Does affirmative action help the disadvantaged students it is supposed to benefit? March 17, 2013

The Supremes are going to take up an affirmative action (AA) suit. One argument against AA may seem to be the result of benevolent concern for under-represented groups. It employs mismatch theory.

“Mismatch theory” says that AA clearly gets some students into better schools than they are otherwise qualified for. But such students are then at a disadvantage, since those who get in on merit will out perform them and leave them at a loss in class after class.

As Dan Slater in the NY Times says:

[Mismatch] is the idea that affirmative action can harm those it’s supposed to help by placing them at schools in which they fall below the median level of ability and therefore have a tough time. As a consequence, the argument goes, these students suffer learningwise and, later, careerwise.

And Slater seems to think a 1991 study of the law bar is significant, though very imperfect:

In 1991, more than 27,000 incoming law students — about 2,000 of them black — completed questionnaires for the B.P.S. (Bar Passing Study)and gave permission to track their performance in law school and later on the bar.

Among other things, the questionnaire asked students (a) whether they got into their first-choice law school, (b) if so, whether they enrolled at their first choice, and (c) if not, why not.

Data showed that 689 of the approximately 2,000 black applicants got into their first-choice law school. About three-quarters of those 689 matriculated at their first choice. The remaining quarter opted instead for their second-choice school, often for financial or geographic reasons. So, of the 689 black applicants who got into their first choice, 512 went, and the rest, 177, attended their second choice, presumably a less prestigious institution.

Those who went to their second choice schools did significantly better.

Duke researchers have weighed in and they argue that it is STEM fields that mismatch causes problems. Stem courses build on expertise acquired in earlier classes, and problems can multiply in very serious ways.

As far as I know, this is pretty much the whole mismatch argument, made famous in fact by Clarence Thomas. I’m really interested in hearing what you think of it. I’m going to restrict myself to pointing out that the mismatch argument proponents don’t seem very concerned about all the others who get into universities on something other than academic merit. For starters, legacy students and athletes are among them. Perhaps also famous actors, members of royal families, the children of presidents, and so on. And since the worry is that students who benefit from AA will be below the median, shouldn’t we worry about all the other students there too?

Zerlina Maxwell Discusses Gun Control & Rape Culture; Receives Threats of Violence March 10, 2013

(trigger warning)
Zerlina Maxwell, a media pundit and activist, went on Hannity to talk about gun control and sexual assault. (Specifically whether making it easier for women to be armed can lower the rates of sexual assault and rape.)

Maxwell said,

“I think that the entire conversation is wrong. I don’t want anybody to be telling women anything. I don’t want men to be telling me what to wear and how to act, not to drink. And I don’t, honestly, want you to tell me that I needed a gun in order to prevent my rape. In my case, don’t tell me if I’d only had a gun, I wouldn’t have been raped. Don’t put it on me to prevent the rape.”

 

People are reporting that Maxwell has received a huge backlash on the internet, filled with of course, rape threats and racism.  Talking Points Memo discusses the backlash here.

But Maxwell went on to restate her argument on Feministing.  And there is now a twitter hashtag #tyzerlina for people to support her.

As for the content of the discussion, there are reasons to think that focusing on the perpetrators works.

And as messed up as the backlash is, it’s actually doing a decent job of demonstrating what people mean when they talk about “rape culture.” (Here’s a link to the tweet below.)

“Got a rape threat for tweeting about @ZerlinaMaxwell getting rape threat. #Rapeculture is a thing, y’all. #TYZerlina

Student unions and misogyny March 7, 2013

“Misogynist prick” runs for UCL Women’s Officer.

A male student who “self-identified” as female before running for the women’s officer position at his university claims he is being persecuted after being censored by his union following a backlash.

Kirk Sneade, an undergraduate at the University College, London (UCL), and his campaign team have been branded “misogynist pricks” by fellow students following his controversial run for candidacy.

The UCL student uploaded a video of a woman being punched by a man and a photo with the slogan “memes are gay” as part of his campaign. Sneade, who is now claiming discrimination, reportedly likened his plight to the communist persecution in Nazi Germany.

What did his self-identification amount to?

Sneade’s original manifesto stated:

Kirk Sneade has self defined as a woman ever since he realised it gave him legal access to the women’s changing rooms at the Bloomsbury gym

And then there’s this tale from women debaters at the Glasgow University Union.

During the debate, a select number of male students, including former committee members and even an ex-president, made sexual comments about our appearance, shouted “shame woman”, booed loudly and questioned “what does a woman know anyway?”. This was not mere heckling, and not related to the content of our speeches. None of the male speakers faced the same treatment. After the debate, a member of this group shouted “get that woman out of my chamber” as my partner Marlena passed.

When female students heard these comments, one confronted the male members and was told to stop being a “frigid bitch”. After the debate, a female Cambridge student rose to confront the perpetrators. The organisers of the tournament, and GUU committee members, begged her to sit down and not “cause trouble”. I myself confronted one of the male members concerned, and the GUU committee, only to be told that it was “to be expected” and “par for the course” that women would be booed in the GUU chamber. When I asked whether they would accept the treatment of racial minority speakers in the same way, I was told “they would be booed too, but we don’t have them here.” The committee accepted we were booed because we were women, not for any other reason, but refused to take action against their members.

Sigh.

The Good Racist People

The Good Racist People

In modern America we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely villainous and morally deformed, the ideology of trolls, gorgons and orcs. We believe this even when we are actually being racist. In 1957, neighbors in Levittown, Pa., uniting under the flag of segregation, wrote: “As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens, we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community.”

Presumed Incompetent March 4, 2013

Just came across this book, and I thought several of our readers would be interested in it: Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. 

Know Your History (and Know Yourself) February 12, 2013

First, I want to make fun of myself for doing something that I recently made fun of other people for doing.  Someone (probably a blogger) pointed out that it’s weird that, for Black History Month, two people prominently talked about are MLK and Lincoln.  A joke was made, something to the effect of, “Wow, white people can’t even bring themselves to talk about two Black people for Black History Month.  They just *have* to throw in a white person.”  I had a good laugh at the expense of those pathetic, clueless white people.

And then I basically went and did the same thing.

I meant for this post to be about Black History Month and feature a bunch of awesome women in history…but for some reason, at the very top, I was talking about and showcasing a white dude.  Thankfully I caught that before I hit publish.  But seriously, not cool, me.*

Okay here’s the post:

For those of us who know why we have Black History Month, I want to share some stories of people I’ve come across on the blog Cool Chicks from History

Mae Jemison - ”A chemical engineer, physician, and former Peace Corp volunteer, Mae Jemison was inspired by Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhura to join NASA in 1987.  On September 12, 1992 she became the first black woman in space.”

“When I’m asked about the relevance to Black people of what I do, I take that as an affront. It presupposes that Black people have never been involved in exploring the heavens, but this is not so. Ancient African empires — Mali, Songhai, Egypt — had scientists, astronomers. The fact is that space and its resources belong to all of us, not to any one group.” – Mae Jemison

More women after the jump!

Travyon Martin Anthology December 11, 2012

Edited by George Yancy and Janine Jones.

On February 26, 2012, 17-year-old African American male Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old biracial (Caucasian and Peruvian) male in Sanford, Florida. Martin was shot and killed within a gated community, where he was visiting his father, Tracy Martin, and the latter’s fiancé. Martin, returning from a store where he had purchased a bag of Skittles and a bottle of Ice Tea, was unarmed. The encounter between Martin and Zimmerman proved fatal for Martin. As for Zimmerman, 45 days passed before he was charged with any crime. Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics attempts to capture what we, a critical cadre of scholars, think about this potentially volatile situation in the moment. The text addresses issues across various thematic domains, as we have delineated various concerns that are broad and yet relevant. Some of these themes include: how Trayvon Martin’s killing might be depicted within the specifically historical context of racism, especially as some have compared Martin’s situation to that of Emmett Till and Rodney King; how contemporary conceptions/perceptions and treatment of Black bodies and/or black embodiment from the historical perspective of white supremacy in the United States continue to function or not function in our contemporary moment; how we ought to think about the political and legal implications of the Trayvon Martin case within the context of the politics and laws that have historically informed and shaped black people’s lives; how we should think critically about the historical exclusion of black bodies/embodiment in public space and the ramifications for the ways in which black people must navigate public space today; and, finally, how we should think about the ways in which the historical negative gendering of black girls and boys/black men and women, with respect to their white counterparts, in a white supremacist society, have impacted various intersections of race and gender in our contemporary setting.

Psychological study of intersectionality December 4, 2012

I’ve been frustrated by not finding many psychological studies of intersectionality. This study of the intersections of gender and race seems to be one of the first. Let’s hope there are many more to come! (Thanks, TD.)

Racial and gender stereotypes have profound consequences in almost every sector of public life, from job interviews and housing to police stops and prison terms. However, only a few studies have examined whether these different categories overlap in their stereotypes. A new study on the connections between race and gender — a phenomenon called gendered race — reveals unexpected ways in which stereotypes affect our personal and professional decisions.

Black teenager killed for loud music “in self defense” November 28, 2012

Disgusting.

Jordan Russell Davis, 17, and several other teenagers were sitting in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot when Dunn pulled up next to them in a car and asked them to turn down their music, [Jacksonville sheriff's Lt. Rob] Schoonover said.
Jordan and Dunn exchanged words, and Dunn pulled a gun and shot eight or nine times, striking Jordan twice, Schoonover said. Jordan was sitting in the back seat. No one else was hurt.Dunn’s attorney Monday said her client acted responsibly and in self-defense. She did not elaborate.

UPDATE: I have both closed comments and deleted a bunch of the comments that appeared here. Many of them were appalling, but many of them were really excellent people being really reasonable and carefully pointing out the appallingness. It’s only the former I really wanted to delete, but the latter make little sense on their own.

Petition: racial bias in academic hiring November 21, 2012

This petition is addressed just to Oxford and Cambridge, but the issues are obviously much broader. The statistics are shocking, and the problem is extremely serious.