"They want to pat themselves on the back for admitting large percentages of blacks..."

Michael Barone writes:

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has issued a report on racial preferences in law schools... [I]t finds that racial preferences for blacks actually reduce the number of blacks who become lawyers....

The report gives ammunition to those of us who have criticized [law school] administrators for preening self-righteousness. They want to pat themselves on the back for admitting large percentages of blacks but at the same time seem to have no interest at all in the percentage who actually graduate or pass the bar exam.

Barone knows enough to put the word "seem" there. He must know the law schools care deeply about the success of our graduates. But I understand his point. It's that if we really wanted the ends we care about, we ought to abandon the approach to admissions that the commission criticized.

But there is no "we" here. As Barone notes, the highest ranked law schools absorb much of the limited pool of minority applicants, and this affects the other law schools, which also want to admit minority students. The law schools are not all going to change at the same time, and we are are in competition with each other. If any school changes, others will look for ways to take advantage.