A DEVASTATING CRITIQUE: A week of so ago, the New York Times ran a piece about a new study that purports to find that Proposition 209, passed back in 1996, rendered California’s under-represented minority students worse off. The implication, of course, was that California readers should vote in favor of Prop 16, which, if passed, will repeal Prop 209.
The study the NYT was heralding was done by a mere grad student and had not yet been peer-reviewed. Moreover, its findings contradicted peer-reviewed studies by distinguished economists. The latter studies had based on data that were available to any scholar who might be skeptical of their findings. By contrast, the grad student’s study was based in large part on data that he claimed to be prohibited from disclosing.
This is an excellent example of “political usefulness bias.” Has the NYT ever reported on the peer-reviewed studies that find that Prop 209 has actually increased the GPAs and graduation rates of under-represented minorities? Or increased the numbers of under-represented minority STEM majors? Of course not. What about the peer-reviewed studies that suggest Prop 209 is likely to have increased bar passage rates for minorities? Perish the thought that the NYT would report such things.
On Tuesday, Dr. Richard Sander presented a devastating critique of the student study. Among other things, it seems that when the student did use publicly available data, he used the wrong data.
But here’s the kicker: The University of California Office of the President admits that the data came from it and that the student was acting as its employee. Well … there’s a history to this. UCOP had previously denied scholars like Sander—who is a UCLA professor—access to the data (while allowing access to other scholars access). In yesterday’s LA Times, the story contains this quote:
“Why is [UC], which is prohibited from engaging in political activity, allowing its confidential data to be used in an amateurish, inaccurate paper that has been prominently injected into a political debate, for what certainly looks [like] an attempt to influence the fate of Prop. 16. on the November ballot?” [UCLA Law Professor Richard] Sander asked. “It’s not hard to connect the dots and see that the university is using its data as a political weapon, to be withheld from objective scholars who might report ‘”inconvenient truths.'”
Why indeed.