LSAT correlates to success in law school Forum

[JustDude]

Because I am not Black, Puerto Rican, Mexican, or American Indian, I am not able to fully comprehend the challenges which these groups have faced historically and still face today. I'm sure that many still face incredible difficulty. Therefore, I try to avoid passing any judgement on the effectiveness or moral correctness of affirmative action.

Nevertheless, I have two questions for affirmative action supporters;

1) Is it morally correct to give all URMs equal boost, regardless of socioeconomic background? Don't affluent URMs steal the spots from the URMs that affirmative action is designed to help?

2) How can it be fair that URMs receive a boost, while other equally (or significantly more disadvantaged groups) don't?-- I think of Hmongs, Australian Aborigines, Taiwanese Aborigines, Tibetans, Burmese, and many other racial or ethnic groups that have been destroyed and economically supressed throughout history-- and still are today.

This is out of scope, but Mormons had both the states of Illinois and Missouri draft extermination orders which made it legal and encouraged to kill them on sight. Missouri did not take their law off of the books until 1977. Should Mormons receive a boost because two state governments tried to wipe them off the face of the earth?

I see I see. What does you screenname mean???


Plus those Hmong. Were they discriminated in US??? No??? Well, too bad!!!!

[gossipgirl]

It would be awkward to not have the number of URMs in schools right now. I'm a non-URM minority and before I went to UG, I went to a school district with the majority of students being minorities. Going to my UG where the number is much lower seemed strange to me and a bit uncomfortable at first. I can't imagine how it would be without AA; it certainly would not be a school I would like to attend.

You are dorky liberal asian girl. Am I right?

Dorky center-right south asian guy, haha

[JustDude]

It would be awkward to not have the number of URMs in schools right now. I'm a non-URM minority and before I went to UG, I went to a school district with the majority of students being minorities. Going to my UG where the number is much lower seemed strange to me and a bit uncomfortable at first. I can't imagine how it would be without AA; it certainly would not be a school I would like to attend.

You are dorky liberal asian girl. Am I right?

Dorky center-right south asian guy, haha

Damnnnnnn... I already masturbated to you.......Ahhhhhhh...........NASSTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ccs224]

Affirmative action is a genocidal policy whose intent is to assimilate cultural and ethnic minorities into a white ruling class and therefore destroy the potentially productive breeding ground of resistance that is non-dominant culture by aligning the goals, ideologies and world views of potential leaders with those of the haute-bourgeoisie within an oppressive, exploitive and racist hierarchical system.

I don't opposse AA but the second half of your arguement is a good reflection of the goals of many progressives, white and black, though they may not realize it.

I don't disagree, though I might say our response would be more accurate if progressive (in a historical framework, versus what BO and HRC call themselves) was replaced with liberal.

[Kohinoor]

Because I am not Black, Puerto Rican, Mexican, or American Indian, I am not able to fully comprehend the challenges which these groups have faced historically and still face today. I'm sure that many still face incredible difficulty. Therefore, I try to avoid passing any judgement on the effectiveness or moral correctness of affirmative action.

Nevertheless, I have two questions for affirmative action supporters;

1) Is it morally correct to give all URMs equal boost, regardless of socioeconomic background? Don't affluent URMs steal the spots from the URMs that affirmative action is designed to help?

2) How can it be fair that URMs receive a boost, while other equally (or significantly more disadvantaged groups) don't?-- I think of Hmongs, Australian Aborigines, Taiwanese Aborigines, Tibetans, Burmese, and many other racial or ethnic groups that have been destroyed and economically supressed throughout history-- and still are today.

This is out of scope, but Mormons had both the states of Illinois and Missouri draft extermination orders which made it legal and encouraged to kill them on sight. Missouri did not take their law off of the books until 1977. Should Mormons receive a boost because two state governments tried to wipe them off the face of the earth?

1) Is AA designed to help poor URMs? I thought the goal was to target underrepresented groups period.

2) You're focusing on disadvantage rather than underrepresentation. If they're also underrepresented and are a significant part of the population whose interests do not align with those of any other minority group, then it is a problem.

[vanwinkle]

Your consistently I-know-better tone is annoying.

I'll concede if you can solidly rebut me. You're free to prove me wrong with a better argument if you don't like what I'm saying. Until then I'm going to continue with the assumption I know what I'm talking about, and I consider that fair.

It's actually pretty easy to deny that his responses/explanations are correct. All you have to do is believe that there's such a thing as a legitimate anti-AA argument.

I challenge you to provide one. If you can't then I'm free to keep asserting one doesn't exist.

Even if you can provide any kind of decent argument there, which I doubt, that doesn't disprove everything else I've said. I'm just denying that one has been presented, and for now that's still true. If you can come up with one, that doesn't automatically disprove everything I've said, just that one part. At that point I'd only concede that one part and what effects it has on the rest of my argument, and not the rest.

And that's if you can produce such an argument, which you haven't.

[T14_Scholly]

2) You're focusing on disadvantage rather than underrepresentation. If they're also underrepresented and are a significant part of the population whose interests do not align with those of any other minority group, then it is a problem.

It seems to me that a number of the AA supporters on this thread have been using disadvantage as a justification, though.

[vanwinkle]

2) You're focusing on disadvantage rather than underrepresentation. If they're also underrepresented and are a significant part of the population whose interests do not align with those of any other minority group, then it is a problem.

It seems to me that a number of the AA supporters on this thread have been using disadvantage as a justification, though.

It's an additional moral justification, and it helps in some contexts to explain this part because the two are related (disadvantage in the US led to the underrepresentation in the URM categories). However, the legal argument focuses on the underrepresentation itself and how this program is demonstrably necessary using analysis of data regarding admissions with and without various types of AA-type programs.

Not all who have been disadvantaged in the past are currently underrepresented (see Asian-Americans), and not all disadvantage has been in the US or caused any US underrepresentation (see discussions on Roma people). This is where people have trouble understanding the distinction between the two. Having been disadvantaged is not the main thrust of AA. While AA does work to assist classes that have been historically disadvantaged, it only does so in cases where they are currently underrepresented in American secondary education systems.

So people have been bringing up the disadvantage argument also, but Kohinoor is still right that underrepresentation is the appropriate focus. Disadvantage is a worthy topic of discussion in the debate, but being disadvantaged doesn't in itself mean you're underrepresented.

[20121109]

2) You're focusing on disadvantage rather than underrepresentation. If they're also underrepresented and are a significant part of the population whose interests do not align with those of any other minority group, then it is a problem.

It seems to me that a number of the AA supporters on this thread have been using disadvantage as a justification, though.

Ok. Let's talk about this disadvantaged thing and the underrepresented thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole concept of URM status is that you are part of a race that is underrepresented in the field of law, relative to their representation in American society as a whole. Though there are a substantial amount of white people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, this has absolutely zero effect on the representation of whites in the legal community. However, the fact that a majority of blacks/latinos/Native Americans are socioeconomically disadvantaged has a palpable effect on the representation of minorities, not just in the legal field but in professional occupations in general, leading to their under-represented status.

A lot of people argue for socioeconomic consideration in these debates, and although there is some merit, this argument essentially misses the point of URM status. If poor whites were given a boost, it would not remedy any kind of under-representation in the legal community for whites for obvious reasons. However, if poor blacks/latinos/Native Americans, or even rich blacks/latinos/Native Americans are given a boost, it would at least help these races become better represented. URM status is not trying to resolve the disparity of class, its trying to resolve the disparity of race, relative to their representation in society.

...And what Vanwinkle said, lol...

[vanwinkle]

URM status is not trying to resolve the disparity of class, its trying to resolve the disparity of race, relative to their representation in society.

This is a good line/point, I may borrow it sometime.

[HiLine]

That LSAT correlates to success in law school demonstrates a ceteris paribus effect. This means among people from the same background, including but not limited to race, those who score higher on the LSAT tend to gain more success in law school. You can't compare the expected success of a low-LSAT URM with that of a high-LSAT non-URM just based on the aforementioned correlation since they come from different backgrounds. Hope that resolves part of the discrepancy.

[T14_Scholly]

Let me just ask this question for the sake of my own education: what's the practical policy reason for ensuring that each racial group is represented in the legal profession in proportion to the racial make-up of the population at large?

[vanwinkle]

Let me just ask this question for the sake of my own education: what's the practical policy reason for ensuring that each racial group is represented in the legal profession in proportion to the racial make-up of the population at large?

There are a few but they're all related: Helping to achieve racial equality by ensuring equal access to higher education by all races, improving diversity of opinion in higher education by ensuring the presence of minority voices that would otherwise be excluded, helping provide those of underrepresented races an education that could lead to better political and socioeconomic representation, etc.

Essentially it helps ensure that top law schools (and top schools in general) don't just end up as one big mass of whites and Asians, which is what would happen without at least some form of race-aware admissions policy. This benefits those minorities in two ways, by ensuring their POV can be represented and shared in those schools, and helping give some of them access to post-graduation opportunities they'd only get if they attended top law schools.

These gains are compared to the negative effects on overrepresented groups. Under a narrowly tailored Grutter-type admissions policy, they still have adequate access to secondary education (none of them are getting shut out of schools, and those having to settle for a "lesser" education are still getting one, just slightly less so). Those groups also benefit from the increased diversity on campus as it improves their education to hear those additional viewpoints.

Thus whites and Asians lose a little something, but also gain a little something, from the trade-off. Blacks, Hispanics, and NAs lose greatly without AA, and their voices are lost for everyone else there too.

Lastly, AA is a self-limiting concept. As URMs get greater access to education their overall numbers should (very slowly) improve. The more they improve the less "boost" necessary to admit them, and the necessity of AA should very slowly fade away over a few more generations.

In theory anyway. This is admittedly unproven, but the only way to test it is to actually let it run for a few generations and see if it does have long-term results. But those who support AA hope it will be proven worthwhile, think the short-term benefits of diverse representation also help justify it, the costs to overrepresented groups are relatively very small, and acting in this way is better than doing nothing.

[vanwinkle]

Oh, and from a sociological perspective, it could help overcome URMs' historic distrust of the education system. As late as the 1960s public schools in large parts of the country segregated individuals based on race and the minorities knew they were getting the worse schools and a worse education. As a result there is a lot of distrust in those communities that could be a part of why they don't end up represented equally (they don't encourage their kids to try because they couldn't do it when they tried, and so the cycle continues).

Offering them space to those that want it can help rebuild cultural trust in the education system. Gradually as they get used to having access to higher education those groups will hopefully work harder to take advantage of those opportunities and rise their numbers to equal representation.

This is one of those secondary "disadvantage" arguments, but it does tie in to why they're currently underrepresented. This country spent decades teaching blacks and Hispanics they can't go to the good schools no matter how hard they try. Now we need to help them unlearn that, and that will take time.

[Kohinoor]

Let me just ask this question for the sake of my own education: what's the practical policy reason for ensuring that each racial group is represented in the legal profession in proportion to the racial make-up of the population at large?

marketplace of ideas. BAM!

[Jules Winnfield]

An intriguing question is how else would those who oppose AA/URM boosts ensure racial/cultural diversity on law school campuses and prevent the subsequent overrepresentation of whites and Asians in the legal profession, should AA/URM boosts be done away with altogether. I'm genuinely interested in hearing the responses.

[ram jam]

There are those that learn English as a second language. The lsat is language, and more specifically, English intensive. URMs who learned English as a second language have a very legitimate argument for a "boost". In an ideal world, those that learned English as their first language should receive no such boost.

[rayiner]

An intriguing question is how else would those who oppose AA/URM boosts ensure racial/cultural diversity on law school campuses and prevent the subsequent overrepresentation of whites and Asians in the legal profession, should AA/URM boosts be done away with altogether. I'm genuinely interested in hearing the responses.

Racial diversity is important? And Asians don't count as adding to it?

[20121109]

There are those that learn English as a second language. The lsat is language, and more specifically, English intensive. URMs who learned English as a second language have a very legitimate argument for a "boost". In an ideal world, those that learned English as their first language should receive no such boost.

You're only considering a boost legitimate based on whether or not one is fluent with English? Do you honestly feel there is no other plausible reason? Please elaborate.

[Jules Winnfield]

An intriguing question is how else would those who oppose AA/URM boosts ensure racial/cultural diversity on law school campuses and prevent the subsequent overrepresentation of whites and Asians in the legal profession, should AA/URM boosts be done away with altogether. I'm genuinely interested in hearing the responses.

Racial diversity is important? And Asians don't count as adding to it?

Well, the legal profession, much like any other industry, seeks to gain as much clientele as feasibly possible. in order to expand their clientele, law firms, regardless of size, will look to reach out to potential clients of various racial/cultural backgrounds. In seeking clientele of various ethnic/racial backgrounds, law firms are aware that there is a higher probability of attaining diverse clientele (and, thus, expanding their client bases) by employing associates/partners of their own who are racially/culturally diverse. In doing so, law firms can at least appear to be conscious of the needs of their clientele.

While Asians do count for adding diversity, they do not represent the diversity of most law firms' clientele. While there are certainly Asian clients, there are also Black clients, Latino clients, Native American clients, etc.

Furthermore, AA seeks to repair the disparity in numbers between overly-represented racial/cultural groups and under-represented racial/cultural groups.

[vanwinkle]

An intriguing question is how else would those who oppose AA/URM boosts ensure racial/cultural diversity on law school campuses and prevent the subsequent overrepresentation of whites and Asians in the legal profession, should AA/URM boosts be done away with altogether. I'm genuinely interested in hearing the responses.

Racial diversity is important? And Asians don't count as adding to it?

I think he's responding to my commentary that whites and Asians are currently properly represented and would be overrepresented if URMs didn't exist. URMs actually displace more Asians than they do whites according to the research cited in Grutter and in other studies.

Asians count as adding to diversity, but people don't currently worry about them because they're represented well enough already.

[r2b2ct]

An intriguing question is how else would those who oppose AA/URM boosts ensure racial/cultural diversity on law school campuses and prevent the subsequent overrepresentation of whites and Asians in the legal profession, should AA/URM boosts be done away with altogether. I'm genuinely interested in hearing the responses.

Racial diversity is important? And Asians don't count as adding to it?

Depends on what the student population looks like. A school with only Asian and Caucasian people is less diverse than one with Asian, Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, and Native American people.

[T14_Scholly]

Why should any minority who went to a public high school and a decent undergrad not be able to get a high GPA and LSAT score? If many of them can't, there must be an underlying problem that AA is only applying a band-aid to.

[Jules Winnfield]

Why should any minority who went to a public high school and a decent undergrad not be able to get a high GPA and LSAT score? If many of them can't, there must be an underlying problem that AA is only applying a band-aid to.

It actually has plenty to do with the fact that even in education, there is a wide achievement gap. One must understand that many URMs lack the models of success and academic support from their domestic backgrounds. And while some do achieve high GPAs and LSAT scores, they're, on plenty of occasions, not even as high as their white counterparts whom, most of the time, come from households familiar with the school systems and the academic success demanded of all students.

Furthermore, one must remember that less than 50 years ago, public systems were still segregated, denying blacks and other minorities the equal educational opportunities that were enjoyed and taken advantage by whites. So to imply that because URMs have the same opportunities for success as their white counterparts because of the current availability of the public education system is quite disingenuous, considering the historical inequality experienced by URMs.

The underlying problem is really a web of many issues which range from poverty to under-representation to lack of opportunity.

At this point in time, the pros of employing AA/race-based consideration outweigh the cons of it employment. Simply put, while not perfect, AA is necessary in the educational admissions process.

[vanwinkle]

Why should any minority who went to a public high school and a decent undergrad not be able to get a high GPA and LSAT score? If many of them can't, there must be an underlying problem that AA is only applying a band-aid to.

AA also applies to undergrad institutions. Without it there might not be as many minorities attending "a decent undergrad" in the first place.

There is certainly an underlying problem, which is the historical disadvantage I've already discussed at length. AA is attempting to do more than apply a band-aid to that problem, though. It's attempting to provide a long-term solution to overcome the lasting effects that historical disadvantage has had on those classes of individuals.

Making blanket statements about what "must" be true before you even have the answers to the questions you ask indicates you're not being very open-minded about this.