Mismatch

Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It by Richard H. Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr., Basic Books, 2012. 

Thomas Sowell

This book is a criticism affirmative action at colleges and universities. Moderately talented black students who attend elite colleges and universities have significantly greater drop-out rates than similarly talented black students who attended second-tier schools. This situation has been named “mismatch” by Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institution.  There is a mismatch between student and school. It is to the advantage of elite schools to admit marginally qualified minority students, because it makes the schools appear more diverse. However, the genuine interests of the students themselves are better served if they attend second-tier colleges and universities, where they will not find themselves in over their heads. 

California Proposition 209

After the passage of California Proposition 209, which outlawed racial preferences in college admissions, graduation rates improved substantially for black students at the University of California. Black high school students were no longer being sent to campuses that were too difficult for them.

Affirmative Action Means Racial Preference

The news media are partly to blame for the situation, because of their usage of the vaguely defined term “affirmative action”, instead of the clearly defined term “racial preference.” Racial preferences increase the stereotype threat, because now minority students are more likely to be less qualified than non-minority students. People will see their prejudices confirmed.

Students Left in Ignorance

Students are not told whether they were admitted due to a racial preference or on their merits.

Not Sharing Data

Universities often obstruct the efforts of the social scientists to obtain detailed data on racial preferences, admissions and outcomes. When the universities do share data, it is often sorted into coarse-grained groups. 

Poor Signaling

The larger the racial preference in law school admission, the worse the black graduate’s success rate in passing the California state law bar exam. Because of affirmative action, graduation from an elite law school is now no longer a guarantee of talent. Consequently, there has been a change in the way law firms hire entry-level lawyers from law schools. The firms now pay less attention to which school the candidate graduated from, and instead pay more attention to the candidate’s performance in law school. Therefore, getting black students into elite law schools is no longer helping them to get hired by better firms.