On Friday I discussed a body of research – all of it uncontroverted – that documents a serious flaw in affirmative action programs pursued by elite colleges. Students who receive large preferences and arrive on campus hoping to major in STEM fields (e.g., Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) tend to migrate out of those fields […]
Tag Archives | Affirmative Action
The Problem of “Science Mismatch”
Some of the most significant recent work on affirmative action concerns a phenomenon called “science mismatch”. The idea behind science mismatch is very intuitive: if you are a high school senior interested in becoming, for example, a chemist, you may seriously harm your chances of success by attending a school where most of the other […]
Whatever Happened to the Mismatch Effect?
As some readers will recall, a little more than seven years ago I published an analysis of law school affirmative action in the Stanford Law Review. The article was the first to present detailed data on the operation and effects of racial preferences in law schools (focusing on blacks). I also laid out evidence suggesting […]
Randall Kennedy on Affirmative Action
Randall Kennedy, one of my favorite writers on race issues, has a provocative essay on affirmative action in the American Prospect. Kennedy’s argument is that in the last 20 years, the diversity rationale for affirmative action has proved surprisingly effective at making affirmative action considerably less controversial than it used to be. From the conclusion: […]