Assessing the potential impact of a nationwide class-based affirmative action system

DOI10.1214/15-STS514MaRDI QIDQ254460zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Alice Xiang, Donald B. Rubin

Publication date 8 March 2016

Published in Statistical Science (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03397, https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ss/1439220715

zbMATH Keywords

causal inferenceclass-based affirmative actionlaw school admissionsmultiple imputationracial affirmative action

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistical ranking and selection procedures (62F07) Bayesian inference (62F15) Factor analysis and principal components; correspondence analysis (62H25) Applications of statistics to social sciences (62P25) Mathematical geography and demography (91D20) History, political science (91F10)

Abstract: We examine the possible consequences of a change in law school admissions in the United States from an affirmative action system based on race to one based on socioeconomic class. Using data from the 1991-1996 Law School Admission Council Bar Passage Study, students were reassigned attendance by simulation to law school tiers by transferring the affirmative action advantage for black students to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The hypothetical academic outcomes for the students were then multiply-imputed to quantify the uncertainty of the resulting estimates. The analysis predicts dramatic decreases in the numbers of black students in top law school tiers, suggesting that class-based affirmative action is insufficient to maintain racial diversity in prestigious law schools. Furthermore, there appear to be no statistically significant changes in the graduation and bar passage rates of students in any demographic group. The results thus provide evidence that, other than increasing their representation in upper tiers, current affirmative action policies relative to a socioeconomic-based system neither substantially help nor harm minority academic outcomes, contradicting the predictions of the "mismatch" hypothesis, which asserts otherwise.

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Cites work

• Affirmative Action in Higher Education: How Do Admission and Financial Aid Rules Affect Future Earnings?
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2140075 (Why is no real title available?)
• Randomization Analysis of Experimental Data: The Fisher Randomization Test
• Statistics and Causal Inference

Cited in

(1)

• Affirmative Action in Higher Education: How Do Admission and Financial Aid Rules Affect Future Earnings?

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