Analyzing the Evidence

In defending the lawsuits, Michigan may also rely on the research of its own scholars, including an Oberlin graduate. Richard O. Lempert '64, a law and sociology professor at Michigan, and two other researchers found that black graduates of Michigan's law school went on to earn just as much money as white graduates and experienced just as much career satisfaction. The black graduates were also more likely than white graduates to be involved in leadership and service activities. "LSAT scores and grade-point averages, which predict quite successfully grades in law school, have very little success in predicting success after law school--at least as we can measure success," Lempert says.

The subtitle for the study is "The River Runs Through Law School." "Our findings are very consistent with The Shape of the River, but in a sense, are even more meaningful. We're closer to the career-ending point," he says.

But critics of affirmative action say that such social-science research is typically conducted by advocates who want to see affirmative action survive. Michael Greve, executive director of the Center for Individual Rights, the organization representing the students suing Michigan, says such evidence rarely sways judges. "If you base legal decisions on that kind of evidence, the decision and the law is only as good as the evidence," he says. "The courts are particularly leery of approaching the issue from that kind of direction.

"What you really need is a compelling governmental interest and not plausible social-science evidence. Sure, we're in favor of diversity, especially in elite education, and sure, we think it's good for the country if blacks succeed at higher levels of society--but just not at the price of race discrimination."

Greve says that in almost every admissions system he's become familiar with, if you know three variables--grades, test scores, and race--you can predict 95 percent of the decisions, with most of the exceptions involving preferences for athletes.

But President Dye says that's not the case at Oberlin. "The legal challenges are being fueled by a politics of resentment--that affirmative action is unfair," she says. "The challenges are also fueled by an increasing feeling among many Americans that an education is an individual and private entitlement, rather than a public good.

"Oberlin was the first and for many years the only college or university to make interracial education central to our mission. We have always believed that the best college education is one that brings students different from one another to campus to live and learn together."

Dean Koppes adds that it's wrong to try to eliminate preferences based on race, especially since there is less societal need for the other preferences that most colleges employ. "In one sense, of course, college admission is a zero-sum game. There are students who don't get admitted to an institution because they don't play football or they don't play the oboe. In crafting a class, a whole range of characteristics needs to be taken into account."

Critics of affirmative action also charge that it has a stigmatizing effect--that it leads people to believe that all black or Hispanic students benefit from preferences. Defenders of affirmative action "deny that racial preferences stigmatize the preferenced person, whereas it seems to me rather clear that they do," says Lino A. Graglia, a professor of law at the University of Texas who opposes racial preferences.