Courts, Free Markets, Race... and More!

[hebrewhammer777]

1) 'Tis the season! No, not the "holiday" season -- it's Supreme Court decision season!!!

[Chief Justice] Roberts has written seven opinions, all but one unanimous. Among them, he bolstered police power to enter a home to break up a fight without knocking first; upheld a church's use of hallucinogenic tea; and found that the government can force

Comments

[babzen]

I love Supreme Court decision season!!!

The article about The Daily Show wasn't very good - they didn't explain that the research found no correlation between watching that show (or shows like it) and voting. They only found that watchers of The Daily Show trusted/liked politicians of both parties less, and also liked "hard media" less. The researchers than hypothesized that because they've become cynical, it's possible that they would vote less.

For 5 I've read that before - it's pretty interesting, though I'd be interested to see how it varies by the class of the school. If they were only looking at the top schools, I think the results would be very different. It's my understanding that in law schools they're required to cut the bottom X% of a class (by the ABA), with X% being fairly high at lower quality schools, and being 0% at the very best schools. Based on this alone, if minorities are more represented at the lessor universities, they would not finish at higher rates relative to whites, regardless of ability. The article seems to indicate that a minority student at Harvard has a much lower chance of finishing school than the same student at Suffolk, when in fact the reverse is likely true, because if the student performs at the fifth percentile at Harvard they're still more likely to finish than if they're at the 25th percentile at Suffolk. I also think it's tough to claim that a minority student at Harvard will have a harder time passing the bar than the same student at Suffolk, based on that students inability to "compete" with their peers at Harvard. Also, the very top schools accept such a small number of students, and in such a narrow range of ability, that the minority students are roughly equal in ability. All the students will have LSATs in the 170 range (180 is perfect), but the white students with those scores will just have a harder time getting in.

I'm not trying to insult Suffolk, or put Harvard on a pedestal, or defending affirmative action, but just pointing out that the study didn't do a very good job of figuring out the true effect of affirmative action (and the conclusion might be true, but the author hasn't demonstrated it).