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Is it likely that the generally prestige-obsessed huge law firms that recruit mostly from Duke and up, and only take the very top students from even tier one schools have some how figured out that the students at Howard with low LSAT scores and low GPAs who do terribly on the test that they have to take to enter the profession are better lawyers?
I think that's exactly what's going on. These big law firms like prestige but they are smart enough to know there's more than one way to get it. When you're hiring somebody you look at the whole person and what they bring to your organization, not just what their GPA or LSAT score was. They need people who can think and interact across a broad range of initiatives.
And that includes factors such as age, sex and ethnicity. When the world was ruled by white guys, then white guys were the ticket. They didn't even have to be particularly bright if they had the right connections. That's simply not the world we live in anymore. If you're running a big business you're working for all kinds of customers all over the place, and white males may not be the only thing they want to see.
And aside from diversity for the sake of appearances, why limit your talent pool to white guys who graduated from one of a handful of places? As the links you mentioned pointed out, there is an inexplicable gap between the test scores of white and black students. Yet real life experience tells us that many of those black students are extremely capable individuals. If you're an employer, you need to find a way to tap into that talent, regardless of what their LSAT scores may be.
"White students who failed to make the grade on all counts were nearly twice as prevalent on such campuses as black and Hispanic students who received an admissions break based on their ethnicity or race."
If you look at how this is worded, it says nothing at all. Take Harvard as an example. 44% of Harvard students are white, and 15% of Harvard students are black or Hispanic (from collegeboard.com). To say that under-qualified students almost twice as likely to be white than black or Hispanic means nothing when students are nearly three times as likely to be white than black or Hispanic in general. Clever wordplay to say a lot of nothing. To draw the inference from this that the author draws you would have to have the percentage of black and Hispanic students that are under-qualified from the black and Hispanic student population versus the percentage of white students who are under-qualified from the white population. Then you would compare the percentage.
What he is saying is that, perhaps 30% of the white student population is under-qualified and 50% of the black and Hispanic population is under-qualified. Well if you have 2000 students, 880 (44%) of them are white, and 300 (15%) of them are black/Hispanic. Then 264 (30%) of the whites are under-qualified, and 150 (50%) of the black/Hispanic population is under-qualified. Then, you are nearly twice as likely to have an under-qualified white person on campus as an under-qualified black/Hispanic person. But it doesn't say anything, because it does not take into account the relative percentages by race. However, accounting for the differences in relative enrollment by race, the black/Hispanic students would be nearly twice as likely to have gotten a break (by this hypothetical formula of course).
You also ignore that the article is discussing undergraduate admissions. Undergraduate admissions do not have nearly the URM bump that graduate admissions have. The higher you go in education, the more scarce black and Hispanic students are, thus the higher bump they get in admissions.
Also note that I am not arguing either for or against affirmative action here. I am simply stating that it plays a huge role in graduate admissions; a much, much bigger role than the name on your undergraduate diploma. This is why Morehouse bragging about how many of its students go to top grad schools does not reflect on the school's prestige.
I'm going to have to disagree. I won't say that diversity is not important in the workplace, but I don't think firms hire black people because they think it makes them a better company than if they hired a white Harvard grad.
They hire them to look good. This is pretty well evidenced by the disparity in black associates and black partners. Firms have their diversity hires, and then a lot of the time it stops there. Now that the people who put out the minority scorecards have started keeping track of the number of black partners, maybe this will change as well.
As far as the Howard grads being better, it's pretty well established in the law school community that white students at Howard don't receive the same employment prospects. Ask yourself, if Howard grads have such greater job prospects than all other third tier schools, and many second and first tier schools, why are there no other exceptions like Howard? It's because Howard is the highest-regarded HBCU law school, and firms come there to get their diversity hires. Surely, if it were the quality of the students and the education being so much higher, there would be another exception in the third or fourth tier, but there isn't. And if they're so much better, maybe they would pass the bar? Sorry, but it doesn't make sense.
Morehouse has produced some very notable people. Morehouse also boasts great career prospects. However, this is not due to any superior quality in Morehouse students or in the Morehouse education. Morehouse grads' career prospects are far superior to those of students are similarly situated schools because of diversity recruiting.
It's the same as Howard University's law school. Third tier law school, 154 median LSAT, yet 327 firms are coming to interview on campus this year. Hofstra, a non-HBCU situated in a large legal market with a 158 median LSAT score has 36 firms coming to campus.
I'm not saying that Morehouse students are stupid, not talented, etc. What I am saying, is that it is no better than many other schools in quality, and quite a bit worse than some schools that fare far worse in employment prospects. The writing is on the wall. Firms/companies know that they can come to a school like Morehouse and fill all of their "diversity" recruiting in one stop. Therefore, the white kids at Morehouse probably don't enjoy the same prospects.
To act like Morehouse and its graduates are superior in some way is to ignore the truth.
History is neither rational or irrational. History is what it is.
And the Great United States of America is hardly as powerful as you want it to be; it has yet to deal with many of the skeletons piled up in its closet. But doom & gloom aside, I will at least give America credit for trying.
It just sucks though, how our peculiar political system all too often gives the regressive oligarchic types a disproportionate amount of power for their share of the population. Empowering the minority is often like a double-edge sword, and will inevitably cut a person deep & painful, especially those on the low end of the economic spectrum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by atl4lyfe
And that's how it should be. The black only college tells us an important, well two, important truths about our country. One is that history is rational, the second that the American society is so powerful it can even alter 'bad' history. Europe and the Mid East have a much tougher time here.
Morehouse does well, but no, Harvard can boast more successful people. Even their dropouts like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are among the richest people in the world.
I'm going to have to disagree. I won't say that diversity is not important in the workplace, but I don't think firms hire black people because they think it makes them a better company than if they hired a white Harvard grad.
They hire them to look good. This is pretty well evidenced by the disparity in black associates and black partners. Firms have their diversity hires, and then a lot of the time it stops there. Now that the people who put out the minority scorecards have started keeping track of the number of black partners, maybe this will change as well.
As far as the Howard grads being better, it's pretty well established in the law school community that white students at Howard don't receive the same employment prospects. Ask yourself, if Howard grads have such greater job prospects than all other third tier schools, and many second and first tier schools, why are there no other exceptions like Howard? It's because Howard is the highest-regarded HBCU law school, and firms come there to get their diversity hires. Surely, if it were the quality of the students and the education being so much higher, there would be another exception in the third or fourth tier, but there isn't. And if they're so much better, maybe they would pass the bar? Sorry, but it doesn't make sense.
Well, you may be right.
I just hate to talk in terms of "the quality of the students."
Morehouse has produced some very notable people. Morehouse also boasts great career prospects. However, this is not due to any superior quality in Morehouse students or in the Morehouse education. Morehouse grads' career prospects are far superior to those of students are similarly situated schools because of diversity recruiting.
It's the same as Howard University's law school. Third tier law school, 154 median LSAT, yet 327 firms are coming to interview on campus this year. Hofstra, a non-HBCU situated in a large legal market with a 158 median LSAT score has 36 firms coming to campus.
I'm not saying that Morehouse students are stupid, not talented, etc. What I am saying, is that it is no better than many other schools in quality, and quite a bit worse than some schools that fare far worse in employment prospects. The writing is on the wall. Firms/companies know that they can come to a school like Morehouse and fill all of their "diversity" recruiting in one stop. Therefore, the white kids at Morehouse probably don't enjoy the same prospects.
To act like Morehouse and its graduates are superior in some way is to ignore the truth.
You are assuming that the majority of student are being recruited by large firs.They are not.Morehouse is a liberal arts school.Not a university that confers Masters and doctoral degrees.Many of these are professors themselves,or engineers,business owners,politicians,etc..
And why are we only talking about Morehouse?What about Spelman?Tuskeegee?Hampton?Fisk?
And all you say still does not really explain why schools like Morehouse have such high numbers that go to gradate schools in the Ivy league or near Ivy.They do not flunk out.Therefore their education they must getting at Morehouse is top quality.
Now I agree that I do not think Morehouse is Emory or Harvard.I do however think Morehouse does a better job educating black males and preparing themn for the future.
Bottom line is most of Morehouse students had various schools to choose from.They chose it over Yale to Princeton.There are many choices.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jp01358
Morehouse has produced some very notable people. Morehouse also boasts great career prospects. However, this is not due to any superior quality in Morehouse students or in the Morehouse education. Morehouse grads' career prospects are far superior to those of students are similarly situated schools because of diversity recruiting.
Oh stop with the BS. Where is your data proving your point beyond your own opinion that Morehouse grads have great career prostects and over represent in top tier graduate programs solely to "diversity recruiting" and Affirmative Action?
For one, Morehouse College has been around for 144 years and has produced high achieving grads since day one as noted by their very extensive notable alumni list. Why do I bring this up? During the majority of Morehouse's existence, programs such as Affirmative Action or "diversity recruiting" not only didn't exist but the deck was stacked in such a way in America that most Black men could not reach the upper echelons of corporate America, medicine, science or any other discipline. Yet, Morehouse Men still succeeded.
Another reason is that Morehouse and Spelman aren't the only HBCUs, rather there are over 100. So to say the only reason why Morehouse sends such a high number of it's grads to elite graduate schools and prestigious corporations is due to those institutions/corporations wanting mainly to make their body more diverse would be a gigantic statistical anomaly. If that were the main goal of those institutions/corporations they have a very large pool of HBCUs to choose from, yet Morehouse in particular is over represented in that regard compared to most HBCUs. So which is more likely, there is some vast effort to elevate Morehouse Men erroneously or that Morehouse Men succeed because of their training at Morehouse?
The fact is you are just literally making this up. The academic record of Morehouse speaks for itself. No one gets in to Wharton or Harvard Law just because. Those institutions are prestigious for a reason: They only except the best and what Morehouse has produced consistantly for the last 144 years is constant stream of the best. Again, the record speaks for itself:
In the last 20 years Morehouse has produced three Rhodes Scholars in 1994, 2001, and 2004. Were those men chosen merely because of their skin or because they got a world class education at Morehouse?
In the last 20 years Morehouse has produced seven Fulbright Scholars. Were those men chosen merely because of their skin or because they got a world class education at Morehouse?
Since 1999 Morehouse has produced five Marshall Scholars, five Luce Scholars, four Watson Fellows and one White House Fellow. Were those men chosen merely because of their skin or because they got a world class education at Morehouse?
You have no proof of your charges and your implication that Morehouse Men succeed mainly because of the color is downright despicable.
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