Now you raise a valid point–am I dancing around the AA point? Am I?

Let me answer in this way. I oppose quotas and I have since high school. Why? Because quotas set an artificial ceiling on black achievement? We don’t have quotas in other endeavors like track and field, sports, or entertainment. Why law schools admissions? The rationale of diversity doesn’t cut it for me anymore. But you have cut to the core with your reply. I sense I am like Justice Souter. I am embarked on an intellectual journey away from my origins. And that’s ok. Of course, Souter’s journey was from right to left, mine is from left to right.

I know you mean well when you encourage young blacks to aim high, yet I think you’ve caught some inkling it doesn’t make them happy. Partly, you are blinded by your own love of law and learning, and partly by your wife’s avocation and your own loyalty to a fixed concept. That concept presupposes blacks need to be pushed if ancient injuries are to be eradicated. It also, unfortunately, implies they need an assist to do as well as whites because “they aren’t as good”. Shelby is as intelligent as I and has more advantages than I and Lickliss had getting into college, yet she is floundering just as I did. Some of Lickliss’s points are on target, but don’t address the elephant hiding in plain sight. Affirmative-action is unfair to whites, but is even more corrosive to blacks and the black community. We can assume Shelby was artificially advanced, in some degree, beyond her competence. The same happens to white students, yet happens far more among black students and careerists with results that are entirely predictable. The enormous pressure to advance blacks to the most prestigious schools and jobs, and to increase black representation at the highest levels, is behind the stories and statistics implying blacks aren’t up to the challenge. There are black candidates sufficiently capable, to be sure, but there aren’t enough to satisfy this often unreasonable demand. The urge to catch up with whites and the artificial means used to do it put enormous pressure on blacks, like Shelby, not only to perform but to outperform beyond all reason.

You have been party to this pressuring by placing too much emphasis on “black students” over just plain “students”. Get rid of job titles, like “Minority Affairs Administrator”, that make “minority” synonymous with “unfairly advantaged”. Encourage all students, equally, to do what makes them happiest, and you won’t have this guilt to bear any longer. Hang onto that courage though, because you’re going to need it.

I sense you are wrestling with a conflict between conservative and/or traditional values and liberal canon. Why else write this to a conservative forum. Perhaps, you prefer discussing this with liberals or a neutral forum, but realize how badly it would be received in those quarters. Here, you thought you’d find understanding, yet (as we can see from the reception) that hasn’t been the case. Obviously, you are intelligent enough to see there is some disconnect, but have remaining bias or loyalty preventing you from reaching or voicing certain obvious conclusions. The issue you, and others here, have been dancing around is affirmative-action (entitlements, quotas, set-asides, &c); and the culture of special consideration grafted onto the simple proposition of rectifying past mistreatment without creating a new injustice. Some regard AA as an injustice for which blacks should confess and atone. It is unfair to whites, yet it was both whites and blacks who created it and now perpetuate it.

One problem you have, in resolving this, is you are an African-American making an evaluation fellow African-Americans regard as race-betrayal. Many trivialize this because they’ve never endured it, and others simply don’t see it. Even so, you have come so far as to note all is not well with affirmative-action, and have ventured to discuss it. Some have thrown your attempt back at you because you couched it in equivocal terms, accuse you of defending it (even to racism), and without seeing how far out on a limb this puts you. Others have not, and I applaud them for withholding judgment. I salute the courage it takes even to venture this far.

If you take ‘black’, ‘advancement’, ‘prestige’, and ‘compensation’ out of the equation, you’ll find blacks still rise to high positions and at about the same rate. The advancement of blacks was happening well before Civil Rights, and was increasing because it is impossible to keep people from finding their true level. It continued to grow at about the same rate until affirmative-action and other “equalizers” were adopted. Since then it’s been reported, the rate of advancement has slowed significantly; suggesting AA is retarding the process. Civil Rights happened because black advancement had reached a barrier that needed to come down. AA was imposed purely to satisfy political clamor and to assuage collective guilt. Rather than merging us into one society, it has created new barriers that reverse old ones.

One impact has been a growing sense of incompetence among blacks. Some whites suspect blacks of incompetence arising out of preference. This is natural, but isn’t more than passing true. I’ve worked with blacks I know to be both superbly competent despite having been artificially advanced, blacks who are perhaps competent yet not greatly so, and blacks and whites who are equally incompetent to the positions they hold. What is damning for blacks, however, is that, having received any small measure of artificial advancement, they come to believe the charges of incompetence leveled against them. The damage this does to black confidence is both enormous and unnecessary. Whether you think AA was ever valid, it is a failed experiment that should be discarded.

Also should be discarded, is any idea whites or white culture is still holding you back. You haven’t said as much, but it is implied in some of what you wrote. There can always be found some slight truth in it as there will always be some prejudiced persons to confirm bias is alive and well. But, it is no longer true enough; nor is it healthy to perpetuate it through constant regurgitation. Our society can only be purged of prejudice up to a point. Beyond that, you’re only making people crazy. Similarly, you can never fully rectify the past. You have to decide that rectifying every injury is just not worth the additional damage you cause.

(continued)

During a business slump, I took a temporary job at the University of Maryland; which turned out to be my opening. I cautiously started taking classes at the right level and found I was a better student than I’d ever imagined. This time, I figured out where I wanted to go and charted a course. I asked for help from my instructors and the sharper students. I still worked less efficiently than A-students, but I was getting the hang of it. Lickless is right that this is partly a cultural thing, and we were late getting into it. Although my scores never put me in the top tier, they were more than enough to satisfy my altered expectations. I was encouraged by my family, teachers, and girl friend (later my wife), yet I never let it assume the mind-blowing importance it had before. The journey, rather than the end point, mattered more. Instead of painting myself into corners, I was studying to satisfy my passion for knowledge, and relegated career to a side issue. Where I had struggled, waffled, and endured my first attempt, I soared, persisted, and delighted in my second.

My dad’s measures of success weren’t making a pile of money, a prestigious job, or academic achievement. His measures were finding those things that turned him on, finding his soul-mate, and living free and according to worthwhile values. He was no success by the customary measures. His cousins and educated friends would say things that made clear he should to have done better. Life was hard on him and he died young from asbestosis. Yet it was the hard things in his life he cherished: the loss of his mom, growing up virtually an orphan, the Depression, the war, providing for his family, starting his own business without any assets, fighting emphysema, arrhythmia, and cancer, and watching his kids stumble before we got smart. Despite that, I can’t recall anyone more satisfied with the way his life turned out. Money, prestige, and excellence sometimes accompany happiness, but not always. It is pleasing to get a good wage you really earned, it’s nice getting the respect you think you deserve from those you think matter, and it is pleasing to your ego when you get high marks. Yet, they aren’t what make us supremely happy. Knowing you’ve done the right things and helped others give far better returns.

I would not be overly concerned for Shelby. She seems more than adequately blessed with what she needs to succeed. If she fails in her first attempt, it won’t be the worst thing that could happen and is usually a blessing. We all get lumps, and those lumps are a more valuable part of our education than what goes on in classrooms. For every A-student, there are dozens of B-students. B-students fill most of the jobs that make prestigious A-student jobs both glamorous and possible. We’re the workhorses who get the real work done while the A-students get all the glory. The A-student will spend his life dodging lumps, staying on top, and worrying he’ll fall the way we did. We’ve already fallen and found it isn’t fatal. When we failed to take the high ground, we B-students often switched to something we really liked (avoiding getting stuck, in the process, doing something we’d loathe). Often, we’re a lot happier than those poor, rich, prestige encumbered A-students. While they’re focusing on making that next big rung, we’re focusing on family, job, and friendships.

Like Shelby, I studied hard in school. I studied far more than many of my classmates, yet never made the top tier (I graduated 3.2 GPA). Like her, I worried I wouldn’t succeed in school or life. Like Mr. Lickliss, I enjoyed few advantages and was the first (and only one) in my family to graduate from college. Partly, that was the times. We forget that, prior to WWII, college education was the exception and not the norm. For my generation, unfortunately, it became the measure of success and abject failure. My parents were fairly poor and struggling to house, clothe and feed six kids. There was no money to send any of us to college. If we were going to make it, it was going to be on our own. Neither of my parents were college educated (though one of my grandfathers and one great-grandfather were). My dad never graduated high school (the war and raising a family precluded that), yet he was well-read, well-spoken, talented, and valued education immensely. So did my mom, brothers and sister.

So it was that I found all eyes on me to succeed. I was the best student in the family. I took school seriously (as well as enjoying it), and got the best grades. I was also the family know-it-all, the one my siblings chided for being such a pompous ass (you know the type). My dad openly boasted to our neighbors that “Rob will be the lawyer”; which I took to mean (coupled with his love of law) he yearned for me to become the lawyer he hadn’t. I didn’t know anything about lawyering (other than watching Perry Mason on TV). I was impressed by lawyers, yet had no idea if that’s what I wanted. Despite having no money (and knowing nothing about scholarships), I took every job and saved every penny to pay for classes at the local community college. I tried to figure on my own which classes would get me into law-school. I had no idea about LSATs, curricula, or how to apply. Pretty soon, I was floundering. I was attempting classes I hadn’t laid any groundwork for. I had terrible study habits, reading too much that wasn’t covered, too little that was relevant, and clueless how to prepare for tests. The need to earn enough to stay in school often took precedence, and I let it be an excuse for avoiding topics I wasn’t really interested in. I found myself watching myself going down like one of those slow-motion free-fall movies.

Needless to say, I dropped out. For awhile, I imagined my parents and family were immensely disappointed in me, and I avoided any discussion of it. I threw myself into the family business to atone. I knew I was a pretty good mechanic, and I focused on become the best my dad had working for him. I didn’t know it then, but I was learning stuff identical to and just as hard as the engineering courses I’d study latter when I went back to school. First though, I had a Navy tour of duty to fulfill. The Navy gave me time to step back, see what I’d done wrong, and some of what I needed to start over. It also taught me it is okay to get help when you’re out of your depth. In boot camp, I took some tests and was offered the chance to attend Officer Candidate School. I was so bummed out by my initial attempt at college, however, that I turned it down. It is just as well, because I still wasn’t ready. After the Navy, I returned to work with my dad and we formed a close bond. We talked about my fiasco in college and, as it turned out, I had mistaken his intention (his bragging had been an attempt to build my self-esteem). Like all good parents he wanted each of us to find what really excited us and go with that.

(continued)

Much study needs to be done in this area. Sander hints at it in his research on racial preferences in law schoo admissions and law firm hiring. Absent research, I can only offer examples that I know of. In Case 1, a student attended a bottom-tier law school. He ranked 7 in hi class and served on law review. He could not find a job in the city of his choice. Thus, he found a government job in another city and passed the bar the first time. In Case 2, a student with a great LSAT and grade point average attended a bottom-ranked law school. She excell3ed. I do not think she was on law review but she received the highest score in the class in Contracts. Because of her ability, she transferred to a third-tier school. She was in the top half of her class. She received an offer from a medium-sized firm where she remained for a yera or two. She now works for a corporation and teaches at night at a local college. Her desire (not surprising because of her intellectual curiosity) is to teach full-time. I consider Case 2 a success story.. But I also wonder if this student would have been happier pursuing a Phd in the area iof her passion. She has a wonderful mind for philosophy. But she chose the law. And years later she is fighting to return to the academc. Ther

The legal community seems to be very much like an old time guild; made even more so by states mandating attendance to law schools teaching a learning method invented in 1888. Last I checked only California (and maybe New York I am not sure) allow for a non-attorney to challenge their state bar exams. The rest of the states require attendance of a certified legal institution before allowing someone to take the bar. It is a long cry from when Abe Lincoln found a few law books at a yard sale and taught himself everything he needed to know to pass the Illinois bar. As one senior law student told me, law school is about learning the legal culture not about learning the law. If one is to be successful in navigating first law school and later the rough seas of legal practice, a student must learn the rules by which the guild operates.

While I cannot speak from the ethnic minority experience I can speak from the economically disadvantaged perspective. I am the first person in my family to graduate high school and college. I am struggling to learn the culture of middle and upper class America and the legal culture all at the same time. The only way I can learn those cultures is to listen, watch, and learn from those who have been, and are being, successful. I believe that for the minority student, struggling to understand the legal culture, and probably the WASP culture as well, the same suggestion applies. Listen, Watch, and Learn from those who are being successful rather than sticking to old habits that are not working.

Black law students rarely do as well as their Asian or White counterparts. How many black students made law review on the sheer basis of grades? At my school, none. In fact, I am the only non-white person on law review, the first in a few years to grade on. Black students often went to better undergrad universities, though they usually earned similar or lower scores on the LSAT. But why are there none on law review? some law reviews have taken to affirmative action in their write-on programs, this is ridiculous. but still- why are there virtually no black law students in the top of their class?

My theory is that they work hard- but they don’t work smart. they think hard work is the key. it is- but only if they work smart. Not enough law students work smart. they waste hours reading meaningless cases rather than learning the black letter law. they don’t spend enough time learning to take exams. they are still reading the cases. they don’t spend enough time working through old exams. they are still caught up learning the theory behind some of the law- this is irrelevant. law school exams are for the most part black letter law exams that test a student’s ability to take the exam and memorize the law.

black law students need to stop taking advice from other black law students that is the blind leading the blind. get out and meet the kids that do well. they should be talking to the rich, preppy, and smart asian and white 2L students. this is a better use of their time rather than going to picnics and BLSA receptions.