Race and social class issues are complicated. Most people have strong feelings about them, and our debased corporate media doesn’t make it any easier to think clearly about our society.
UCLA Law Professor Richard Sander is an important scholar on affirmative action. This is a topic I care about. For a number of years, I have argued that class-based affirmative action is desirable. The US Supreme Court is hostile to race-based affirmative action – but see Grutter v. Bollinger, in which the Court held that states have a compelling interest in racial diversity in law schools.
A class-based approach is race-neutral, although it could have an effect of promoting racial minorities.
Professor Sander wrote a fascinating paper on class-based affirmative action at UCLA Law School. Read it for yourself. He concludes that class-based affirmative action can be done, although the formula is more complicated than what is required for race-based programs. He also documents that the student population became less racially diverse, even as it became more economically diverse. This finding strongly supports those who argue that race-based affirmative action is essential to ethnic diversity on campus.
What about affirmative action in law firms? Minority graduates of fancy law schools get hired by better firms than white students with the same grades, but these new young lawyers don’t succeed in these jobs at the same rate as their white colleagues. Is this because of racism, or because the minority lawyers are not as talented? Professor Sander has done some work on this topic, too. Read this reply to his law firm work. His critics agree that his work is important, even if they have significantly different views about how to interpret his findings. For a taste of the media coverage, look here and here.
Now the professor wants to examine the consequences of race-based affirmative action in law school admissions. Is it possible that minority students at elite law schools would have been more successful if they had gone to less-elite schools? Professor Sander wants access to data from the State Bar of California about the academic backgrounds and bar exam scores of people who have taken the California Bar Examination. The State Bar won’t give it to him, and the result is a trip to court.
I support racial and class diversity in school. Professor Sander’s critics appear to see his work as a calculated attack on affirmative action. I am not personally acquainted with this scholar, but it seems to me that he is asking important questions. As a lawyer who spends a lot of time working with people who are preparing for the California Bar Examination, I’m always eager to get a look at the inner working of the State Bar, an institution that invites comparison to infamous totalitarian bureaucracies.
The professor doesn’t require any information that would identify a single bar candidate. In the past, the State Bar has cooperated with more than one study that has asked for and received personal information that included the identity of individuals. It’s obvious to me that the State Bar doesn’t want anybody looking at the real-world consequences of their practices.
Professor Sander should get the data he seeks. The profession will be better off as a result.