Google and Mismatch

Roger CleggEmployment

The Washington Post ran an article recently on Google and its demographics. Most of it is devoted to discussing the company’s “diversity” efforts and its painfully slow progress in achieving the politically correct racial, ethnic, and gender balance it wants. Too many white and Asian men, not enough of everyone else. But fear not: The suits — does Google have “suits”? — acknowledge “we need to do more to achieve our desired diversity and inclusion outcomes,” so department heads will be “tasked with meeting intermediate milestones,” and the company has set as one of its “major goals” to “reach or …

Investigating Discrimination at Harvard

Terry EastlandEducation

I wrote this piece last month (for The Weekly Standard) on the case in which a student group is charging that Harvard College in its admissions program racially discriminates against Asian American applicants. The case could prove a turning point in the more than half-century-old debate over the use of race in admissions. The arguments in favor of using race have become weaker and weaker, as this article shows. The trial is scheduled for October 15. Visit us here at the Center for Equal Opportunity for our continuing treatment of the issues at stake. The judge in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard …

Too Many Asian Americans: Affirmative Discrimination in Elite College Admissions. (Harvard, MIT, Caltech)

Roger CleggDocuments, Education

Last Friday, Students for Fair Admissions filed its motion for summary judgment against Harvard for its admissions discrimination against Asian-American applicants on the basis of race. You can read the motion and the various supporting documents here. Edward Blum, president of the organization, said, “Today’s court filing exposes the startling magnitude of Harvard’s discrimination against Asian-American applicants,” adding that it “definitively proves that Harvard engages in racial balancing, uses race as far more than a ‘plus’ factor, and has no interest in exploring race-neutral alternatives.” He also said, “We believe that the rest of the evidence will be released in the next …

Affirmative Discrimination in Elite College Admissions

Terry EastlandEducation

It’s against Asian American applicants Last week’s news brought the story that New York City mayor Bill de Blasio wants to scrap admissions policies for three public high schools in the city that are among the best in the country. Apparently, too many Asian Americans get in while too few blacks and Latinos do. De Blasio speaks favorably about new policies based on “new definitions of merit.” Let’s hope that the mayor recovers his wits before he imposes a cap or ceiling on the number of Asian Americans the schools accept. Our research fellow Althea Nagai discusses below in a …

The Mismatch Game

Terry EastlandRacial Preferences

It’s been 13 years since I wrote the article below (for The Weekly Standard) on Richard Sander’s intensive study of affirmative action in American law schools. Sander, a lawyer and economist, found “a system of racial preferences that, in one realm after another, produces more harms than benefits for its putative beneficiaries.” Sander became one of the most compelling critics of affirmative action, the co-author with Stuart Taylor of Mismatch. Read my article as an introduction to the mismatch school of thought. Pick up the book for the full treatment of the topic.   Affirmative action emerged in the 1960s …

Google in the Dock

Terry EastlandEmployment

When diversity morphs into discrimination. A Google engineer objecting to racial preferences in employment got my attention when he was fired earlier this year. In telling Arne Wilberg’s story, published last month in The Weekly Standard, I was struck by the extent to which Google managers thought they could actually use hiring initiatives that categorically excluded from consideration job candidates of a certain race or sex. You’d think that at least one of those managers would have recalled Martin Luther King’s dream “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged …

The Nitty Gritty of Diversity

Terry EastlandEducation

How many minority students = a critical mass? That’s a good exam question, but not one that advocates of race preferences in admissions have been able to answer, as I explained below in this article for The Weekly Standard. In 2003 Justice O’Connor said that schools may seek to enroll a “critical mass” of minority students. But she didn’t say what that term required, nor has any other Justice since then. Justice Scalia, ever the great wordsmith, used a dissenting opinion to refer to critical mass as “the mystical critical mass” and “the fabled critical mass.” Good adjectives for a …

The Parable of the Lifeguard

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

There’s an interesting new paper discussed here by Mark Perry at the American Enterprise Institute about an international phenomenon called the “educational-gender-equality paradox — the greater the degree of gender equality among 67 countries studied . . . the lower the female share of STEM college graduates.”  As The Atlantic puts it, “In countries that empower women, they are less likely to choose math and science professions.” It’s about choice, then, not discrimination. I don’t expect this to diminish the incessant politically correct demands for no gender imbalances in the STEM professions (or anywhere else, for that matter), and that if we have to …

Another Reason to End Preferences

Terry EastlandRacial Preferences

Affirmative action also hurts the ‘beneficiaries.’ Mismatch came out more than five years ago, and I wrote a review of it for The Weekly Standard, which is published below. It explains “mismatch” and shows that if racial preferences have mostly harmful effects for those whom they are meant to help, then “the fundamental legal premise for permitting this type of racial classification is gone.” Neither Rick Sander nor Stuart Taylor, the co-authors, are conservatives. They have been, you could say, mugged by a reality they have carefully studied. Or as they put it, “It is this growing body of evidence that …

Waiting for the ‘Termination Point’

Terry EastlandEducation

Is the end in sight for race-conscious college admissions? I wrote this piece three years ago for The Weekly Standard. It was basically a “backgrounder” on what were then new challenges to admissions preferences–one brought against Harvard and the other against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There has been some “discovery” in the cases, and seven months ago the Justice Department confirmed that it is considering whether it might enter the Harvard case. We hope that the department decides to get involved—and that it will argue for non-discrimination in admissions. In Grutter v. Bollinger, decided in 2003, Justice Sandra Day …