Matching students to the ‘right’ school

Re “A mismatch effect?” Opinion, Sept. 26

Forcing a person into an environment that he or she is either not prepared for or incapable of surviving is not unlike selling a house to a person who cannot afford to pay the mortgage. But romantic fantasies are not nearly as problematic as are people with a hidden agenda. How can we solve a problem if we don’t really want to solve the problem?

Arthur Saginian

Saugus

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It’s interesting to see mismatch theory being applied to law school admissions and affirmative action. However, what’s missing is a deeper discussion on the principal forces resulting in underachievement by blacks and Latinos at University of California law schools. By framing mismatch as the result of misguided preferential treatment, Vikram Amar and Richard H. Sander undercut the original purpose of developing mismatch theory in the social sciences -- that such structural conditions as spatial isolation and poverty are at the root of black and Latino inequality in society. Instead, the authors only perpetuate the racial stereotypes of underachieving and unintelligent blacks and Latinos.

Alfonso Hernández

Márquez

La Mirada

The writer is a professor of sociology at Cal State Long Beach.

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The issue is not past inequities affecting present capabilities, it is that opportunity to excel is not always provided by affirmative action. The subtext is that the “good” law schools have not adjusted to the reality of past inequities in their methods of teaching, or in the assistance provided and attention paid to these students. One might argue that such attention is not what law schools do, which I think is silly because schools exist to teach -- not merely to measure. Statistical data do not measure innate ability. The proper development of the abilities of black and Latino students might produce a higher statistical result than that of white students. The issue is opportunity, not statistical data of the moment. We all should get a chance to perform.

Merle Horwitz

Los Angeles

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Amar and Sander find the stated reasons why the California bar refused to cooperate with their proposed study implausible. They don’t, however, mention that they twice sought funding for this research from the National Science Foundation without success. This is perhaps the best neutral view of the scientific merits of their proposal. The proposal has, in my view, methodological weaknesses, (e.g., its results might be confounded by the quality of bar review courses); it might compromise the privacy of some bar examinees (e.g., black graduates of elite schools), and other scholars could not acquire the data for re-analysis.

If the proposal were stronger and the data accessible to others, I would have liked to have seen this research proceed. But the bar’s reasons for not proceeding, which have to do with the purpose of the exam and the lack of test-taker informed consent, are hardly puzzling. They reference important values that the bar might reasonably weigh differently from how researchers like Amar, Sander and I do.

Richard Lempert

Arlington, Va.

The writer is on leave from the University of Michigan, where he is a professor of law and sociology.