Does Affirmative Action Hurt Minorities?
Almost certainly. But that is not a question a state agency, the State Bar of California, even wants investigated. Imagine, for a moment, that a program designed to aid disadvantaged students might, instead, be seriously undermining their performance. Imagine that the schools administering the programs were told that the programs might be having this boomerang effect — but that no one investigated further because the programs were so popular and the prospect of change was so politically controversial. Now imagine that an agency had collected enough information on student performance that it might, by carefully studying or releasing the data, illuminate both the problem and the possible solutions. What should the agency do? This is not a hypothetical question. The schools involved are dozens of law schools in California and elsewhere, and the program is the system of affirmative action that enables hundreds of minority law students to attend more elite institutions than their credentia
