(Editor’s note: This is the third and final word in the debate on affirmative action for socio-economic diversity. George Leef’s original comments appeared on October 5, and James Sterba’s response can be found here.)
Perhaps the best thing about the event at Pomona College where Jim Sterba and I spoke is that I made a new friend. While we have numerous disagreements, I find Jim Sterba to be an honest and admirable philosophical opponent.
I do not think that his response above to my case against “elite” colleges adopting policies meant to bring about greater equality with respect to the socio-economic background of their students makes the slightest dent in my case against it.
My first argument against that idea was that the so-called “elite” colleges and universities do not, for the most part, offer students an education that is better than that at other, lower-ranked and therefore less prestigious, schools. I think it is widely known that undergraduates are often given short shrift at many of the prestige schools and that they usually get a much better education at smaller schools that emphasize teaching over research.
Does Professor Sterba take issue with that argument? Not directly. His reply, found in his second paragraph, is that minority and lower-class students who have graduated from Harvard over the last thirty years have largely been successful. He also observes that 48 percent of black law professors graduated from top law schools.
I have no reason to doubt the truth of those statistics, but don’t think they prove that there would be any cognizable benefit in expanding “affirmative action” to put more students from lower income families into top colleges. The fact that most or even all of the students from “blue-collar” families have been successful does not mean that they would not also have been successful had they gone to other schools.
Furthermore, because Harvard did not have a policy of favoring such applicants in the past, those who were admitted presumably were admitted because they had the academic capabilities the admissions officers were looking for. That experience thus has no bearing on the probable results of a policy of giving preferences to future applicants.
As for the law school point, I just don’t see what it proves. If top law schools use affirmative action to increase the percentage of minority students (note that here Prof. Sterba is only talking about racial preferences, rather than socio-economic preferences, the topic of our discussion) it probably increases marginally the number of black (or other preferred group) lawyers and professors.
What I deny is that there is any benefit in those marginal changes. Whether America has somewhat more or somewhat fewer lawyers and law professors from any ethnic group simply does not matter. What matters is the competence of individual lawyers and law professors and there is no reason to assume that individuals who come from the particular backgrounds that receive preferences are better at that (or any other) work than are people from non-preferred backgrounds.
Here is the heart of our philosophic disagreement, I believe. Jim Sterba believes that the nation is a better, fairer, and more socially just if an increasing percentage of individuals from “historically underrepresented group” become lawyers, law professors, or other well-paid, influential professionals. I do not, because I think it infinitely better to evaluate individuals on their own merits, not as “representatives” of groups.
Now look at Sterba’s second argument for admission preferences, for racial minorities in law school. I’m happy to assume that what he says is true—many white students find that their views about the criminal justice system are affected by discussions with minority students. But does that provide a justification for racial or socio-economic preferences in admission to elite law schools? Hardly.
For one thing, admissions preferences at most redistribute the minority students who want to get into law school. Even if we assume that there is a social benefit in having white students learn what minority students think about the injustices in our criminal system (which I readily agree exist!) the system of admission preferences only means that a few more white students in “elite” law schools learn about those injustices from classmates, while a few less of them at second-tier law schools do. Does that matter much?
Second, assuming that it’s beneficial for law students to hear critical views about criminal law (and presumably fields as well), it would be far more effective for the professor to bring in guest speakers or assign some readings that challenge the status quo than just to hope that by admitting a few additional minority students, critical views will be heard. Incidentally, law schools would accomplish far more along the lines of exposing students to different views about the law by increasing the percentage of libertarians, who known to be outspoken critics of much in criminal law and elsewhere, than by trying to increase the percentage of students who are from minority backgrounds, who might not have any thoughts to add in class.
Finally, even if we agree with all of Prof. Sterba’s final five points, they have nothing to do with admissions preferences at elite schools. We have had a policy of racial preferences for several decades and yet the discrimination he points to persists. Changing the admissions policy at elite colleges isn’t going to ameliorate the problems he identifies, no matter how much the preferentially admitted students at those schools might speak out about them.
So I still believe that admissions preferences are a bad idea—little or no benefit but significant costs.