Women hires and affirmative action

[lweinberg]

Dear Gregory,
   Thanks for the "refreshing" reply.  I think we are in practical agreement.
Louise

At 01:33 PM 3/2/01 , you wrote:
>
> 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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