Given that the Quakers were the radical progressives of their time, while the Puritans were only moderate progressives, there is a possibility that William Penn is outraged that the University of Pennsylvania has not yet found a way to fire Amy Wax. Another possibility is that while still maintaining his progressive credentials, William Penn in his Protestant Heaven did not keep up with the times on Earth and instead maintained his commitment to free speech.
FWIW, my upper middle-level law school admitted one black to my starting class of 140 total. My sense was that the higher up law schools were cherry-picking the few available that were equal to or smarter than my friend leaving just him. He held his own and maintained a 'B' average after his first year but dropped out due to having fathered a child out of wedlock, so someone said. So, we graduated with zero blacks, which nobody seemed to miss or even comment upon at the time.
I remember way back in high school l, there was a particularly demanding honors class that finally, in my year, had one black student enrolled (up from zero), big public high school in a blue state. Everyone was thrilled that she was there. Then she dropped the class and it was back to zero.
Neither faculty nor administrators (or staff for that matter) are allowed to release the grades of individual students, but every university that I have attended or taught at has listed the names of the summa, magna, and cum laude graduates on its graduation program. So, anyone with time to burn can check the races of the top graduates (depending upon the availability of information). The Penn Law School Dean is just being dishonest. He is also engaging in behavior which has become more common at universities and in the public sphere over the past twenty years. That is, some people now refer to the importance of semiotic actions, which have harmful or helpful meanings despite whether they are true/accurate or not. The Dean is claiming that Wax's public statements are harmful in their effect, and that truth is not a defense. It is the same situation that Sailer finds himself in when his critics decry his work, not because it is false or innacurate, but because it hurts people's feelings.
Thank you for this link. However, if this data *is* accurate, it makes it even more astounding that there are no blacks in the top quarter of the U Penn class.
My first reaction is that there are a lot more female suckers out there. The boys know if they can't go to a top law school, the career probably won't pay a decent return above the debt
I'm not seeing scores broken down by race in the report Woodgrains shows. The only results are aggregated. I assume Steve calculated from mean and SD, but the curves are not terribly smooth or symmetrical for any of the minorities, to put it mildly.
Yep, even way back when I went to school. My fraternity had a bunch but most others did not. The overwhelming majority of black students chose to live in a particular part of one of the large dorms. I can't blame them. That probably felt safe and supportive. It does contradict the argument that they are adding to the other student's experience.
This is, of course, precisely as any intellectually honest person would have predicted. It's almost as if the LSAT is an accurate predictor of law school success!
"does not collect or publicize grade performance by racial groups."
How could they publicize something they haven't collected?
If they're not investigating the effects of AA on their students, flunkers/transfers, and graduates, they're fools that will degrade the value of their degrees--unless every school is forced on the Diversity bandwagon. Could herd safety be the reason for their obsession? Any school that goes strictly meritocratic becomes a danger to the rest.
I am not a lawyer but associate with a few and even call a couple friends. I have heard more than a few examples of their various firms efforts to diversify their incoming classes of associates by accepting black law school grads from very mid law schools, and zero instances of any of them making partner. I believe the NYT had a piece on this a few years back, but the obvious and in-your-face explanation was studiously avoided, other than alleging there is a misperception in the world at large about the quality of black lawyers but no actual recital of the accomplishments or achievements of those who make this allegation.
The only person I've ever met (an admittedly beautiful black woman) who told me to my face that I have white privilege got a full ride to USC Law despite her lower LSAT and identical grades from the same college. She must have done ok as she got a job in big law where she immediately flamed out, became a pill junkie, and got heavily into BLM. It was because of her that I learned that a cottage industry exists explicitly for helping to avoid lawsuits when companies fire their underperforming black employees
I was under the impression that the thing that get's you to partner is the ability to make it rain. I assumed this meant there was more salesmanship to it. After all, how would you figure out your contracts guy is no good unless/until something goes wrong? Maybe I underestimate how quickly things go wrong.
I guess read that as meaning a wise learned person as opposed to, you know, the herb. If that's a white person I'm picturing a woman with hippie parents.
This Stanford study, written by an admitted liberal, was very enlightening and its coverage of the impact of affirmative action on black law graduates.
Here's another inconvenient fact: many of those blacks who did not finish in the top quarter (or even top half) of their class will nevertheless get job offers from top firms, ahead of their white peers who did finish nearer the top, because that DIEversity on the firms' websites is so all important.
Clients want the diversity window-dressing, but they expect top-tier service - super smart, responsive and technically superior partners and associates.
Sadly, these are the ranks of morons from whom future judges will be drawn. The jury pool probably won't be terribly impressive either. Get ready for Idiocracy style courtroom drama!
Correct. Law firms have gone from conservative, white shoe places to bastions of social justice activism. They have chief diversity officers and other personnel which adds to to the pressure to "diversify." The black attorneys they take tend to me women primarily (anecdotal experience). Given the intensity of top tier firms (high-pressure environment combined with long, unpredictable hours), by the 3rd year there's a huge drop off in women. By the time you get to 5th years, even fewer women. Firms then come under pressure to promote black partners and since blacks are a small demographic minority, this, combined with the few blacks who make it thus far, there is pressure to make sure promotion to partnership is "diversified." The problem is just kicked down the road, but eventually, the hard reality of dollars and cents comes to dominate. Partners who don't generate business then become service partners only and this creates other friction. At a certain point, law firms won't want to carry the dead weight of underqualified partners who lack the technical skill and endurance needed to bill 2,300+ hours a year to justify being an equity partner. Non-equity partners, filled with BIPOC, will become the next discrimination front. The insanity will only end when we stop obsessing about skin color.
Notice his word play. What do you'd define as top of class? How many black students graduated in at the "top" of their class over the years? I have no doubt that in the history of Penn Law school, there has been at least 1 black person who has graduated in say the top 25% of the class. Amy's point, though not articulated well, is that blacks rarely graduate in the top 25% despite their numbers of admitted students.
William Penn must be choking on his Quaker Oats up there in a very austere Protestant Heaven.
Three hundred years after his death and they're (symbolically) burning witches in his name!
Gods come and go but puritanical heresy hunts are eternal.
Given that the Quakers were the radical progressives of their time, while the Puritans were only moderate progressives, there is a possibility that William Penn is outraged that the University of Pennsylvania has not yet found a way to fire Amy Wax. Another possibility is that while still maintaining his progressive credentials, William Penn in his Protestant Heaven did not keep up with the times on Earth and instead maintained his commitment to free speech.
FWIW, my upper middle-level law school admitted one black to my starting class of 140 total. My sense was that the higher up law schools were cherry-picking the few available that were equal to or smarter than my friend leaving just him. He held his own and maintained a 'B' average after his first year but dropped out due to having fathered a child out of wedlock, so someone said. So, we graduated with zero blacks, which nobody seemed to miss or even comment upon at the time.
I remember way back in high school l, there was a particularly demanding honors class that finally, in my year, had one black student enrolled (up from zero), big public high school in a blue state. Everyone was thrilled that she was there. Then she dropped the class and it was back to zero.
Did you go to law school just so you'd have a handle on your state's law of mechanic's liens?
No, LOL, good one.
A few years back this blogger did a similar counting exercise for Harvard Law School and came to similar conclusions:
https://harvardlawcaveman.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/how-did-the-top-98-black-harvard-law-school-alumni-do-in-law-school/
There are few, if any, 'Black Studies' ghettos to hide in at the professional school level.
I'm shocked. SHOCKED.
Neither faculty nor administrators (or staff for that matter) are allowed to release the grades of individual students, but every university that I have attended or taught at has listed the names of the summa, magna, and cum laude graduates on its graduation program. So, anyone with time to burn can check the races of the top graduates (depending upon the availability of information). The Penn Law School Dean is just being dishonest. He is also engaging in behavior which has become more common at universities and in the public sphere over the past twenty years. That is, some people now refer to the importance of semiotic actions, which have harmful or helpful meanings despite whether they are true/accurate or not. The Dean is claiming that Wax's public statements are harmful in their effect, and that truth is not a defense. It is the same situation that Sailer finds himself in when his critics decry his work, not because it is false or innacurate, but because it hurts people's feelings.
Absolutely right--the DEI proponents don't have facts or data to stand on, so they make truth-telling the unforgivable sin.
It's been a while since I heard anyone say "semiotic". Thanks.
Tracing Woodgrains says your stats are wrong: https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1838684481265483862
Who is right?
Thank you for this link. However, if this data *is* accurate, it makes it even more astounding that there are no blacks in the top quarter of the U Penn class.
Steve has updated his previous post to reflect Woodgrains' stats.
Thanks. Link?
https://www.stevesailer.net/p/penn-law-school-cant-fire-wax-so
Looking at the LSAC pdf, the shocking thing to me is 50k female / 33k male takers. Also, the average rise for repeat takings of the test is 2 pts.
Edit: the numbers by sex are both several thousands lower on Woodgrains' LSAC page compared to the LSAC pdf Steve linked. Weird.
My first reaction is that there are a lot more female suckers out there. The boys know if they can't go to a top law school, the career probably won't pay a decent return above the debt
I'm not seeing scores broken down by race in the report Woodgrains shows. The only results are aggregated. I assume Steve calculated from mean and SD, but the curves are not terribly smooth or symmetrical for any of the minorities, to put it mildly.
https://report.lsac.org/volumesummary.aspx?Format=PDF
Here's the long pdf Steve used with bell "curves" by race:
https://www.lsac.org/sites/default/files/research/TR-24-01.pdf
The only thing that struck me about the blacks in my university and law school was the degree to which they self segregated
Yep, even way back when I went to school. My fraternity had a bunch but most others did not. The overwhelming majority of black students chose to live in a particular part of one of the large dorms. I can't blame them. That probably felt safe and supportive. It does contradict the argument that they are adding to the other student's experience.
This is, of course, precisely as any intellectually honest person would have predicted. It's almost as if the LSAT is an accurate predictor of law school success!
"does not collect or publicize grade performance by racial groups."
How could they publicize something they haven't collected?
If they're not investigating the effects of AA on their students, flunkers/transfers, and graduates, they're fools that will degrade the value of their degrees--unless every school is forced on the Diversity bandwagon. Could herd safety be the reason for their obsession? Any school that goes strictly meritocratic becomes a danger to the rest.
Slavic student must be Jewish. Not that there’s anything wrong with that
Hey, let's not be anti-Slavist here
👌
I am not a lawyer but associate with a few and even call a couple friends. I have heard more than a few examples of their various firms efforts to diversify their incoming classes of associates by accepting black law school grads from very mid law schools, and zero instances of any of them making partner. I believe the NYT had a piece on this a few years back, but the obvious and in-your-face explanation was studiously avoided, other than alleging there is a misperception in the world at large about the quality of black lawyers but no actual recital of the accomplishments or achievements of those who make this allegation.
The only person I've ever met (an admittedly beautiful black woman) who told me to my face that I have white privilege got a full ride to USC Law despite her lower LSAT and identical grades from the same college. She must have done ok as she got a job in big law where she immediately flamed out, became a pill junkie, and got heavily into BLM. It was because of her that I learned that a cottage industry exists explicitly for helping to avoid lawsuits when companies fire their underperforming black employees
I was under the impression that the thing that get's you to partner is the ability to make it rain. I assumed this meant there was more salesmanship to it. After all, how would you figure out your contracts guy is no good unless/until something goes wrong? Maybe I underestimate how quickly things go wrong.
From the honors list, it certainly looks there a lot of Chinese and Jewish surnames.
Hard to tell, but you don’t see a lot of Jackson’s or Washington’s.
I would have bet 'Sage Lincoln' is black :)
I guess read that as meaning a wise learned person as opposed to, you know, the herb. If that's a white person I'm picturing a woman with hippie parents.
This Stanford study, written by an admitted liberal, was very enlightening and its coverage of the impact of affirmative action on black law graduates.
https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2010/01/Sander.pdf
Here's another inconvenient fact: many of those blacks who did not finish in the top quarter (or even top half) of their class will nevertheless get job offers from top firms, ahead of their white peers who did finish nearer the top, because that DIEversity on the firms' websites is so all important.
I wonder, will being DIE actually help the lawyers win cases?
It will help the firms win clients to look diverse for the cameras.
Clients want the diversity window-dressing, but they expect top-tier service - super smart, responsive and technically superior partners and associates.
Sadly, these are the ranks of morons from whom future judges will be drawn. The jury pool probably won't be terribly impressive either. Get ready for Idiocracy style courtroom drama!
Correct. Law firms have gone from conservative, white shoe places to bastions of social justice activism. They have chief diversity officers and other personnel which adds to to the pressure to "diversify." The black attorneys they take tend to me women primarily (anecdotal experience). Given the intensity of top tier firms (high-pressure environment combined with long, unpredictable hours), by the 3rd year there's a huge drop off in women. By the time you get to 5th years, even fewer women. Firms then come under pressure to promote black partners and since blacks are a small demographic minority, this, combined with the few blacks who make it thus far, there is pressure to make sure promotion to partnership is "diversified." The problem is just kicked down the road, but eventually, the hard reality of dollars and cents comes to dominate. Partners who don't generate business then become service partners only and this creates other friction. At a certain point, law firms won't want to carry the dead weight of underqualified partners who lack the technical skill and endurance needed to bill 2,300+ hours a year to justify being an equity partner. Non-equity partners, filled with BIPOC, will become the next discrimination front. The insanity will only end when we stop obsessing about skin color.
There was a study done years ago that affirmative action actually makes less Ivy League black lawyers because of this nonsense.
There are bound to be some who could get through Penn but can't hack it at Harvard or Yale and quit entirely.
"“It is imperative for me as dean to state that these claims are false: (B)lack students have graduated in the top of the class at Penn Law,
Well, how many? And what about the top quarter?"
And over what period of time?
Notice his word play. What do you'd define as top of class? How many black students graduated in at the "top" of their class over the years? I have no doubt that in the history of Penn Law school, there has been at least 1 black person who has graduated in say the top 25% of the class. Amy's point, though not articulated well, is that blacks rarely graduate in the top 25% despite their numbers of admitted students.