Why not ignore legacy admits and focus all our expendable energy on AA

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Dont straw man me please. More white lawyers has nothing to do with the injustice in this situation.  The injustice is the actual taking away of the level playing field

I'm sorry once again, but did you just attempt to actually use the term "Level Playing Field" in reference to white applicants?  You realize the enormous irony of applying that term to your argument in this context right?

[t...]

I added this to my post while you were posting yours, just wanted you to see that I did attempt to address this topic.  There are no panaceas; we all know this.  I simply think the current system is not optimal by any means.

What is ever optimal, though?

I don't think anyone has suggested current AA policy is optimal.

[t...]

Do some searches on LSN for people with mediocre numbers.  The difference is often more than an entire tier

Well, maybe. But tiers are a bit of an illusion anyway.

But the point is, the jump is rarely as large as you'd think. I mean, numbers that are median at Santa Clara and USF aren't getting into Stanford; Northeastern and Connecticut aren't getting T10.

But here's an example that concerns me - tell me what you think:
http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/display.php?user=TheRealMe

A 3.23/165 shouldn't get into Yale unless dude was URM, right?

Umm....

[t...]

I added this to my post while you were posting yours, just wanted you to see that I did attempt to address this topic.  There are no panaceas; we all know this.  I simply think the current system is not optimal by any means.

What is ever optimal, though?

I don't think anyone has suggested current AA policy is optimal.

Alright, last quick one, then you can have the floor, as I wont be able to reply:

Sure I agree that seldom can things be optimal, but if there is a way to improve something so it more closely affects it's intended targets, why not attempt to make this change?  You yourself said that the policy considerations behind AA and the URM system are based on socioeconomic disparities in large part.  I think there are lots of ways that could improve the system that would not be difficult to implement.  But none of these are being explored; minority groups don't want these race-based policies to change to more socioeconomic-based ones, not that I can blame them.

Who's suggesting the socio-economic factors aren't taken into consideration, and are part of that supposedly large URM boost? Or that it isn't taken into account for non-URM? Who really knows what ad-coms are looking for?

But I have no problems with race-based AA - even for those without a compelling socioeconomic disadvantage - because I feel there are many substantial benefits for increasing minority enrollment at all schools, top and bottom. And yeah, I feel those benefits far outweigh any supposed unfairness that is complained about.

[Lindbergh]

Legacy admits don't fuel racial (and social) tension?

I, for one, feel tense. 

That's just a homosexual panic.   

[Lindbergh]

The problem with AA supporters is that they keep wanting to ignore how negatively AA DOES affect race relations.  Just look around this board, and you can see what a problem it creates.  Anyone who's ever spent time talking to working class (or even middle-class) whites about this issue knows what a problem this is.  However, of course, this problem doesn't affect privileged whites, so they disregard it.

Strange.  It only seems to negatively affect race relations in threads you participate in. 

I guess you lack basic RC skills, then.  I saw racial antagonism in most AA threads before I ever posted.   
 

Also, race relations seem to be just fine at my school.  I guess there are no Lindberghs in attendance.

 

By "Lindberghs", do you mean URM's? 

If race relations are that fine among the privileged elite, even in the face of provocative, unjustified reverse discrimination, I guess AA is no longer necessary.    

[Lindbergh]

The problem with AA supporters is that they keep wanting to ignore how negatively AA DOES affect race relations.  Just look around this board, and you can see what a problem it creates.  Anyone who's ever spent time talking to working class (or even middle-class) whites about this issue knows what a problem this is.  However, of course, this problem doesn't affect privileged whites, so they disregard it.

Strange.  It only seems to negatively affect race relations in threads you participate in.   

Also, race relations seem to be just fine at my school.  I guess there are no Lindberghs in attendance.

 

The unspoken side effect of AA is that the policy effectively weeds out the Lindbergh's from the class - those damned URM's take their spot.

See above.  You privileged whites keep forgetting I AM a URM. 

I mean, I know we're the "invisible man", but geez...

[OperaAttorney]

The problem with AA supporters is that they keep wanting to ignore how negatively AA DOES affect race relations.  Just look around this board, and you can see what a problem it creates.  Anyone who's ever spent time talking to working class (or even middle-class) whites about this issue knows what a problem this is.  However, of course, this problem doesn't affect privileged whites, so they disregard it.

Strange.  It only seems to negatively affect race relations in threads you participate in.   

Also, race relations seem to be just fine at my school.  I guess there are no Lindberghs in attendance.

 

The unspoken side effect of AA is that the policy effectively weeds out the Lindbergh's from the class - those damned URM's take their spot.

See above.  You privileged whites keep forgetting I AM a URM. 

I mean, I know we're the "invisible man", but geez...

People keep forgetting you are a URM, Lindbergh, because you reason like an Uncle Tom. Just like Ward Connerly or Clarence Thomas. It's that simple.

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Each school in this nation (with the exception of CA and MI) is free to define its own diverse student body however it sees fit.  As long as they are doing this lawfully, who are we to say that their decision as an institution of higher learning to compose their own student body from a qualified pool of applicants is a "disadvantage" to any of us rising to the level of "injustice?"

If a law school chose to reject all applicants who were Jewish, or if they only accepted Evangelical Christians, I would consider this injustice. You do toss in the word "lawfully" there, so reasonable we can toss out such examples because religion is generally held to have some protected status, as is race. In fact, discriminating for or against any sort of suspect class is usually a big whopping no-no unless a compelling interest can be provided as to why it is advantageous to do so. AA has such a compelling interest, for many of the reasons you yourself have elaborated upon, and it is really only this that helps to give it legitimacy.

Unless, of course, you think that it is equally just for law schools to select only white students from the pool of potentially qualified applicants. No matter who is benefiting from the practice, different standards based solely upon race are nonsense without reasons as to why they are necessary.

You also are stretching it when you act as if white students don't at least nominally lose some seats at law schools due to AA. When you are holding people to different standards based solely upon their race, you are going to be pushing out some white students (and Asian students too, at least for UG) who otherwise would have gotten in under completely uniform standards. Of course, this really only means that instead of being able to go to Yale, one white guy is going to have to slum it at Harvard instead. Or instead of going to Columbia, slumming it downtown at NYU. The benefits of AA far, far outweigh the ridiculously marginal harms born by a few scattered individuals.

I agree with most of your argument here.  We may not agree with what "qualified" means, however.

Additionally, I would like to offer the following amicus curiae brief on the issue submitted to the US Supreme Court by LSAC during Grutter to perhaps better articulate my point:


"The inescapable lesson of the statistical evidence compiled year after year by LSAC is that unless America's law schools are allowed to adopt race-conscious admissions policies, many of the nation's lawyers will be trained in an environment of racial homogeneity that bears almost no relation to the world in which they will work, and in which all of us live.

That lesson has not been lost on LSAC member law schools: the vast majority have long recognized and acted upon the need to take explicit measures to ensure racially diverse student bodies. The United States does not dispute the existence of the problem, and indeed carefully refrains from urging this Court to bar law schools from adopting admissions policies with the explicit goal of affecting the racial makeup of their student populations. Even the plaintiff in this case makes no effort to deny the dramatic decline in racial diversity in the nation's law schools that would follow if her position in this case prevails. . .

For good reason, this Court generally defers to the judgments of the States and their expert educators on such questions. . .

Far more modest than these proposed alternatives is the actual practice of Michigan Law School and the overwhelming majority of the nation's law schools: including race among the many factors considered in assembling a class rich in diversity, experience, and potential. This approach assigns to numeric measures the weight they most appropriately carry. High test scores and grades are not an entitlement to law-school admission. Such criteria assess acquired verbal reasoning skills and certain other cognitive skills, but-as the LSAC has long noted-they do not capture many other qualities important to success both in law school and in the legal profession. And they say nothing about the degree to which an applicant's personal attributes-including but certainly not limited to race-might affect the mix of backgrounds, experiences, and ideas from which all students can learn. LSAC believes that the best possible system of legal education requires both that law schools continue to include among their admissions criteria numeric measures of certain cognitive skills, and that all law schools be permitted to include race among the many other applicant attributes schools consider in assembling a class that will maximize the educational experience all students receive. Especially in the absence of any other educationally responsible approach to

14 attaining racial and ethnic diversity, LSAC believes the Michigan Law School policy must be upheld as a constitutionally legitimate means of providing students the uncontested educational benefits of such diversity.

In support of that view, LSAC offers the Court the benefit of decades of experience and accumulated knowledge of the law school admissions process: what LSAC knows about the effect of selective admissions policies on the racial diversity of student populations, and what LSAC knows about both the value and the limitations of performance measures such as the LSAT and undergraduate grades."

[Miss P]

On a related note. For racial tension to exist two or more parties have to feel tense. If only one party is tense it is no longer racial tension, but rather racial anxiety. At this point you have to look internally

AA post of the week.