Posted on 03/22/2018 3:46:56 AM PDT by lowbuck
The diversity imperative demands dissimulation and evasion. The academic-achievement gap, the behavioral differences that produce socioeconomic disparities, and the ubiquity of racial preferences must all be suppressed in public discourse, since they undercut the narrative that white racism is the driving force in American society. This dissimulation was on display last week at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, when Dean Ted Ruger announced that law professor Amy Wax would no longer teach mandatory first-year law courses at the school. In a memo announcing his decision, Ruger accused Wax of “conscious indifference” to truth. It is Ruger, however, who has distorted facts.
Ousting Wax from her first-year civil-procedure class has been a desideratum of the academic Left since she published an op-ed last August celebrating bourgeois virtues like the work ethic, respect for authority, and sexual temperance. Wax was deemed a “white supremacist” for suggesting that not all cultures were equal in preparing people for participation in a modern economy.
In December, Dean Ruger asked her to desist from teaching first-year students and to take a leave of absence, in the hope that the controversy spurred by her op-ed would die down. As a “pluralistic dean,” he said, he needed to accommodate all factions in the school. Wax declined the request and reported the details of the conversation immediately thereafter to friends. (I was one of the people to whom she spoke.) Wax later described the conversation in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Ruger denied her account through a spokesman, claiming that he had merely engaged in a pro forma discussion of her sabbatical schedule, such as he would have done with any other professor. Ruger’s version is not credible, though: in an informal survey, no law professor polled reports ever having a dean drop by his office to discuss a routine sabbatical. This alleged bureaucratic convention does not exist, unless Dean Ruger has only recently introduced it.
Ruger’s request that Wax stop teaching first-year students became non-negotiable, however, after a video dialogue Wax had recorded in September came to the attention of her opponents. On the video, Wax and Brown University economist Glenn Loury discuss affirmative action. Wax talks about how racial preferences hinder the ability of their alleged beneficiaries to succeed academically, by catapulting them into schools for which they are significantly less prepared than their peers; this negative consequence of affirmative action is known as the “mismatch effect.” At Penn’s law school, Wax said, she didn’t think that she had ever seen a black law student graduate in the top quarter of his class, and “rarely” in the top half. Loury asked Wax if the University of Pennsylvania Law Review had a “racial diversity mandate.” Wax answered “yes.” In his memo to the school, Ruger denied this point: “the Law Review does not have a diversity mandate,” he wrote. “Rather, its editors are selected based on a competitive process.”
By any common understanding of a “diversity mandate,” the Penn law review most certainly has one. In the summer of 2003, it created a new pathway for membership to solve the perennial lack of racial diversity among its editors. According to a contemporaneous Chronicle of Higher Education article, until then, students were selected based either on their grades or on a writing competition that assessed analytic and editing skills. Now, however, a third criterion would be added—a “personal statement,” in which an applicant might address the “challenges” he has faced, the “familial, cultural, or personal experiences that have contributed” to his worldview, and the “unique contribution” he would make to the review. The editorial guidelines explain that the personal statement allows the law review to find editors who bring “diverse perspectives” to legal scholarship.
Anyone familiar with “holistic admissions” will recognize this language, even had the architects of the personal-statement requirement not already explained that its goal was to increase racial diversity. Somehow, “challenges” and “cultural experiences” always pertain exclusively to underrepresented minorities. The percentage of editors selected via the personal statement, which is factored into a new composite score that includes first-year grades and the writing competition, may vary from year to year.
The 2003 Chronicle article was a rare public peek into law reviews’ diversity efforts, not just at Penn but across the country. Since then, the Penn guidelines have been closely guarded; any editor who discusses them with an outsider risks getting kicked off the review. But they remained in place as recently as 2015, according to a former member. There is zero chance that the review has since reverted to a purely meritocratic selection process, especially in the era of Black Lives Matter campus protests.
If challenged, Ruger might argue that the Penn law review’s diversity policy is not a “mandate,” since it was not imposed by the administration. But most such diversity policies are similarly self-imposed. Ruger might also insist that the process remains “competitive.” But the question is: would the candidates who compete via the personal-statement route have gotten on the review through grades or writing skills alone? If they could not have, then the competition is not universal but race-specific.
Ruger also accused Wax of saying during her interview with Loury that Penn’s black law students should not “even go to college” (whatever that would mean, since they have already gone to college). That, too, is a distortion, presumably intended to inflame the sentiments against her. Wax at that point in the discussion was speaking about college generally. She said in passing that while no critic of racial preferences is saying that black students should not go to college, some students should not. Wax was speaking generally, not referring to Penn law students in particular.
As for the low number of black Penn law students graduating in the top of their class, Wax’s observations about the mismatch effect accord with all available data. The Law School Admissions Council collected 27,000 law student records in the early 1990s, representing nearly 90 percent of accredited schools. After the first year, 51 percent of black law students ranked in the bottom tenth of their class, compared with 5 percent of white students. Two-thirds of black students were in the bottom fifth of their class. Only 10 percent of blacks were in the top half of their class. As mismatch theory predicts, bar-examination failure rates were also skewed, since students put into classrooms above their preparation levels will learn less than when teaching is pitched to their current academic skills. Twenty-two percent of black test-takers in the LSAC database never passed the bar exam after five attempts, compared with 3 percent of white test-takers.
Unfortunately, Wax overlooked the precautionary rule for criticizing affirmative action: avoid any generalizations that can be rebutted with an even vaguer generalization. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the class and rarely, rarely in the top half,” she said, clearly speaking informally and from a subjective perspective. Ruger responded in his memo: “It is imperative for me as dean to state that these claims are false: black students have graduated in the top of the class at Penn Law.” Ruger’s statement leaves unspecified what the “top of the class” is and how many black students over what period of time have graduated in it. But his assertion, as so broadly defined, is undoubtedly true. It is also not inconsistent with Wax’s claim that black students have graduated in the top half of the class, but “rarely.”
Ruger’s stated reasons for demoting Wax were that she had violated the confidentiality of students’ academic records and had put her impartiality regarding black students into doubt. The confidentiality charge is the only facially plausible one. Though Wax mentioned no students by name, and was speaking generally, to state even a provisional recollection that no black student has graduated in the top quarter of his class does allow an inference about the grades of all black law students. But if making such a statement is a punishable offense, then there will be a serious chilling effect on any discussion of the negative consequences of affirmative action.
Ruger says that black students may now “legitimately question whether the inaccurate and belittling statements she has made may adversely affect their learning environment and career prospects.” That is a calumny. Wax has won teaching awards from students and from faculty. There is no evidence that she has ever treated her students unfairly. And even if she were inclined to partiality, which she most decidedly is not, grading in first-year courses is blind.
If Wax’s statements about the mismatch effect are “belittling,” that is not her fault. She has simply dared utter the facts about black academic underpreparedness that the diversity charade works overtime to conceal. It is the perverse consequence of affirmative action that the people who pull back the veil on that charade are the ones accused of doing damage to minorities.
The Dean needs to bring diversity of political thought into his faculty. Otherwise his claims of diversity are meaningless.
Thank you for your excellent contribution.
It struck me, too, as odd that blacks who score in the 80%ile on the LSAT are not able to graduate from UPenn Law.
What could be going on there to make this a reality?
The professor will assign an amount of reading and essay requirements which the average student in his class will find challenging.
In the 95th percentile course, the professor may cover lots of material that would give his elite students a competitive advantage when applying to elite positions, like Supreme Court clerk.
In a course room composed to 70th percentile students, the professor may only cover the materials that are absolutely needed to pass the bar exam. If a student is given too much material, and the material is not prioritized for him into "absolutely need to know" versus "nice to know", the student may fail.
The panoply of leftist causes has been demonstrated in practice to be universally invalid. Rather than admit the truth the practitioners of these grievous distortions react with bitterness and anger. What they cannot win by reason they attack with vitriol.
The left does invalidate themselves but the Right never helps it along they always wander off into the weeds trying to make some small point instead of pointing the very illegitimacy of the left. And you are right vitriol, bitterness and anger should not equal authority.
IMO you are confusing intelligence with college preparation.
For instance, an inner city high school valedictorian was admitted to an elite CS program. The typical student in this program has had several years of math including calculus BEFORE they enter the university. Her inner city school didn’t offer the same quality courses. The CS school curriculum is tailored to students both smart and prepared.The second year curriculum might be a third year or higher curriculum at other schools. She started behind her peers and had to have faculty pay special attention to her needs. She was putting in a lot of extra work to try to catch up. I can’t tell you if she did. There is no such thing as a “lighter workload” to stay with your peers. Only a small set of students are accepted out of many applicants. The schools are geared to having a class graduate on time.
At a non-elite school, I’d guess students have more time and less pressure.
Ivy grad schools were not formed for anyone below 92%. There is no grading on the curve, no A's for effort. To be a professional with a degree from Penn Law means you have to know your stuff, because typically the Ivy law schools are the pipeline to the best law firms with the toughest requirements, the judiciary, and top government jobs. It is a disservice to the 80 percenters to allow them to think 80% is good enough.
It would be like drafting a kid who is only 5'4" to play top collegiate basketball amidst a team of 6'6"ers and 7 footers in order to make him feel better about himself.
And that, my FRiends, is precisely the goal of the seditious Alinskyites nationwide.
Thank you Varda for your reply!
You are giving an example of what I do understand. Someone being dropped into College Calculus without having passed Algebra. So your inner city valedictorian was unprepared and in order to pass would need to graduate later than her peers. Knowing how young people think, I expect this would be tragic.
In my view, she works hard, gets help from teachers, eventually becomes competent and gets smarter, much smarter than she would have at any other school. Graduates years later than her peers (so what) gets a good job and designs a new hardware software integration technology that enables the world to cure cancer.
Are you saying that she was accepted under an affirmative action policy which should have predicted her failure and didn’t care? That accepting her into a program which she was bound to fail possibly ruined her life and did demonstrable harm? I know you said you don’t know how she turned out, but as part of the discussion of the affirmative action policy at Penn Law, what do you say?
—Ivy grad schools were not formed for anyone below 92%.—
Thanks for your post Albion Wilde!
I am in doubt about your point because of the information in the article posted. The harms referenced in the article are that blacks do not graduate in the top quarter of their class, and that only 78% of blacks from UPenn Law pass the bar on their first attempt. Did I read it right?
These do not strike me as problems, especially if your point is true, that just being a UPenn Grad is the ticket. So are all the 80% blacks indeed not graduating? Are the 80% blacks allowed to practice law if they pass the bar on their fifth attempt? Before I hire a UPenn grad lawyer, should I ask where he placed in his graduating class?
Reread it and understand that 22% of all black test takers never passed even after five attempts. 78% passed it eventually and are out there practicing law now.
Yep, I think you nailed it. Graduating years later than her peers is not an option at many schools. Sink or swim and they let too many sink who could have succeeded somewhere else. Go somewhere else and come back later for graduate school after having filled the holes in her preparation. She was smart but not prepared to run with the big dogs (high SAT scores) in her class. Catching up in that environment would be very difficult.
I don’t know the reason they admitted her. I would guess it’s AA. Every school wants to look inclusive. I see it as a keeping up with the Jones’ kind of thing.
My point is not anti-civil rights for blacks; far from it. Affirmative action has been more good than bad across society as a whole. But I do believe that affirmative action wrongly applied does more harm than good, as the article points out.
I noted your correction to part of what you misunderstood about those who do graduate and pass the bar after several attempts.
As for “just being a UPenn Grad is the ticket” — not at all. Penn grads, and all Ivy law grads, have to be able to perform at a very high standard, and upon completing the grueling work of the courses and the bar exam, they then get to call themselves an Ivy law grad. Only if the Ivies uphold a high standards can their “brands” continue to be an indicator to future employers of a high level of competence.
As for where a person placed in his or her class, I think employers have been asking that forever. These days, asking a black person may be taken as an offense by them unless it is presented as a normal requirement of all applicants, such as on the printed job application with many questions to fill out.
I knew a white male who graduated at the bottom of his class from an Ivy law school in the mid-60s and of course took frequent ribbing from his classmates, many of whom had scored jobs in big law firms, city government, the state or federal district attorney’s offices or the bench. He went to work as a public defender and did that for about 20 years until he finally scored a job as a state-level assistant DA, a higher professional step.
My point being, it’s not just blacks who score low — in a class of X number, some are the lowest. But even the lower scoring persons who were 92nd percentile and above on the LSAT and completed law school are going to be better equipped to handle the competition, work load and ethical challenges and be able to score the court victories than the person who started out at the 80th LSAT percentile.
In all areas of social contention, I believe it is better for the People to vote on issues and for those who want to change society do so by selling their case to the American people and proving their worth. Unfortunately, we have evolved a system where unelected federal judges overturn the will of the people in order to jam their agenda down everyone’s throat before it is fully ready to come out of the oven, as they did with abortion and gay marriage, both issues that had been rejected by majorities in most states. The outcome has been social disorder and political strife.
Another feature of the “equal outcomes” racial agenda is to use faulty statistical manipulations to force issues, such as the Obama plan for schools to avoid suspending school troublemakers unless an equal number of whites as blacks get suspended, or the plans in many areas that the number of traffic stops must be equal. This kind of thinking does nothing to help people rise out of the behaviors associated with poverty, lack of opportunity, etc. If more blacks than whites get arrested for speeding, maybe more blacks do the speeding and express their understandable social rage behind the wheel instead of in sports or some constructive way. But it’s not politically correct to point to the results of social inequality, as the Penn professor did who got bounced from her position.
You have misunderstood the article.
The "her" in the article is a law school professor, not a student.
She was removed from teaching a first-year class because she was thought unable to be politically correct, not because of professional insufficiency regarding the law.
She pointed out that blacks do not do as well as whites at Penn Law, and that affirmative action does not help Penn Law students to succeed, but rather hurts them as they struggle to keep up with those who intellectually merited the high standards of entrance.
Amen
Recall if you will Anita Hill.
What you described is exactly what Anita Hill learned when she came to Washington. The real world was not even close to what she had been taught and her ability did not measure up to those she worked with
I was responding to a generic question BDParrish asked about students. My reference was about a student I knew about.
It was somewhat off topic, sorry.
I apologize. But I also encourage you and every freeper to put the post they are responding to in italics before posting a reply. Makes it so much easier to understand the thread, which jumps around.
What? Did you dare say the emperor is naked? To the prison with you!
White libs are so racist they can’t even see how racist their bigotry of low expectations is. White people expressing that Black Lives Matter is good while All Lives Matter is bad, are as brain washed as a Scientologist.
Thank you so much for your answer!
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