John Rosenberg writes:
As Peter Schmidt reports today in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a California trial judge in San Francisco has denied UCLA law prof Richard Sander and his colleagues access to California Bar Association data about bar passage rates, etc.
You would think that those ideologues and scholars (and ideological scholars) who have argued that Sander’s argument that affirmative action reduces the number of black lawyers (by admitting them to schools where they do poorly and either drop out or fail the bar in high numbers) would welcome the release of a large pool of relevant data to test his thesis. Or you would think that if you thought these scholars were disinterested or even interested seekers after truth. Many of us who have read their criticism of Sander, however, no longer think that.
The case itself has to do with data access, not affirmative action directly. Sander expects the appellate court to view his case more favorably.