First off, I want to introduce you all to a new blog: www.MUFederalists.com/weblog. It’s the blog of the officers of the Marquette Law School chapter of the Federalist Society, of which I am one. I will be among the contributors to the blog, which will focus on legal issues from conservative and libertarian perspectives. Please bookmark it or add it to your RSS reader – it will be well worth reading. (Please also note that the Federalist Society is a 501c3 educational organization, and the opinions expressed on the blog are soley those of the writers and not the organization as a whole).
I paste below for all of you my most recent blog post there, which deals with Racial Preferences in Law School Admissions, particularly my own institution, Marquette:
Admissions of minority students to Marquette has been a hot topic of late. The issue of low numbers of minority students has been particularly pronounced at the law school. Former law professor Christine Hurt, who served on MULS’s admissions committee, lays out the problem last year on Concurring Opinions:
For schools like Marquette, in the middle of the rankings, with a small faculty, administration and budget, cold, hard numbers are our problem when it comes to increasing diversity. Putting aside debates as to whether affirmative action is good, bad, constitutional, unconstitutional or whatever, the most affirmative action-minded admissions committee has to make very difficult choices in an environment of scarcity. Scarcity of applicants; scarcity of dollars.
Her whole post is well worth reading. It points out that Marquette does what it can to recruit minority students, according to Prof. Hurt:
Marquette’s problem is not that we don’t admit minority candidates. The percentage of minority candidates in our “admit” pool is larger than the percentage of minority candidates in our “applicant” pool. In fact, the percentage of minority applicants who become admits is larger than the percentage of nonminority applicants who become admits.
Last year a Tribune story reported on a report ranking MULS as one of the “most white” law schools in the nation. The paper reported that:
Marquette tries to enroll a variety of different racial, ethnic, geographic, gender and age groups, said Sean Reilly, assistant dean for admissions at Marquette Law School. “Diversity is important to us,” Reilly said. “It is a challenge for us, but we try to enroll as diverse and as qualified of a class as possible.”
Prof. McAdams over at the Marquette Warrior blog took the study on which the Tribune story was based to task, as he ought in that instance, citing some work by Prof. Rick Sander of UCLA Law School.
Well, Prof. Sander has founded some fans beyond Prof. McAdams’ readers. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has just issued a new report on racial preferences in law school admissions. Prof. Sander’s empirical research features heavily in leading the Commission to certain conclusions:
This Commission finds that “admitting students into law schools for which they might not academically be prepared could harm their academic performance and hinder their ability to obtain secure and gainful employment…” Moreover, the Commission finds that racial preferences might also contribute to racial income and wealth disparities. The Commission expresses particular concern about the lack of transparency in law school admissions, urging legislation to require federally-funded law schools to publicly disclose their use of racial preferences. …
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.”
The Commission specifically scolded the ABA’s new racial diversity standards, which had prompted Prof. Hurt’s post referenced above. You can read the full report online. I hope several members of the Marquette Law faculty take the time to do so, and consider what it means for our admissions policies. I hope members of the undergraduate admissions team and the racial diversity at all costs pushers read it also, because while the data is from law schools, certainly the lessons have more general applicability.
HT: ProfessorBainbridge, via Mirror of Justice.
Last 5 posts by Daniel- Tom Barrett's Savings Plan - June 8th, 2010
- C.J. Abrahamson on J. Stevens - April 11th, 2010
- Why always Bill Bablitch? - March 24th, 2010
- Suhr on Nixon on Health Care - February 23rd, 2010
- Did the USCCB Foresee Dead People? - February 8th, 2010
I would like to begin by saying that I am an “Under Represented Minority,” as a Chicano/Mexican American. I am also a potential student at Marquette University Law School.
The issue at hand here is one that I have held a firm opinion on for quite some time now, and I appreciate the forum to express it. I was sold, as a teenager, on the ideas of manhood. Men are strong, they handle their business, fulfill their obligations and responsibilities, and don’t make excuses; we accept that our lack of effort in an area will have negative consequences, although we still work hard to overcome them.
The world of today is one that would like to see all people happy. People do not allow their children to fail, do not allow them to experience pain. We shelter our children and even our society from pain in order to protect our own emotional wellbeing. WE would feel badly if we had something that another did not. WE would feel badly to see our child cry or be upset. WE have begun making decisions out of emotion rather than understanding.
The same is true of the continuation of the preferential treatment of minorities hidden behind the cloak of civil rights. It has become emotional, and we are no longer thinking reasonably. I agree with part of the statement made by Chairman Reynolds, it is detrimental to minorities to show them preferential treatment, and we do need to address issues much earlier in education. I do not, however, think it is because we are “setting them up for failure,” by allowing them into law school. I think it is because we are setting them up for failure by allowing them to believe that the world owes them something because of what they were born into. I believe that we are setting them up for failure because we are creating a sense of entitlement that is contrary to the collective work ethic that our nation was built on. I believe that we are setting them up for failure beacause we are not producing healthy, functional, independent men; rather, we are producing a generation of needy, entitled, weak boys.
We need to go back to the fundamentals. We need to instill strong values and a work ethic in our children. We need to give them the backbone to deal with life, and to make good decisions. We need to give them identity so that they don’t feel the need to find it through friends, music videos, and T.V. personalities. I’ve seen one too many pairs of boxers from a confused kid who thinks that wearing a belt to keep his pants up isn’t cool. I’ve seen one too many kid that can’t deal with failure, can’t push back with effort rather than saying “F*** You” “F*** This” when they are pushed. One too many kid that lacks the self-discipline to do things that they don’t want to do, simply because they need to be done.
While we have begun to value identity, we have placed too much emphasis one “what I want” rather than what is right. In all things we need a balance, and that balance will be achieved only when we allow ourselves to understand the REAL issues, and begin to address those issues in a constructive way. I firmly believe that preferential treatment is not the right way.