SUBSCRIBE
Getting this forwarded from a friend? Subscribe to get our newsletter delivered directly to you!

IN THIS ISSUE

Letter from Eva Paterson

EJS Annual Conference 2005 at UCLA

Cokorinos; Corporate Think Tanks Then and Now

Law Review Summaries on Corporate Law

Coalition to Monitor Judicial Nominations

Debunking Sanders' Myth: A Rebuttal

Pathways to Leadership in New Mexico

First Annual EJS Fundraiser Features Port Chicago Jazz

EJS, ACS Host Law Prof. Reception

EJS/SALT Panel on Strategic Scholarship

Staff/Board News and Notes

Become a Part of the Equal Justice Society

Newsletter Editors:
Elaine Elinson
Joe Lucero

Email Feedback

EJS Debunks Sander's "Mismatch" Myth: Assault on Affirmative Action Rooted in Questionable Data

In a controversial empirical critique of law school affirmative action in the January Stanford Law Review, UCLA Law Professor Richard Sander analyzes national law school admissions, grades, and bar exam data, and comes to the provocative conclusion that because African Americans are "mismatched" at law schools where they are set up to fail, ending affirmative action at ABA-accredited law schools would actually increase the number of African American attorneys by 8%.

EJS research associate Bill Kidder co-authored a critique of Sander with David Chambers and Rick Lempert of the University of Michigan Law School and Tim Clydesdale of the College of New Jersey. "The data show that Sander's questionable statistical methods cause him to seriously underestimate the harm of ending affirmative action, and to substantially overestimate the beneficial performance changes likely to occur without affirmative action," Kidder explains. "A more plausible estimate is that ending affirmative action would currently eliminate about one-quarter of African American lawyers, and would essentially resegregate elite law schools and leadership opportunities within the legal profession."

The critique, entitled "The Real Impact of Eliminating Affirmative Action in American Law Schools," will appear in the May 2005 Stanford Law Review; both a short and long version will be available on the EJS website [for the current draft click here].

Kidder also coauthored an essay with UCLA law professor Cheryl Harris, "The Mismatch Myth in Legal Education," which will appear in the Winter issue of the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. EJS has been working closely with a number of allies, including the African American Policy Forum, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the Society of American Law Teachers, to ensure that Sander's claims are appropriately challenged in the media, public arenas, and in academia.