Women hires and affirmative action

[Lynne Henderson]

Re: Women hires and affirmative actionFor additional information, people
might want to look Richard A.  White,  "The gender and Minority Composition
of new Law Teachers and AALS Appointments Register. . ." 44 J. Legal ed.
(1994)  and "Variations in the Success Rates of Minority and Nonminority
Candidates in the AALS Faculty Appointments Register
(1996)http://www.aals.org/rw.html)  using data tracking that source of
faculty appointments.  Although only about half get their apoitnments via
the register according to  White, between 1991 and 1995, minority candidates
had higher success rates than non-minority candidates in getting jobs using
the Register (presumably among other things), but the size of the difference
decreased in 91-94, then went up in 95.  White also notes "The number of
minority faculty who leave the law schools each year also could have an
effect on the number of minority faculty the schools hire";  the reasons are
unclear, but the article suggests there are relatively large percentages of
minorities leaving compared to their representation in the Directory (eg, in
1995, only 13.7% of those law profs in the 95-96 Directory had identified
themselves at ethnic minorities (755 out of 5,504 full, associate, and
assistant profs) , 22.5% of those who did not return to teaching in 95 were
"minority faculty".  As the Merrit and reskin study indicates, extreme
claims re: legal education dont' seem to hold.   I am looking for more
current data.
Cheers
Lynne
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Discussion list for con law professors
[mailto:CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu]On Behalf Of Greg Sisk
  Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 11:33 AM
  To: CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
  Subject: Re: Women hires and affirmative action


  Indeed that's what so illuminating and refreshing about the Merritt/Reskin
study.  Both extremes are proven mistaken.  Yes, there are preferences in
favor of women and minorities in law school hiring, but those preferences
overall are modest (which isn't to say there may not be some schools at
which affirmative action has been applied crudely and improperly).  White
males cannot really complain about discrimination in law school hiring.
Likewise, from the other end of the spectrum, one cannot plausibly contend
today that substantial discrimination against women and minorities is
occurring in law faculty hiring; the evidence too clearly demonstrates the
contrary (again, exceptions may well exist in certain schools).  In sum,
things seem to be just about right at the hiring end, which over the next
decade or so should bring about reasonably good proportions across the legal
professoriate.  What will be interesting is see if those who are arguing so
strong that diversity as an educational value justifies racial preferences
(an argument that, I again stress, I find to have some merit if carefully
and thoughtfully applied), will appreciate that diversity requires so much
more and has so many more dimensions, so as to consider those areas where
the legal academy is so lacking in diversity (in terms of political
ideology, religious faith, etc. as so well documented in Jim Lindgren's
empirical study of imbalance on these criteria on law faculties).




            The problem is that there are two sorts of perceived anecdotal
experience:  Some people believe there's still substantial discrimination in
hiring against women and non-whites, while others believe there's now
substantial discrimination in hiring in favor of women and non-whites.
That's one reason why race classifications, under Croson strict scrutiny,
have to be supported with more than just "We really really feel that there
is discrimination, so we really really want to have compensatory race
preferences."

            Eugene

    Louise Weinberg writes:

      To go back to your point, though, I wonder whether one should dismiss
cumulative experience as "subjective."  Some of the cases of the 19th
century that now seem inexplicable to us are those in which the Justices
seem blind to what, after all, they ought to have seen subjectively for
themselves -- or, as we say, blind to what "everybody knew."   On the other
hand, I would raise a question whether submitting the available statistical
evidence to minute scrutiny is equally unproductive.   The article you rely
on discuss is indeed a fine piece of work and very helpful.  Appreciation of
the use of available statistics should also extend in the other political
direction, for example to the much-criticized Brown v. Bd of Ed.  Brown, the
case we ought to be proudest of, has always been lambasted because of a
statistical argument which was not supported a few years later and then got
supported again a few years later, etc., etc.  The point the Court was
making was valid:  racial segregation was hurting people, however you
measured it.  It sometimes seems to me, on my impatient days, that all the
hypercritical reader of Brown hadto do was to open her eyes to what, in
fact, everybody knew.


  --
  Gregory Sisk
  Richard M. & Anita Calkins
    Distinguished Professor
  Drake University Law School
  2507 University Avenue
  Des Moines, Iowa  50311-4505
  515-271-4184
  greg.sisk at drake.edu
  http://cartwright.drake.edu/gregory.sisk/sisk.html
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