Chewer Lawyers

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but here's something I noticed. I have worked almost all of my career in the personal injury field; I used to be an ambulance chaser, now I'm the ambulance chasers' opposition, as house field counsel for a major insurance carrier. While a Plaintiff's guy, I had occasion to conference a case before a judge who is still sitting, and used to be the presiding judge in one of the busier, more urban counties. I was representing three plaintiffs who happened to be Haitian. I'm not sure if this is true anywhere but NJ, but Haitians have "earned" the reputation of often filing fraudulent PI claims. I sit down to conference the matter w/ the 2 defendants' counsel, and the Judge looks at me and says: "So, Mr. Krupa, what can you tell me about these Haitian fakers?"

Whether that's what you're thinking or not, you should never say something like that in court, to other lawyers. Particularly not if you're the PRESIDING judge, for Christ's sake. I guess the point here is, stereotypes creep their way up the court system ladder, and even supposedly unbiased judges aren't immune. I know for a fact that other lawyers feel this way' I've heard them joking about it often enough. Be on the lookout for it, as it can adversely impact your clients.

Hope this helps; if this isn't what you need, critique and clarify and I'll rectify. Good luck on the assignment.

I find very little prejudice in document review. Sorry I can't help.

Thought of another instance. Maybe too specific as well, but it's kind of insidious, so it may be something you can stretch. Rutgers Law - Newark, my alma mater, is the law school second from the left politically (the only one more liberal in their outlook than nus is CUNY Law Schol in NYC). We are nicknamed "The Peoples' Electric Law School" for this reason.

One of the things that earned us this nickname is our MSP or Minority Student Program. Essentially, lowered admission standards are applied to 33% of the incoming class each year, based ostensibly on economic disadvantage, but it seems to disproportianately favor what are traditionally considered ethnic minorities. I withhold my own opinions on the programn, but Rutgers is also the State law school in NJ, and lots of folks go there that don't give a damn about the politics. Some of them resent the MSP program because there are post admission perks they get to the exclusion of non MSP students. And because of the politics of the institution, minority student organizations wield a great deal of power politically.

ANYWAY, a friend of mine ran afoul of the Black Student Union. I won't go into detail how, because this could maybe be traced back to him if I do. Suffice it to say that whether what he did was racist or not is highly subject ti interpretation. Personally, I didn't think it was. Many agreed w/ me. But a note was entered into his file, and after he took the Bar, his admission was withheld even after he passed the exam, for a few weeks, based on that note, by the character & fitness committee.

The upshot of all this is he once told me that one of his duties as a Judge's law clerk his first year out was to review & sort the resumes of the interviewees for his position the following year. He took any with obviously "black" sounding names and put them at the bottom of the pile. I have also noticed that in Jersey, the MSP has inspired an attitude in local attorneys (one once said to me: "Oh, you went to Rutgers? You must be a pretty smart white guy", because the general feeling is that if you got into Rutgers, since 33% of the class is a set aside, only the tip top non-MSP (read: white) applicants get in. And what do you think the attitude of Jersey attorneys is toward MSP graduates and their abilities?

I guess the point here is that "reverse" racism, in the form of affirmative action, has its pitfalls in fostering good ol' fashioned racism, even in the supposedly enlightened legal community.

Hope that helps or inspires you, but I fear it won't. Sorry.

Enlightened?

Igs?

I don't know anyone personally that ever really "supposed" the legal community to be enlightened. Although, to be honest, my lawyer buddies got the freaking BEST cigars and booze.

So they got that going for them. Which is nice.

We do get the best cigars and booze. What do you expect? All the members of our government are former lawyers. SInce we write, interpret & enforce all the laws, how could we not?

As to the more "enlightened" thing, that's a conceit the legal community holds about itself. That Shakespeare quote: "First, kill all the lawyers." has actually been interepreted to mean: "I am a potential tyrant poised to take over. I need those damn rights defending attorneys out of the way first." We hold ourselves up on a pedestal as the guardians of the rights of men, crusaders for the weak. WE pioneered the civil rights movement; LAWYERS were responsible for making the arguments that resulted in such bastions of human rights as the Miranda decision and Roe v. Wade. We perpetuate the ideal of a detached, independednt (from the influence of politics, as the other 2 branches are not) judiciary, one that is immune to such petty human weaknesses as racism. In our own minds, regardless of what the rest of society thinks of us, this is the ideal we represent.

We are GODS amongst insects, and they should never forget it.

As to the original query, I'll give you a personal, local issue first. I am a litigator in Orange County. Primarily business and probate at this point, though we take on just about anything and used to primarily do PI work. I can tell you for a fact that the most litigious insurance companies in Orange County (Mercury, Farmers, and State Farm), discriminate against hispanic claimants in Orange County. They are offered lower settlement amounts, far more cases are aggressively litigated, and they end up in trial more frequently. They know that Orange County juries are actively prejudiced against hispanics, and the insurance companies use their jury challenges to strike other hispanics from the jury.

On a more general, national level, the Bakke v. UC Regents of California Supreme Court Case (the one that basically said "affirmative action is okay if you don't have quotas) is a disgusting embarassment. Deciding which minority group is more deserving of special attention, and which need to be penalized (which, nowadays, are Asians) is a disgraceful balancing act that should have been declared unconstitutional under the 14th amendment a long, long time ago.

Ignore the man/R-Lu behind the curtain!

It's almost become an in-joke in O.C. Glad I could help.

There is no justice in this world, except that meted out by man. And there's precious little of that. Attorneys are people; some are good, some are bad. Other than the fact that we're highly trained warriors in the verbal disciplines with a strangehold on the court system, we're no different from any other profession.

I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t help you out Schwartz, but there is such a misunderstanding of affirmative action here, I am compelled to respond. I will note that I am aware that Iggy is relaying the school’s policy (or at least how students’ perceive it to be) and not his personal opinion.

It’s just hard for me to believe that what Iggy posted as Rutgers policy is actually true. The goal of affirmative action is to ensure that qualified members of underrepresented groups are given fair consideration during admissions decisions. Because of both explicit and subtle discrimination against certain groups of people, affirmative policies are meant to reduce access discrimination by requiring institutions to analyze their procedures to see whether their admission policies are somehow biased. Affirmative action does NOT mean admitting unqualified people or hitting a quota. If Rutgers is actually doing this, they are doing a disservice to everyone, including the people the policy is supposed to be helping.

Further, I think it’s important to note that a fundamental assumption of reverse racism is that underrepresented minority groups are “taking away spots from people who rightfully deserve to be there”. There’s an inherent sense of elitism and privilege here, assumptions that people fail to recognize.

A professor of mine does consulting work running diversity trainings and has written several books on the impact of racism on Whites in corporate America. He always starts his sessions asking people, “Would you prefer to compete for a promotion with 33 people or 100 people?" Most naturally would say 33. To understand this point is to understand the problem White men experience as corporation and schools move toward greater commitment to equal opportunity. Until the Civil and Women’s Rights movements, White men only had to compete against 33% of the adult population (i.e., the population of White men according to the U.S. census of 1970). But now, white men have to compete (at least by law) with the other 67% as well. This means that white men who were average or below average in abilities are having a more difficult time advancing.

It’s easy to see people’s frustrations here - increased competition with larger numbers of people whom many people believe to be inferior or deficient in some way naturally leads to psychological dysfunction. But I think a lot of these frustrations could be reduced if our society was truly educated about what affirmative actions is – and isn’t – and if institutions adhered to the policy as it was intended.

I write all this because I don't necessarily agree with Iggy that "reverse racism" fosters "good ol fashion racism." People raised in this country are socialized to have certain beliefs, and unfortunately certain people believe they have certain privileges - like attending certain schools. It is the very nature of our society that fosters "good ol fashioned racism," not this false notion of reverse racism.

People's sense of reverse discrimination are based largely on nontruths they hear from their school's, corporations, and the media. We had two Presidents - Reagan and Bush, Sr. - constantly attack affirmative action by presenting an image that all it takes to succeed is to be a person of color or a woman. The statistics, however, show the complete opposite. Our society in its current state needs these policies, and will for many years to come.

Sorry to rant here, but with many schools getting rid of affirmative action policies these days, it is a hot button topic in academia and of personal interest to myself. I just really hope that Iggy's description is a misrepresentation of Rutger's policy, because if it isn't I'm both saddened and angry at this news.

I have yet to meet a licensed attorney who doesn't understand affirmative action. It is a required area of study, and is a regular feature in bar review courses.

This is politically correct gobbledygook. Whenever you have a limited number of slots, there are going to be more qualified applicants than there are spots available. You have to have some basis to decide who gets in: it's fair to choose people based on grades, test scores, extra-curricular activities, or personal hardships that have some bearing on their qualifications; the color of their skin is not a valid criteria. And, even if it was (which, again, it isn't) doling out admissions based on race is prohibited by the fourteenth amendment of the United States.

Sounds you like you believe applicants should simply be assigned a number, or have to use their social security number, to ensure that bias does not occur. I absolutely agree! It's criminal that we allow individuals to discriminate based on their own personal prejudices, simply by removing names that don't "sound" familiar to them. I hope you don't mean that certain minority groups are deserving of special privileges, while others are not.

"Unqualified" is not the same thing as "less qualified." Affirmative action program universally result in ibndividuals with lower test scores and/or grades being admitted over those with higher test scores and/or grades. What I find amazing is that many minorities who also face discrimination, such as Asians and Jews, are hurt the most by affirmative action programs.

If we're going to bother giving students grades and making them take standardized tests, that seems like the best way to determine who "rightfully deserve to be there." Extra-curricular activities or personal/economic hardships that have some bearing on their field of study also seem like valid criteria. You believe that the color of a person's skin is a better way to choose? I find that judgmental and elitist.

People aren't frustrated about competition. They are frustrated by people with lower test scores, worse grades, and fewer extra-curricular qualifications being given preferential treatment based on the color of their skin. Why aren't you? It's not as though we see affirmative action revolving around economic background (many asians face just as many economic/language hurdles as blacks or hispanics), rather than race, which would make more sense and not run afoul of the fourteenth amendment.

You are so dead wrong it's not even funny.

You believe some minority groups should be discriminated against, and other minority groups receive preferential treatment? Whether you believe the end results of these policies are beneficial, that is a disgusting state of affairs. If you believe poverty is resulting in unfairly lowered grades and test results for students of low socioeconomic backgrounds, at least base "affirmative action" on that basis, rather than on race.

Every school and economic program should get rid of it. It's disgusting that governmental and quasi-governmental entities grant special status to those of designated racial backgrounds.

We have to agree to disagree as your comprehension of what I wrote isn't even close to what I said. I have not and will never argue that unqualified people be chosen over qualified. Further, you infer that I said admissions should be doled out based on race. Again, that's exactly what I was ranting against (see my comment about how Rutgers policy is troublesome to me). It is clear from your response that you don't have an understanding of Affirmative Action despite your assertion that you do. Further, it's clear that you have no understanding of privilege, particularly White privilege, if you think that grades and SATs, which are doled out by institutions that are embedded in institutional racism and sexism, have any merit as accurate assessment tools. There are tons of research showing those scores have little to no predictive abilities in how well someone will do in college when applied to people other than White men.

You said: "The goal of affirmative action is to ensure that qualified members of underrepresented groups are given fair consideration during admissions decisions." Do you, or do you not, believe that part of the fair consideration process is considering that person's ethnic background?

Please point out some to me. I haven't seen it. Every scrap of research I've seen indicates that current grades and test scores are fantastic predictors of what grades and test scores folks will receive in the future. How about Asians, are these sorts of benchmarks equally irrelevant?

If not grades and test scores, please tell me what objective criteria you believe is important for an admissions board to consider. I will consider your answer, but am probably done responding, as we're about as off topic as I care to be.

**As to your comment that: "It is clear from your response that you don't have an understanding of Affirmative Action despite your assertion that you do", affirmative action in the context of ethnicity comes into play whenever an applicant's race is considered whatsoever during the hiring/admissions process. Frankly, that information should not even be available to the admissions/hiring board (to prevent them from unilaterally imposing their own viewpoints), but if it is on the application or discernable from it, it shouldn't be mentioned, considered, or given any weight whatsoever. If you have a different viewpoint as to what affirmative action is, then I have to tell you that your definition is differed from what I believe the legal and sociological definition to be. An example of the definition I agree with is found here: http://www.answers.com/topic/affirma...on?cat=biz-fin

"Fair consideration" and "equal opportunity" does not mean "hand someone a job or admit them to this school". It means that schools and organizations should make a good faith effort to ensure that everyone has the same opportunities for consideration. If you look around your office and see only White men, it does not necessarily mean your company is racist or sexist. But the company should be concerned why women and people of color aren't part of the organization. Is it because they aren't applying? If so, why not? The company should want to know what is turning off these potential applicants and try and find out what would make the positions more attractive. Is it because of the company's recruitment strategy? Many companies advertise through private circles or just by word of mouth. A company who values equal opportunity would make an effort to use recruitment strategies that specifically reach out to diverse populations. Again, this doesn't mean that they are required to hire people who are unqualified just because they are a person of color or a woman. But if you have a stack of resumes and there is one woman or person of color in the stack, keep doing outreach so that the application pool is representative of the people qualified for the position. So yes, in this sense I think when determining who is eligible for a position or school admission, I think the race or gender of someone should be taken into consideration. But once you have a diverse pool of applicants, the decision of whom to hire or whom to admit should not be based on those factors.

As for data, I will try and get some references to you tomorrow as I have more access to them at my job at the Gender Equity Project.

Also, I can't even read the link you posted. The whole article frames the debate about affirmative action as a question of "preferential treatment". By using that language, it puts the onus on people who support affirmative action to justify why certain people should get this so-called privilege. As I've stated over and over again, this is not what affirmative action is about. It's about equal opportunities and fair consideration. And it's a fucking travesty that people honestly believe that somehow people of color and women have the leg up here. Current studies continue to show that controlling for other factors (age, education, socioeconomic status, # of years worked, etc.), women and members of underrepresented minority groups earn substantially lower salaries than White men - even when they have the exact same position and credentials. There's something fundamentally wrong with our society in that certain groups of people are disproportionately negatively affected. We, as a society, need to recognize that these problems exist and take steps to rectify it.

I feel I need to clarify a few points here. First, just for ha ha's, I'll let you in on my opinion of the MSP program, even though Diva did the right thing by openly acknowledging my caveat, and I applaud her evenhandedness in doing so. Her civility is to be admired and emulated.

My opinion is this: on our 1st day in orientation, the assistant dean that ran the MSP program told us a bit about it, saying "It's an affirmative action policy, and we make no bones about that." She then went on to reveal that she was a Rutgers Law alumna, and a product of the MSP program. She said "All they did was hand me the ball. I still had to run with it." Fair enough, I thought. After going to school there and befriending many of my fellow students, of all political and ethnic "stripes", I am NOT of the opinion that any of them weren't smart enough to be there. In class discussions and after class debates, they more than held their own. So I don't think the school or the profession was hurt in the least by the program. In fact, I think the Jersey Bar is credited by the addition of most of them to its ranks. The aforementioned Dean was also the financial aid director, and did both her jobs extremely well, in addition to being a hell of a nice and fair minded person. I'm glad I knew her.

Where the problem develops is in that at that same speech we were led to believe that the altered admission standards were the only advantage afforded to MSP students. But we all kind of wondered why all the black students in our class seemes to know each other on the first day, when the rest of us hadn't yet met any of our classmates. We found out later that MSP admitted students are given a 2 week program in which they are taught things like how to brief a case (which most of the rest of us learned that 1st day) before classes officially start. There's also a tutoring program that only MSP students can participate in. These things fostered a great deal of resentment in many non-MSP students, rightly or wrongly.

As for the "reverse racism" fostering what we generally regard as "racism", I probably should have said "what is PERCEIVED" as reverse racism. Sorry for not being clear.

Again, the program is ostensibly based on economic disadvantage and not race. But a lot of the people who resent this program don't buy this. No white student ever admitted to being an MSP student. Whether this was because there weren't any, which makes the program look like it really IS race based, or because there were some white kids admitted, but after seeing the resentment and prejudice against the program were afraid to admit to it I don't think I'll ever know. But it is unfortunate that there were some black students there that came from economically well off backgrounds, and didn't come of like people that would have had trouble in school. But there will always be those who wonder if THESE students were admitted under the supposedly economically based MSP program, based on their race, which makes the program seem - to those who oppose it - like a crock of shit because it's obviously not doing what it's supposed to be doing, and serves to stigmatize the recipients. Rutgers' classes are very small, despite the fact that is NJ's State University's Law School. It is very competitve in its admissions. Maybe these students, if they in fact were the beneficiaries of an MSP admission, might not have gotten into Rutgers without it. But they would CERTAINLY have gotten in somewhere.

I'm still in contact with some of my friends that were outspoken opponents of the Program, and they like to spout stats when we get together for a law schhol buddy reunion. One such stat - and I preface this by saying I never cared enough about its veracity to check it - was that a disproportianately large number of MSP graduates fail the Bar Exam, sometimes multiple times. Whether or not this stat is true, it fuels the racism some of them feel.

Oh, and when speaking about the conceit in the profession in the earlier post, my tongue was firmly in my cheek. I'm not implying we're better than anyone else anywhere other than in our own minds.

Schwartz, I'm sorry I derailed your thread, but this hs ben an interesting discussion, if nothing else.

I started to pull a bunch of links in regard to test scores differentials in the UC school system, bar exam failure rates, medical school drop-out/failure rates, etc. But, why bother? No proponent is going to change their mind, because they're coming from a point of view that's completely incompatible with the notion of objective, equally applied criteria for all applicants.

Affirmative Action has never been about objective, color-blind criteria for admitting students. The programs we have now may dance around their true purpose, for fear of running afoul of the Fourteen Amendment and (in California) Proposition 209 strictures. Under the camouflage of "equal opportunity boards", they're really just the same old quota system. I find it repugnant that test scores and grades are good enough for Asians and Whites, but supposedly aren't effective tools for measuring anyone else.

Thanks. My post wasn’t directed at you and I’m glad you acknowledged it.

Like I said, there’s a lot of misinformation about AA and schools and corporations largely fuel these nontruths. Anyone who says what this person said is not truly committed to equal opportunity. They are clearly making a point to say that someone else is forcing them to do something they don’t want to do. The latter sentence furthers shows that the viewpoint this woman has is that this world is a meritocracy and that if you just work hard enough anyone can make. This is so far from the truth its not even funny. People are not born into equal worlds and some have extremely high obstacles to overcome just to make it to where other people start out in life. To hold this worldview suggests that people who don’t succeed in life do so because of their own ineptitude and not because our society is set up to disadvantage certain groups of people. Anyone who’s taken a math course knows that that there is huge variability in any population. Some will be at the high end, some will be at the low end, and many will be in the middle. When study after study – both academic and governmental – show that women and people of color are disproportionately situated at the low end that should be a red flag. This is is not happening due to chance. There’s something else at work here and we should all care about what that something is.

Again, I have huge issues with this “altered admission standards”. If that’s truly what is happening, it should not be called affirmative action and the school is doing a disservice by telling people that is why they are doing it.

As for the mentoring program, I have mixed feelings about Rutgers policy. Obviously everyone can benefit from orientation programs and mentoring. However, there are also studies that show that a lot of what is learned in school is passed on through informal networks and socializing and that women and people of color lose out on this. People who are literally the minority in terms of numbers are entering a world that is very different from their own and can feel like they don’t fit in. Orientations are great ways for people to find support from others in the same boat. However, I agree that these students shouldn’t be learning information that all students haven’t learned yet. If this is what Rutgers is doing, once again they are the ones who should be held responsible for people’s resentment, not the individuals within the program.


No you were clear. I was just trying to point out that reverse racism is such a ridiculous notion.

Well as we all know, race and class are highly correlated in this country. But I agree with you that the policy at Rutgers serves to stigmatize the students it purports to be helping. That’s the real tragedy in all of this and what you adequately pointed out in your first post by the way. It’s sad that instead of placing the blame on the institution, opponents of Rutgers policy are directing their anger at the recipients of the program. How absurd is that? This blame the victim attitude is severely troublesome and has the potential to affect people’s judgments not just of the students at Rutgers, but can generalize to the others as well. As you mentioned, there are Black students who were not part of this program but for whom people still think are less qualified. This is the problem of racism in our society today. People tend to think that the behaviors of a few are represented of the group as a whole.

I’d love to see the stats because I’d bet that the proportion of White people who fail the bar multiple times is pretty high too. But even if the stats about Blacks failing more were the case, I’d still argue that this is a sign that something larger is going on and not assume that Black people are inferior.

This was clear. No worries.

Ditto. I’ve spent decades learning about and conducting evidence-based research examining gender and racial disparities and I have to tell you a lot of what passes as fact are based on nontruths and myths. The data is pretty clear that women and people of color (including Asians) as a group lag behind White men. And while there will always be exceptions, we need to realize that an exception is just that- an atypical event. The fact that there are a few successful women and people of color should not distract us from the main body of evidence, which shows that overall women and racial/ethnic minorities are not as successful as White men even when they have the same credentials.

There is no such thing as "equally, applied criteria". When that becomes a reality I'll agree with you.

It boggles my mind that a lawyer can't separate what the law actually says and how some people may implement it by a few fuckheads. It's silly to throw out the baby with the bathwater. AA isn't about discriminating against Whites and if you continue to argue that position, then there's nothing left to say because I can't defend against made-believe facts.

Before talking about specific data in relation to AA, it’s important that people understand that “objective” criteria is not possible. We all have stereotypes about people and objects – they help us organize our world and tell us what it means to be a man or a woman, or a person of a particular racial background. As you might expect, what happens is that whenever we categorize people we tend to see everyone in that category as the same and exaggerate the differences between categories.

Experimental data confirm this. Once we place people in a particular category, it directs and skews our perception, even in the case of objective characteristics like height. For example in a study by Monica Biernat and her colleagues, the experimenters exploited the fact that our beliefs about gender include the - of course correct - information that men are on average taller than women. In this experiment, college students saw photographs of other students and estimated their height in feet and inches. The photos always contained a reference item, such as a desk or a doorway, so that height could be accurately estimated. Unbeknownst to the students who were doing the estimating, the experimenters had matched the photographs so that for every photograph of a male student of a given height there was a female student of the same height. But the students were affected by their knowledge that men are on average taller than women. They judged the women as shorter than they really were, and the men as taller. In this experiment, as is typically the case, there were no differences in how male and female observers perceived the others; we all have nonconscious hypotheses about males and females and we all use those hypotheses in perceiving and evaluating others. The important point about this study is that a genuinely objective characteristic - height - is not immune from the effects of beliefs about gender.

As has already been mentioned, people discriminate against individuals just by hearing a name. Rhea Steinpreis (1999) wrote to psychology professors, asking them to evaluate the qualifications of a potential job candidate. All the professors received the same, identical resume; however half the resumes used the name “Karen Miller” and half used the name “Brian Miller.” Of those that thought the candidate was female, 45% said that they would hire her. Of those that thought the candidate was male, 75% said that they would hire him. Female and male professors were equally likely to show this bias. This study has been replicated with ethnic sounding names and the gap between those with ethnic sounding names being hired compared to those with non-ethnic sounding names gets even wider.

As for the validity of the SAT, there are a number of study’s that I can cite but I’ll choose just one. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women on average score lower than men on the mathematic section of the SAT, even though females receive higher grades than males in elementary, high school, and college math courses. For example, in 2004 women scored an average 503 compared to males who scored an average of 537. Wainer and Steinberg wanted to test the validity of these scores and matched males and females in terms of the grades that they earned in college mathematics courses. The researchers then looked back at the math SAT scores for these students and found that women had received math SAT scores that were on average 33 points lower than those of men with whom they were matched. So if Susan Jones and Robert Smith both received a B in their college calculus class, we might find that looking back at their SAT math scores, Susan might have had a score of 600 compared to Robert’s score of 633. As such, Susan’s math score would have substantially underestimated her grade in calculus, which is why some colleges have stopped using the SAT, or give it much less weight, to determine how successful someone will be in college.

As this is already an extremely long post, I'll stop now. But perhaps later I will try and post some data on how standardized scores are not very predictive of how well ethnic minorities will perform either.

Thanks for more input on my last post, Diva. For the record, the fellas I know who resent the MSP program are angry at the institution as well; some will never donate money as an alumnus or attend any function at the school. But since Schwartz was specifically looking for something to do with racism, and you can't feel "racist" feelings toward a school, I left that part out. :-)

I'm not sure that you don't have the cart in front of the horse here, to be honest. Maybe you have the studies or information that can resolve this, but the assumption that you make here is that grading in math courses is the "true" measure of mathematical aptitude, and that the SAT test is somehow skewed. The SAT is a series of math questions to be performed under pressure, nothing more. College courses, particularly survey-level courses, often include factors like points for turning homework in on time, bonus credit for additional work, etc. Why should we believe that this is the accurate measure?

Moreover, why does this disparity is SAT scores exist in the first place? I'm going to go ahead and say I find it ridiculously implausible that the math questions are designed to create an advantage for males. So, something else is at play. Are women affected by the stress of timing? Do men thrive under such pressure? Something is at play here, and simply saying "it doesn't reflect their grades that well" (which is a conclusion I also have a problem with, as simple linear programming could easily rectify the situation) doesn't get rid of the aberrant results.

That's my status, as I continue to inform both UC Berkeley and UC Hastings every year or so when they ask for donations.

No, I'm assuming that there isn’t any "true" measure of aptitude as how you measure something affects what it is you are measuring. For example, there is research by Sharps and his colleagues that show that gender differences on certain mathematical tasks depend on how the task is described to participants. It seems like common sense, but people tend to do well on tasks that are familiar to them. In his study, Sharps found that men performed much better than women when the instructions emphasized the usefulness of these mathematical abilities in stereotypically masculine professions (e.g., engineering). When the instructions emphasized how these abilities were useful in stereotypically feminine occupations, the gender difference in the math scores disappeared. So given that men and women may tackle the same problem in different ways and depending on how it is asked, it makes sense that the SAT should ask questions that assess mathematical problems from various angles. However, the SAT was created by - and tested on - white men. And while I don’t think this was a conscious bias, the end result is that people who are not white men are scoring significantly lower on these standardized tests.

Further, the reason why I brought this up in the first place is that opponents of Affirmative Action argue that admissions to colleges should be based on these standardized tests – tests which routinely show differences in scores among various groups. The SATs stated purpose is that it is useful for predicting first-year college grades. The study I cited shows that it is not useful for predicting women’s first year grades and there are other studies showing it is not useful for predicting ethnic minority grades either. As such, the SAT and other "standardized" tests should not be used as a main criteria for admissions until they can be proven to measure people's abilities equally.

Well, there are tons of theories about this - enough to fill years’ worth of course work. But a summary of possible gender bias can be found here: http://www.fairtest.org/facts/genderbias.htm

To bring the discussion back to racial disparities, some researchers believe stereotype threat can explain these differences. Claude Steele first showed this effect in his studies on Black students. According to stereotype theory, if you belong to a group that is hampered by negative stereotypes – and you are reminded about your membership in that group – your performance suffers. One stereotype about Black people is that they are academically incompetent particularly in comparison to Whites. In his study, Steele told one group of students (both Black and White) that the test was designed to test their academic ability. He told another group of students (both Black and White) nothing about what it was supposed to measure. The White students performed almost equally in the two conditions of the experiment. Blacks, in contrast, performed far worse than they otherwise would have when they were told their intelligence was being measured. Further experiments manipulated how stereotypes were primed. For example, sometimes students were asked to fill out a demographic sheet that specifically asked about race prior to taking an exam. Other experiments manipulated whether the test was administered by a Black or White staff person. When race is made salient in a variety of different ways Black students performed worse. To show that this effect occurs for a variety of different stereotypes, these studies have been tested on women and various ethnic groups. All the studies show that when a person is reminded that they are a member of a particularly devalued group, their performance suffers.

One study looked at what happens when people have competing stereotypes. The stereotype for women is that they are bad at math. The stereotype for Asians is that they are good at math. So what happens when we look at mathematic test scores of Asian American women? Shih and her colleges experimentally manipulated whether Asian American women were reminded of their Asian status or their gender right before taking a math test. There was also a control group in which the students did not have to fill out a questionnaire about their race or gender. Asian women who were reminded of their ethnicity performed well; however women who were reminded of their gender performed poorly. The control group performed on par with the average for other students.

Typically women who go to all girls’ schools or Blacks who go to historically Black universities tend to do very well academically. Now I don’t want to advocate segregation here. I just want to point out that biologically and genetically women and people of color aren’t inherently inferior in mathematic or other academic abilities. There’s something else going on and while there are many theories about what that something else may be, we don’t have conclusive evidence one way or the other.

One other thing I want to point out are the socialization theories. Studies of very young children show that boys and girls of all races perform equally on a number of academic and social tasks. But once kids enter school we start seeing differences. There is lots of evidence that people respond to boys and girls differently, as well as treat people from various ethnic groups differentially, and this biased treatment is not conscious. For example, studies show that girls and people of color are largely ignored in the classroom. Teachers typically pay more attention to boys than girls; boys receive more positive and more specific feedback; and boys are more likely to be recognized, called on in class, and included in class discussions. All this combines to encourage boys to think of themselves as academically competent, particularly in stereotypically masculine areas (i.e., math and science).

In one study Basow (2004) found that in elementary school, Black girls spoke up in the classroom and were quite engaged in learning. But their assertiveness was discouraged by their teachers - by both verbal and nonverbal cues. Basow tracked these girls to the fourth grade and found them to be significantly more passive and quiet. In addition, none of these girls were asked to take on more academic responsibilities, such as tutoring or showing a new student how to prepare an assignment. These Black girls were socialized to believe that school is not for them.


I feel like I'm just spouting studies now, but the questions you bring up LD are questions that researchers have been tackling for decades. It's hard to just sum that research up in a tidy little statement. But back to my original point, schools and institutions have the ability to reduce stereotypes and bias by recognizing how gender and race can influence attitudes and behaviors of all individuals, as well as the judgments people make about our own and others’ abilities. Until admission offices can separate out individual ability from gender, race, class, and a whole host of other social issues, those issues need to be taken into account. Again, I'm NOT advocating that grades and test scores don't mean anything. Clearly a woman or person of color who scores in the bottom percentile of any standardized test is not as qualified as someone who scores in the top percentile. But if schools use an absolute cut off score such as a 630 on the math SAT and women on average are scoring 600 (compared to 633 for men), you can see how that makes a difference in who gets accepted or not.

Thanks for that. It's interesting material, and I know we've butted heads before, but that wasn't my intent this time.

No worries. I didn't take your questions as a personal attack.

I know this thread is about racism, but my job (The Gender Equity Project) has a series of video tutorials that summarize the data on gender disparities. For anyone who's interested, feel free to check them out:

http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/gendertutorial/tutorials.htm

There are 4 tutorials:

* The first summarizes the data across all occupations - academic, medical, law, etc. - which show that women lag behind men in rank and salary.

* The second goes over explanations of the sex disparities, in particular how gender stereotypes influence how we judge and evaluate other people.

* The third tutorial goes over how gender stereotypes influence judgments of ourselves. So for example, because women have the same gender stereotypes as men in our society, women tend to make the same biased judgments about people as men do.

* The last tutorial is about remedies.

Schwartz, I apologize again for derailing this thread. But I'm glad that it sparked a healthy discussion on really important topics. So thanks for starting this thread. I hope your project goes well. Please keep us updated on how it's going.

I'm shocked to discover you work in academia. The free market needs to have its latent biases, demand for objective qualifications, and over-weening desire for actual, real-world results adjusted to recognize and better address systemic sociological prejudices against particular groups.

Just razzing ya'.

A Disturbing Trend in Law School Diversity

African American and Mexican American students have been applying to U.S. law schools in consistent numbers and with increasingly strong credentials over the last 15 years, at a time when the combine capacity of the schools has grown. Yet the number of people from those ethnic groups who are actually enrolled in law schools declined over that period, a situation laid out on a new Web site produced by faculty members and students at Columbia University’s Lawyering in the Digital Age clinic.

They probably, on average, score lower on the LSAT and have lower GPAs. Just guessing.