Scalia's remarks offensive; his facts are wrong too.

Supreme Court Justice Ant­on­in Scalia raised questions in oral arguments on an affirmative action case at the Court last week that suggest a racist bias -- or at least ignorance of the facts.   He said that:  It does not benefit African-Americans to get them into "the University of Texas, where they do not do well, . . . as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school . . .  a slower-track school where they do well. . . ." (see ShrinkRap, 12/10 "Unfit").

Georgetown University's Center on Education and Workforce has data on the subject showing that black and Latino students from open-access colleges double their rate of graduation when they move to more selective schools.   This is exactly the opposite of Scalia's assumption.

Nicole Smith, an economist at the Georgetown Center, said:  “Justice Scalia is mak­ing the tired ar­gu­ment that ad­mit­ting Afric­an-Amer­ic­an stu­dents in­to white schools is akin to put­ting ponies in a horse race.   Like so many, [he] mis­takes Afric­an Amer­ic­an as a proxy for low read­i­ness, when in fact minor­ity stu­dents in more se­lect­ive col­leges and uni­versit­ies not only gradu­ate at re­l­at­ively high­er rates, but also se­cure high-pay­ing jobs there­after.”

The Center director, Anthony Carnevale, added that: “If Scalia’s the­ory were true, equally pre­pared stu­dents of all races would do worse at more se­lect­ive col­leges. In fact, we find the op­pos­ite is true.”

Justice Scalia should issue a correction of his comments and an apology.   He won't.  My wishful guess is that the furor over Scalia's comments may tip the Court to rule in favor of the UT affirmative action program.   Otherwise, it would look like Scalia had had his biased way with the court.   Even if he won't do the right thing and recuse himself -- or, better yet, announce his retirement -- the rest, particularly Roberts, have the Court's reputation to consider.

Ralph 

PS:   An interesting by-the-way:   Both Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonya Sotomayor benefited from affirmative action in getting admitted to top schools (he to Yale Law School, she to Princeton, where she graduated summa cum laude and then went on to Yale Law School.   Thomas bitterly opposes affirmative action, claiming that it devalues his own education, since people assume he couldn't make it on his own.   Quite a different story for Sotomayor, who took her opportunity and not only did well but excelled at the top of her class.  And she supports the program.    Scalia's dismissiveness might apply to Thomas (we don't know how well he did at Yale Law);   but Sotomayor's example is diametrically opposed to Scalia's false premise -- except, of course, that she is Latina, not black.   Does that make a difference, Mr. Scalia?