A Systematic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools

Richard H. Sander

Presented by Anna Yang

Main Issue

• Despite the prevalence of affirmative action policies in higher education, scholars are only beginning to study seriously the relative costs and benefits of racial preferences in admissions.

• Do racial preferences in American law schools generate benefits to blacks that exceed the costs to blacks?– Black law school applicants are the largest intended group

of beneficiaries of affirmative action– This study focuses solely on black and white law school

applicants• Case for affirmative action most compelling for blacks• Data on blacks in most extensive• Law school admissions treat blacks as a uniform group

Why is it interesting?

• The “costs” of affirmative action on blacks have always been thought of as the stigma or negative stereotype of lowered admission standards

• The study focuses on more tangible and easily measured principal costs such as lower actual academic performance that results from preferential admissions– A student who gains admission to a more elite school on

non-academic grounds is likely to struggle more academically

– Results in higher attrition rates, lower pass rates on the bar exam, problems in the job market

• How large are these effects and whether their consequences outweigh the benefits of greater prestige

Key findings• The levels of racial preferences in American law

schools are very large and remarkably similar– Hard to distinguish/ no control group

• Black students admitted through preference have significantly lower grades in law school– Median black student starting law school in 1999 received

first year grades comparable to a white student in the 7th or 8th percentile

• These low grades substantially handicap black students and their efforts to graduate and pass the bar exam– In 1991, only 45% of black law students completed law

school and passed the bar on first attempt (Sander estimates 74% w/o racial preference)

Key Findings (cont.)• The job market benefits of attending an elite school is

severely overrated. – Better grades trump college prestige

– Most black lawyers would have higher earnings in absence of preferential admissions

• No indication that racial preference produces more black lawyers – 86% of current black law students would’ve been admitted

to law school under a race-blind system

– Lower attrition rates would possibly increase the number of black lawyers

• Cost of Affirmative Action >>>> Benefits

Law School Admission Practices

• Admissions Curve– Scenario one: an admissions process where race is only a

“tie-breaker”– Scenario two: a multifaceted admissions process that relies

heavily on subjective criteria (extracurriculars, etc.) and considers race as a diversity factor

– Scenario three: an admissions process that relies primarily on the academic index and awards substantial points to black applicants

– Scenario four: an admissions process that relies primarily on academic index but evaluates each racial group separately

Academic index = 0.4 (UGPA) + 0.6 (LSAT)

Analyzing Michigan Law School Admission Practices in 1999

• Admissions system awarded a maximum of 150 points– Up to 110 pts for academic performance– 10 pts for Michigan residency– 4 pts for alumni children– Up to 3 pts for outstanding essays– Up to 5 pts for personal achievements– 20 pts for blacks/hispanic applicants

• On the 1000-pt scale of admission curve figures, this translates to a minority boost of over 100 pts

• Black and white applicants were not in the same “playing field” in admissions– Race trumps all other diversity factor combined

Analyzing Michigan Law School Admission Practices in 1999

• Logistic Regression– Evaluates the significance of some yes-or-no predictors on admissions

decisions– Gauge how much weight is given to particular sets of factors in

admissions decisions • Estimate the importance of the unknown by weighing the importance of the

known

• Somer’s D – Predicts the proportion of admissions outcomes that can be successfully

predicted by knowing the academic index and the race of the applicants • Somer’s D = 0.88 for whites, 0.90 for blacks at Michigan Law

in 1999– Controlling academic credentials, residency status, and race– Knowing these measurable stats allows us to reduce the guesswork

involved in predicting an individual’s admission by 88%– More mechanical and less driven by nonracial diversity factors

The Cascade Effect

• Racial preference does not only exist at elite schools • Top-tier schools snatch up most qualified applicants,

other tiers follow suit– The academic index gap between white and blacks remain

the same up and down the hierarchy of law schools

• LSAC Analysis– 95% of the nation’s accredited law schools and most of the

state bar examiners participated

– 1991 – 1997

– The racial gap of academic index does not disappear at lower-tier schools

Summary

• Law school admissions offices reply primarily on academic indices in selecting their students

• Since the number of blacks with high academic scores is small, elite law schools achieve something close to proportional representation either by maintaining separate black and white admission tracks or by giving black applicants large numerical boosts

• Cascade effect: The use of these preferences by elite schools gives nearly all other law schools little choice but the follow suit

Effects of Affirmative Action on Academic Performance in Law Schools

• Uses comprehensive LSAC-BPS data

• Converts each student’s first year GPA and graduation GPA into a number standarized for each school

• Findings: Low black performance is simply the direct consequence of the disparity in entering credentials between blacks and whites at elite schools

Strongest predictors of first yr law school grades: LSAT Score and UGPA

Black students’ academic performance do not adjust overtime

Black students are less likely to graduate law school

Academic Performance is the most important indicator of Graduation

Affirmative Action has a negative effect on black graduation rates

Two phenomenons and their effects on attrition rates

• Boosting of blacks from schools where they would have average grades to more elite schools where they would have poor grades– Adds 4 to 5 points to the black attrition rate

• The Cascade Effect: lower tier schools admit black students who would not be admitted to any schools in absence of racial preferences – Adds 6 to 7 points to the black attrition rate

Effects of Affirmative Action on Passing the Bar

• Nationally established standards and administering

• While each individual state adds its own portion of the exam, the bar exam itself is produced by the national professional boards

• Only 61.4% of black takers in the national LSAC-BPS study passed the bar on their first attempt

• Blacks four times as likely to fail on their first attempt as whites

Academic performance is the strongest factor for bar exam passing

Blacks have a much higher chance of failing the bar than whites

Explanations for the black-white gap

• Lower GPAs– GPA is the strongest determinant of passing the bar

• The Cascade Effect– A large number of black students enter law school with

very low academic credentials– In 1991, 22% of black students matriculating had an

academic index of 500 or less; 0.2% of whites had scores in this range (LSAC-BPS)

– Among students of all races in this range, 60% fail their bar on their first attempt

• Both are byproducts of affirmative action

Theories for the black-white gap

• Academic mismatch– Elite law schools do not mainly focus on passing

the bar– The lonely struggle and the snowball effect– First semester black law students reported

spending similar time studying as white students but but found themselves substantially less prepared for class (1995 National Survey of Law Student Performance)

The Job Market

• Most powerful predictor of earnings:1. Job Location

1. First tier: New York

2. 2nd tier: Washington, LA, Chicago, San Francisco

3. 3rd tier: Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis

2. Law School GPA

3. School Prestige (a distant third)

• Most powerful predictor of earnings:

Outside of top 10 law schools, there is a large market penalty for being in or near

the bottom of the class

GPA and earnings for black students in the AJD Sample

Flawed system

• Race preference allows black students to attend a more prestigious school, therefore, this results in better jobs based solely on prestige

• Analysis shows that employers place more emphasis on academic performance over prestige

• Analysis also shows that employers are more willing to offer jobs to black applicants

• The absence of preference would greatly increase the supply of blacks with high grades

Effects of elimination of affirmative action on black lawyers

• Sander’s claim: the annual production of new black lawyers would probably increase if racial preferences were abolished tomorrow

• Current racial preferences boost black applicants up one to two tiers of prestige

Race-blind admissions

Implications of Results

• Justice O’Connor was wrong– Univ. of Michigan’s law school, just like its undergraduate

college, was definitely adding academic indices for black applicants or using separate admission decisions

• Racial preference is not indispensable, and works against having a reasonable number of blacks in the legal field

• Blacks are actually the victims of law school programs with affirmative action.

Suggestions

• Get rid of it• Minimum percentage

– Prevent black enrollment form falling below 4% of total enrollment

– Since preference is smaller, academic gaps would be smaller between black and white students

– Still ensure significant black presence– The most significant black-white gap would be at

elite schools where harmful side effects of aff action for blacks are minimized and positive effects are maximized