Luke Ford

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From 1969:

This exchange of private letters between Macklin Fleming, Justice of the
Court of Appeal, State of California at Los Angeles, and Louis Pollak, Dean
of the Yale Law School, seems to us to raise important issues affecting the
public interest. We are grateful to Justice Fleming and Dean Pollak for
permission to publish the correspondence–Eds.

Dean Louis H. Pollak
Yale Law School
New Haven, Connecticut 9 June 1969

Dear Lou:
The press of activity on Alumni Day didn’t allow me to comment
on your report to the Executive Committee of the Yale Law School
Association about current admission policy at the Law School. Hence
this letter.
From your remarks and those of Dean Poor, I understand that 43
black students have been admitted to next fall’s class, of whom 5
qualified under the regular standards and 38 did not. You anticipate
that half this group will actually enroll, thus furnishing 22 black
students in the first year class of 165, of whom perhaps 3 will have
qualified under the regular standards and 19 will not. You also said
that the future policyof the Law School will be to admit 10 per cent
of each entering class without regard to qualification under regular
standards. It thus appears that the demand of the Black Law Students
Union that 10 per cent of the entering class be black has been
more than met. It also appears that 38 fully-qualifed applicants for
admission to Yale Law School have been rejected solely because
they are not members of a minority race. Under current policy the
admission ratio for black applicants (50 per cent) is 5 times the
admission ratio for other applicants (10 per cent).
This new policy represents a radical departure from that set out
in the 1968 Yale Law School catalogue: “Admission is based entirely
on a judgment as to the applicant’s promise of professional
distinction.” It is clearly apparent that to this judgment has been
added the criterion of race.
With the adoption of its new admission policy the Law School has
taken a long step toward the practice of apartheid and the maintenance
of two law schools under one roof. Already there has been
established in the Law School building a Black Law Students Union
lounge with furniture and law books provided by the school. And I
learned from Dean Poor that the 12 black students in the present first
year class who were admitted under relaxed standards have not done
well academically. Dean Poor attributed this deficiency to the preoccupation
of these students with racial activities. I think it equally
logical to attribute their preoccupation with racial activities to their
lack of qualification to compete on even terms in the study of law.
Next year the Law School will have in its midst approximately 30
students who were not required to qualify for admission under the
regular standards because of their race. Of the 128 admittees to next
fall’s entering class who had accepted in early April, the highest
ranking of 13 minority admittees stood in an 8-way tie for 98th place
under the regular criteria for admission. Predictably, most of these
students will find themselves unable to compete in law studies on
even terms with the other students, who have been admitted on the
basis of demonstrated academic performance and aptitude for logical
reasoning.
The immediate damage to the standards of Yale Law School needs
no elaboration. But beyond this, it seems to me the admission policy
adopted by the Law School faculty will serve to perpetuate the very
ideas and prejudices it is designed to combat. If in a given class
the great majority of the black students are at the bottom of the
class, this factor is bound to instill, unconsciously at least, some sense
of intellectual superiority among the white students and some sense
of intellectual inferiority among the black students. Such a pairing
in the same school of the brightest white students in the country with
black students of medic, ere academic qualifications is social experiment
with loaded dice and a stacked deck. The faculty can talk
around the clock about disadvantaged background, and it can excuse
inferior performance because of poverty, environment, inadequate
cultural tradition, lack of educational opportunity, etc. The
fact remains that black and white students will be exposed to each
other under circumstances in which demonstrated intellectual superiority
rests with the whites. If to compensate for disadvantaged
background, the faculty discriminates among students in its grading
and marking, its double standard will be quickly perceived by both
groups of students. Because of the Law School’s current admission
policy the difference between the two groups will be centered on the
factor of race.
No one can be expected to accept an inferior status willingly. The
black students, unable to compete on even terms in the study of law,
inevitably will seek other means to achieve recognition and self-expression.
This is likely to take two forms. First, agitation to change
the environment from one in which they are unable to compete to
one in which they can. Demands will be made for elimination of
competition, reduction in standards of performance, adoption of
courses of study which do not require intensive legal analysis, and
recognition for academic credit of sociological activities which have
only an indirect relationship to legal training. Second, it seems probable
that this group will seek personal satisfaction and public recognition
by aggressive conduct, which, although ostensibly directed at
external injustices and problems, will in fact be primarily motivated
by the psychological needs of the members of the group to overcome
feelings of inferiority caused by lack of success in their studies. Since
the common denominator of the group of students with lower qualifications
is one of race this aggressive expression will undoubtedly
take the form of racial demands–the employment of faculty on the
basis of race, a marking system based on race, the establishment of
a black curriculum and a black law journal, an increase in black
financial aid, and a rule against expulsion of black students who fail
to satisfy minimum academic standards.
These unhappy prospects flow from the abandonment of an objective
system of admission based on intellectual aptitude (painstakingly
evolved over a period of decades) and the adoption of a system
of admission which takes racial considerations into account.
From your remarks and those of other members of the faculty I
gather the new system’s justification rests on three theories.
The first is a theory of proportional representation. Only 1 per cent
of the lawyers in the United States are black, and it is desirable that
this percentage be increased to the proportion of the black population
in the country, roughly 10 per cent. Consequently, all law
schools, including Yale, should have a student body which is 10
per cent black.
The weakness of the proportional argument is that quotas, once instituted,
cannot logically be limited to one group when other groups
exist which are equally entitled to quotas. The next step is a series of
quotas. But if minorities obtain quotas, demands from majority
groups for quotas are bound to ensue. In short order a full-blown
quota system would arise which would necessarily impose restrictions
on overrepresented groups in order to assure a student body
representative of the general population. A quota policy particularly
discriminates against minority groups which have achieved disproportionate
representation in a particular field. Such a policy discriminated
severely against Jewish applicants for admission to medical
schools in the 1930’s. That policy was undoubtedly justified by its
supporters as one designed to preserve a proportion of gentile students
in medical schools equivalent to their proportion in the general
population. Currently, the orientals in California, roughly 1 per cent
of the population, comprise in some instances 30 per cent of the enrollment
in certain engineering and technical schools. Were a quota
system to be introduced in those schools in order to favor black and
Mexican-American applicants, the first losers would be applicants
from the presently disproportionately represented oriental group.
A quota system based on race must assume there are two kinds of
racial discrimination and two types of quotas: the benign type designed
to help a disadvantaged group, and the malignant type designed
to prevent over-representation in a particular field by a hardworking
and competent minority. This argument wholly ignores the
fact that discrimination in favor of X is automatic discrimination
against Y. For X and Y substitute any color, religion, or ethnic background;
the process remains discriminatory. The argument of benign
discrimination glosses over the fact that under a quota system a person
is no longer judged on individual merit but is judged in part
according to his membership in a group. It also assumes that race is
a relevant criterion by which to choose law school applicants.
The faculty may have been persuaded to adopt its present quota
system by the argument of inverse, or compensatory, discrimination
mthat past discrimination against a particular group should be remedied
by present discrimination in its favor until the group catches
up. Here again the vice lies in the substitution of a group standard
of merit for an individual standard and in the extension of the criterion
of race to an area in which it should not apply. The American
creed, one that Yale has proudly espoused, holds that an American
should be judged as an individual and not as a member of a group.
To me it seems axiomatic that a system which ignores this creed and
introduces the factor of race in the selection of students for a professional
school is inherently malignant, no matter how high-minded
the purpose nor how benign the motives of those making the selection.
The aspiration to train more lawyers from minority groups is
highly commendable, but I do not believe it will be furthered by putting
unqualified or poorly qualified black students in competition
with students at Yale Law School who average in the 97th percentile
of intellectual achievement (higher than at any other law school).
There are many good regional and local law schools in Philadelphia,
Boston, Los Angeles, and other metropolitan areas, where black law
students can compete with white law students on equal terms and
where they can study law in competition with students of similar
qualifications and aptitudes. Many of these law schools do not follow
YaMs policy of numerically limited enrollment and are geared to
handle within reason all students who can qualify for admission. In
view of the prevalence of these law schools, the relative ease of admission
to many of them, and their flexibility in handling increased
numbers of students, the initiation of a system of proportional representation
for black students at Yale Law School serves no genuine
need or purpose.
The second justification for the current admission policy derives
from the Oxford precedent of training leaders for underdeveloped
countries. Oxford admitted students from distant countriesnBurma,
Nigeria, Kenyamwithout a close look at their academic qualifications
on the theory that whether or not they qualified for serious study,
something of Oxford culture would rub off; that when these students
returned to their people as leaders they would carry the torch of
Oxford with them. It is argued that, comparably, the mission of Yale
Law School is to train national leaders, and therefore its students
should be representatively selected in order to assure quality leadership
for all segments of the population. This theory assumes that the
study of law and the mastery of legal principles are merely incidental
by products of attendance at Yale Law School. It also assumes that
black lawyers compete only with other black lawyers in the practice
of a special kind of black jurisprudence and therefore the academic
performance of black law students at Yale Law School is largely
irrelevant to the development of their future role as national leaders.
No theory could be a greater myth, for the law the black lawyer
must master to achieve success in his profession is the same law
that the white lawyer must learn to handle. In his legal career the
black lawyer must expect to compete on even terms with the white
lawyer, whether he goes into a government oi_ce (executive, legislative,
or judicial), a corporate department, or a law firm. Any
suggestion to the contrary does a great disservice to black law students,
for I think it a safe prediction that national leadership will
conlinue to come, as in the past, from the ranks of those individuals
who have risen to the top of their occupations and professions.
The third justification for a policy of racial discrimination is based
on the suggestion that the traditional measures of qualification for admission
to law school aptitude tests and college grades–are not
accurate, and therefore the Law School is justified in not paying
strict attention to objective standards of admission. Doubtless there
is room for improvement in measuring aptitude in logical reasoning
and ability to handle abstract concepts, the qualities demanded for
intensive study of law, but from everything I have heard the present
tests achieve reasonably accurate results. For many years the Law
School prided itself on its ability to predict student performance in
law school on the basis of the criteria used for admission, and I
have heard nothing to cast doubt on the continued accuracy of
such predictions. If these criteria are ignored, the consequences are
equally predictable. In 1966 Michigan Law School embarked on a
policy of admitting black students under relaxed standards of admission.
The results of this policy were reported last fall to Michigan
Law School’s Committee of Visitors as “disappointing and to a
degree demoralizing . . . the academic performance is not satisfactory
and some new approaches must be explored.” And, I am told,
similar academic ditBculties are being experienced by the underqualified
black students in the first year class at Yale.
In my view none of the above theories justifies the inclusion of
race, or disadvantaged status, among the criteria for admission to
Yale Law School. While racial quotas may serve a purpose in some
contexts, they are entirely irrelevant to the operation of a graduate
professional school with limited enrollment, admission to which requires
four years of college training and specific aptitude for the
profession involved. The present policy of admitting students on
two bases and thereafter purporting to judge their performance on
one basis is a highly explosive sociological experiment almost certain
to achieve undesirable results.
The number of fully qualified minority applicants is growing, and
because of increased college attendance the number of those who
will qualify for admission to Yale Law School under its regular
standards should mushroom within the next few years. Under an
open door policy of competitive admission without regard to race,
religion, or color, and based solely on demonstrated achievement
and aptitude for the study of law, Yale Law School will maintain national
leadership in legal training. Under any other policy I think
this result doubtful. I urge reconsideration of the current admission
policy.
Very truly yours,
MACKLIN FLEMING

News: Montclair, New Jersey: As a New York high school student checked her phone for the results of her university admissions applications, she was overcome by disbelief.
One by one, each relayed the same news: Harvard. Yes. Dartmouth. Yes. Princeton. Yes. The University of Pennsylvania. Yes. Cornell, Yale, Columbia, Brown: yes, yes, yes, yes.
It was March 31, the emotion-filled day when Ivy League universities posted their decisions online. And Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna, a senior at Elmont Memorial High School, Long Island, became the second student there to pull off an exceedingly rare feat: She swept all eight.
She screamed. Then she cried.
“It’s so surreal,” Ms Uwamanzu-Nna, 17, said on Wednesday. “It’s still hard to actually believe that this has happened to me.”
The accomplishment is all the more remarkable given the increasingly fierce competition that has driven down acceptance rates at selective universities for years. Harvard’s, for example, was 5.2 per cent this year, down from 9.3 per cent in 2006. News reports suggest that just a few students pull off a sweep each year.
What’s more, Ms Uwamanzu-Nna (pronounced oo-wah-man-ZOO-nah) is just the latest student from her school to do it. In 2015, Harold Ekeh drew national headlines when he was accepted to 13 universities, including all eight Ivies.
School officials said Mr Ekeh, now a freshmen at Yale, had been a huge inspiration to other students. He is also close friends with Ms Uwamanzu-Nna.

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* Assuming the Intel thing isn’t rigged/affirmative-action, she sounds legit. No doubt her applications got some bonus for being black, but she doesn’t seem like a poster child for the worst affirmative action stupidity.

* But judging from the names and her picture both Miss Uwamanzu-Nna and her predecessor, Mr. Ekeh, are probably also Ibo. Migration patterns might go a long way towards explaining why they both wound up in the same town. This is a news worthy bit of the picture that I’m sure NYT reporters and editors will instinctively avoid as a career-ending move.

* One of the ironies of affirmative action is that while affirmative action was intended as a sort of crude reparations for the ill treatment that descendants of American black slaves endured, many of the current beneficiaries of affirmative action for blacks have, like Obama himself, ZERO American black slave ancestry because their parents are recent immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean, or else they are mulattoes who were raised by their white mothers and have little if any contact with their black fathers or talented tenth octoroons who pass the paper bag test or children of black professionals who are not really in need of reparations. Once you eliminate those categories and blacks who are recruited because of their athletic talent, the number of actual brothas at elite schools is vanishingly small. For those with STEM majors, you would need a microscope to find them. Even though standards for blacks are relaxed somewhat, most American ghetto blacks are so far behind academically that they could not survive in a challenging academic environment even sheltered inside an AA studies dept let alone as a physics or math major.

* The detail I always look for in these stories is: what is the student’s SAT score?

Her other achievements are easy enough to find in the various reportage on her: her being valedictorian, her GPA, her Intel Science Search performance. But no mention anywhere that I can see of her SAT scores.

Last year another student of Nigerian background from the same school, Harold Ekeh, got into all 8 ivies, and his combined SAT scores were mentioned: 2270. This is almost the precise median score for Harvard (2260). Yet he did not, apparently, get a National Merit Scholarship, which is almost certainly due to a too low PSAT score (obviously, everything else in his background would make the National Merit Scholarship people salivate over handing him an award). So no doubt his PSAT was the regression to his mean, and his SAT a deviation against it.

The predictable never seems to stop being predictable.

* Yeah, but she is nothing compared to that female soccer player who’s scored the most goals in the history of the sport. I hear about her every four years the women’s World Cup rolls around. Most goals ever scored in the sport, which means more than any man soccer player either! I bet when you take the number of goals Pele scored, homeruns Babe Ruth hit, and baskets Michael Jordan sunk and add them together, the goals she’s scored are still an order of magnitude greater than that! She must be the most amazing figure in sports history! Not to mention inspiring, brave, smart, funny, passionate, kind, and cute. I hope she gets a big endorsement deal, like with GoDaddy or something, four years from now when we’re reminded she’s scored the most goals ever!

* Some of the ancestors of some of the Nigerian immigrants might actually have sold some of the ancestors of today’s African American to white slave traders. While most whites probably never had slave-owning ancestors, and many whites had ancestors who actually fought against slavery.

So the irony of the ironies is that the descendants of (African) slave traders might get preferential treatment over the descendants of Union soldiers who gave or at least risked their lives to end slavery.

* Ivies coordinate with each other not to fight for the same student, and only make exceptions for the most exceptional applicants. In other words, normally nobody gets admitted to all eight Ivies, even if one applies to all of them, because once one of them accepted you, the others will turn you down so that you will not be in a position to turn them down.

It’s obvious why blacks are the only ones for whom they all make exceptions. I’d be surprised if a similar student wasn’t found next year (and each year from now on) either.