t give medical treatments to very premature babies. I would say, look at the health of one-year-olds who would have been candidates for these treatments 60 years ago, but didn’t get the treatments (because the treatments hadn’t been developed yet). Look at the health of very prematuree one-year-olds now, who as newborns would have gotten the modern treatments. I say, look, the very premature toddlers now are less healthy than the very premature toddlers of the 1950s , so we should stop these treatments.
I’m right that the very premature one-year-olds now are less healthy. But that’s not an argument for stopping treating premies. The least healthy premies 60 years ago died, but those at-risk babies now survive, albeit with health problems in some cases. My flawed analysis looked at the wrong group. Instead of looking at babies who survived, I should have looked at all babies, including the babies that didn’t survive. I would then reach the correct conclusion that treating premies results in improved outcomes on average, not worse outcomes.
Looking at the outcomes of law school graduates makes a similar error. If I want to know if enrolling in a better law school produces better results, I need to look at everybody who enrolls, not everybody who graduates. It could be that being in a better school makes a student more likely to graduate.
[PolitiFact article](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/11/antonin-scalia/scalia-says-most-black-scientists-went-lesser-coll/) on Scalia’s claim that “Most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools,” and the mismatch theory.
If you think about it, you’ll realize that Scalia was right, but misleading. Most black scientists don’t come from elite schools like UT. Also, most white scientists don’t come from elite schools like UT. Elite schools enroll a small percentage of all future scientists.
The rest of the PolitiFact article is also worth reading for those interested in the mismatch theory.
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/24635/
An article on race and bar passage rates. Sanders had to sue to get the California bar to release the data. The law schools were opposed to Sanders even getting access to the data so that he could analyze it. Sounds like they don’t want anyone to know. And now in another attempt to squelch inquiry into this subject the schools no longer send LSAT scores, information on grades and race to the bar so that Sanders analysis, when he finally gets the data, will be old.
Institutions of learning should not try to shut down further study into any issue.
Yes, yes, we’ve been discussing Sander and Taylor’s work for the last few pages. Critics argue it is methodologically unsound, and that when the data they use is reanalyzed using correct methodology it doesn’t yield the results they say it yields.
My point was that the institutions must feel threatened by Sanders research or they wouldn’t have tried to shut down the gathering of this data. Why would law schools not promote analysis of bar passage rates? They may disagree with the analysis but to prevent Sanders from getting the information is dishonest.
@tiger1307 and @GMTplus7 Standing was discussed in oral arguments in Fisher I but not laid to rest outright. UT spends a considerable amount of time in its brief for Fisher II arguing standing. Since they have heard the case twice and the standing issue has been an issue since at least late 2008, I doubt they are going to throw it out based on standing. UT points to the fact that Fisher enrolled and graduated from LSU as part of her lack of standing. As a policy matter, requiring someone alleging discrimination to forego enrollment in another school while the case drags out for 7-8 years would result in no discrimination suits making it to the court.
Another part of the standing issue is whether she would have been admitted anyway given her application. UT could have litigated that in the district court but they are unable to tell who was admitted based on race or not so they rely on statistics of the non- top 10 percent many of whom would have been admitted regardless of race. When they should have litigated it, they didn’t. Maybe because they couldn’t.
I’d have to re read the transcript but I don’t think anyone discussed standing in oral arguments this time around except to say the UT wanted to go back to district court to litigate standing after Fisher I.
The UNC and Harvard cases on hold in lower courts awaiting the outcome of Fisher are filed by organizations of students and not individuals, so they should not have the same standing issues Fisher has.
Whatever “at risk” programs UT-Austin has in place, it’s URM graduation rates still underperform. We don’t have graduation rates based on income/parental education, but we do have overall graduation rates, and we know that most students (of any race) enter UT-Austin via the 10% rule.
UT-Austin’s 6 year Graduation rates:
Overall: 81%
White: 84%
Asian: 84%
Hispanic: 72%
Black/AA: 69%
Hispanics and Black/AA’s far underperform the average graduate rate. You’ll find this delta at any of the UT’s, or at TAMU (overall 79%, white 81%, Hispanic 72%, Black/AA 66%). It’s a Texas system wide issue.
Compare UT-Austin’s rates to a “lesser” directional school in Florida (a state with similar racial and SES demo’s and a comparable public K-12 system to Texas) that doesn’t consider race in admissions.
University of South Florida:
Overall: 69%
White: 66%
Hispanic: 69%
Black/AA: 66%
For a Black/AA student, your chances to graduate at UT-Austin or TAMU are about the same as USF. Your chances are significantly better at other “lesser” schools, like FSU (Overall 79%, White 79%, Hispanic 79%, Black/AA 78%).
You’ll find similar numbers for all of Florida’s public universities, higher graduation rates at the stronger schools (UF, FSU, etc), and weaker rates at the “lesser” schools (UWF, FAU, FGCU), but for almost all, the Black/AA graduation rate is within a few points of the white graduation rates (and in many cases, the Hispanic is higher).
On the other hand, the Texas system schools almost always have far (with a few exceptions like Texas Tech) underperforming URM graduation rates.
The state of Texas (not just UT-Austin) has a problem with URM graduation rates, something the Fisher case really can’t impact, one way or the other.
Another interesting data point; the AAMC provides data on the number of applicants to U.S. medical schools by applicant race and ethnicity.
https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/86042/table2.html
The number one and two school for supplying Black/AA applicants are Howard University and Xavier (which was discussed in another CC thread).
UT-Austin is one of the top schools in the nation for providing med school applicants (733 in 2014), but it only provided 45 AA/Black applicants in 2014. Compare that to the “lesser” schools, USF (47 out of 387), FSU (42 out of 265), and UCF (46 out of 286).
TAMU? 18 out of 411 applicants. In fact, you’ll not find many Texas public universities listed in the AAMC data…
I looked briefly at the Sander study. There is one obvious methodological flaw He states that blacks do worse the first year of law school. Then he states that blacks do worse throughout law school. That may be true but it can be explained entiely by the first semester or first year grades. Sander does not consider the grades after the first year of school in a group by themselves. It would appear from the data presented that race is not a factor in law school grades after the first year. This would support the proposition that law school helps students of color.
I would note that MIT has confronted this problem and dealt with it by giving only pass no pass grades the first semester for undergrads
So the solution to inconvenient facts is to bury them in opacity?
If it’s true that black students do worse than other students for the first year at some school, but (the same) black students do just as well as the other students for the rest of their undergraduate career, then it would make sense to say that first year grades reflect “growing pains” and ought not to count. I don’t think that’s an inconvenient fact, either. If it’s true, it suggests that the black students are quickly catching on to what the white students already knew about college.
An employer or a grad school cares about what the student is like after graduation, not what they were like when they matriculated. If I’m an employer, and I see a record that shows poorer grades for the first year, but then excellent grades for the rest of college, I see a person who has gotten on track. I’d want to hire that person, because they’ve already shown me they can adjust.
But the mismatch theory is not suggesting that the black student at UT go to Howard. The theory claims that the student will do better at TAMU, which is not a historically black school. Historically black colleges and universities introduce other considerations into the mix.
Re: #208 - Anyone can apply to medical school. Many (roughly 60% of applicants) are disappointed and are not accepted to any.
What schools have the highest number/percentage of applicants that are accepted?
That’s because the schools themselves are dishonest. The administrations want to employ racial preferences when the states outlaw it. See the following about UCLA and Berkeley circumventing the law in their states.
http://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Insiders-Report-Race-Admissions/dp/1457528290
You’re missing the point I was trying to make here. We know that, independent of race, a student’s family income is hugely influential as to whether they graduate. What I want to know about the statistics you quote above is how much of the racial disparity is explained by family income. Eyeballing your numbers, and knowing that the black and Hispanic students are more likely to come from lower income families (at least, I think that’s true, maybe I’m wrong), it might be that SES explains the entire effect. In any case, SES certainly explains some of the effect.
@gmtplus7 let me help you to understand the purpose of affirmative action. Not everyone gets to go to posh boarding schools . One of the goals is to take people who show alot of promise but because of race or other economic factors have been put at a disadvantage and put them on a level playing field with other students.
MIT recognizes that students come from many different backgrounds. That is why they dont give grades the first semester. What people are concerned about is the end product. If blacks grades are the same as everyone elses for the last two years of law school how does that make them a worse lawyer. That is not an inconvenient fact but a fact that exemplifies how AA helps to create a level playing field and achieve societal goals . I hope this explanation helps
If we look at the colleges and universities that produced the most Black graduates of medical schools, Xavier University is by far the leader of the pack. Some 60 graduates of Xavier University earned their medical degrees in 2011. This was almost double the number of medical school graduates from Howard University, which ranked second nationally. In 2011, 32 Howard graduates earned medical degrees. The University of Florida, Harvard University, Duke University, and Stanford University all had 20 graduates who earned medical degrees in 2011.
The above is a quote from The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Looks like Xavier and Howard have the highest number of black medical graduates.
The poor graduation rate for African Americans and Hispanics at UT likely is tied to the 10% rule. The article that @GMTplus7 linked mentions that the Vanessa scored a 22 on the ACT. I would think that any student who scored a 22 on the ACT would struggle at an institution like UT unless they were in the least rigorous majors and/or received remedial help. While it is good that the Texas schools are forced to consider geography, the 10% rule is likely allowing too many kids who who are ill-equipped to succeed at a competitive, selective flagship university.
It is interesting because, if I read his/her posts right, @tiger1307 would be in favor of universities being forced into admissions policies that match the demographics of the underlying states. Texas is doing that with the 10% rule, and the results unfortunately are not encouraging for Hispanics and African Americans.
The other possibility is difference in the choice of major. See “What Happens after Enrollment,” by Arcidiacono et al. Here is part of the abstract: