U. Penn. Law Professor Amy Wax has this op-ed in the WSJ. Prof. Wax has been viciously attacked for an entirely mainstream and thoughtful op-ed, as previously noted in my posts last September, October, and February, and Bill's post last August. The piece has important implications beyond academia.
In this article Professor Wax notes that measures of academic performance, i.e., grades, are not uniform among ethnic groups, and "frustration and disappointment ensue, followed by charges of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination." The institutions react by concealing the facts. "They are jealously guarded, protected by cloaks of confidentiality and secrecy. But they are what they are. Hiding facts is not the same as changing them."
Denial of the facts is accompanied by vilification of people who acknowledge them. The deadly combination of denial and vilification makes much more difficult any effort to explore the underlying causes of disparity so that we can do something about it.
The problem Professor Wax notes for academic results also applies to crime rates. We previously saw the results in a bogus complaint of judicial misconduct, and now we are seeing it in confirmation politics.
In this article Professor Wax notes that measures of academic performance, i.e., grades, are not uniform among ethnic groups, and "frustration and disappointment ensue, followed by charges of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination." The institutions react by concealing the facts. "They are jealously guarded, protected by cloaks of confidentiality and secrecy. But they are what they are. Hiding facts is not the same as changing them."
Denial of the facts is accompanied by vilification of people who acknowledge them. The deadly combination of denial and vilification makes much more difficult any effort to explore the underlying causes of disparity so that we can do something about it.
The problem Professor Wax notes for academic results also applies to crime rates. We previously saw the results in a bogus complaint of judicial misconduct, and now we are seeing it in confirmation politics.
Five years ago, Judge Edith Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit gave a talk to the Federal Society chapter of, coincidentally, U. Penn. Law School. In this talk, she discussed the claim of racial bias in the justice system based on the frequently noted statistic of "disparity" between the demographic makeup of the incarcerated population and the general population. As I have noted many times on this blog, the claim based on this number makes an irrelevant comparison. You have to compare to criminals, not to the general population. Thus, seeking the truth inevitably involves confronting the uncomfortable fact of the differences in crime rates. Here is the key page of the report of a special committee chaired by Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit:
This brings us the long way around to present-day confirmation politics. C&C blogger Bill Otis is nominated to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. He has attracted some opposition for his view that the tough sentencing policies that were very likely a large factor in the major drop in crime beginning in the early 1990s were largely correct. That charge, at least, is on the issues. I will address it elsewhere. For now, suffice it to mention that his nomination is balanced with an equal and opposite advocate. Call it Newton's Third Law of the Sentencing Commission.
The other attack, though, has focused to a large extent on this post that Bill wrote defending Judge Jones from the ethics complaint discussed above, before the committee report.
The statement must be considered in the context of the debate in which is occurs and the clarifying effect of the subsequent comments. The debate relates to overall statistics of racial groups, not any suggestion that all members of any group share any characteristic regarding crime. The statement does not suggest that members of any group have any inherent propensity toward crime, and such an implication can only be read in by applying a presumption that all conservatives are bigots until proven otherwise (a presumption that a great many people on the left seem to apply regularly).
If there were any doubt on this point, it is eliminated in the comment thread. The Garland Committee notes that "we must consider Judge Jones' comments in the context of her express clarification during the question-and-answer period," and so it is with the comment thread for this post. Bill expressly endorses the propositions that "differences in group averages or rates say nothing about individuals" and " race and criminality have no causative relationship."
One article fumes at Bill's use of the once-preferred but now Politically Incorrect term "Oriental." I will address that in another post. This one is too long already.
The bottom line is that there is nothing here. Considered in full context, this is simply a statement of an inconvenient but undeniable fact. Professor Wax, Judge Jones, and Commissioner-nominee Otis have been and are being attacked for stating the truth in a society that often, as Professor Wax says, "put[s] the quest for psychological comfort over openness on matters central to how our society is organized."
It appears likely that Judge Jones did suggest that, statistically, African-Americans and/or Hispanics are "disproportionately" involved in certain crimes and "disproportionately" present in federal prisons. Needless to say, this topic can be extremely sensitive, and we do not doubt the affiants' and witnesses' repeated statements that they found the remarks offensive. Judge Jones herself recounted that she "was uncomfortable about alluding to such facts." Jones Recollections 20-21. We recognize that, without an explanation or qualification, saying that certain groups are "more involved in" or "commit more of" certain crimes can sound like saying those groups are "prone to commit" such crimes. But we must consider Judge Jones' comments in the context of her express clarification during the question-and-answer period that she did not mean that certain groups are "prone" to criminal behavior. In that context, whether or not her statistical statements are accurate, or accurate only with caveats, they do not by themselves indicate racial bias or an inability to be impartial. Rather, they resemble other, albeit substantially more qualified, statements prominent in contemporary debate regarding the fairness of the justice system.11In a nutshell, Judge Jones referred to a fact that every honest person who examines the data must acknowledge, but she didn't walk on eggs while referring to it. That is not judicial misconduct, and the D.C. Circuit dismissed the complaint without dissent on the recommendation of the committee. It is also not an indication of racial prejudice. Bluntness and bigotry are two entirely different things.
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11 See, e.g., Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association's House of Delegates (Aug. 12, 2013) ("[I]t's time to ask tough questions about how we can . . . address the fact that young black and Latino men are disproportionately likely to become involved in our criminal justice system -- as victims as well as perpetrators."); Marc Mauer & David Cole, Five Myths About Americans in Prison, WASH. POST (June 17, 2011) ("Yes, African Americans and Latinos disproportionately commit certain crimes. But in a 1996 study of crime rates in Columbus, Ohio, criminologists from Ohio State University concluded that socioeconomic disadvantages 'explain the overwhelming portion of the difference in crime.'"); Charles Ogletree, The Burdens and Benefits of Race in America, 25 HASTINGS CONST. L.Q. 217, 228 (1998) ("African-Americans are grossly over-represented in the criminal justice system. In part, this is due to the fact that, per capita, black people do commit more crimes than whites. However this fact alone does not account for the disparities in the crime statistics. In fact, since the 1970s, rates of black crime have been stable, even though the rates of prosecution have increased exponentially."); id. at 228 n.48 ("A number of studies have documented the unusually high arrest rates for blacks suspected of crime compared to other groups."); id. at 236-37 ("The problem is that the decision-making process at every stage . . . is discriminatory and thus subject to bias (racial or otherwise) in its applications."); see also U.S. SENTENCING COMM'N, 2012 SOURCEBOOK OF FEDERAL SENTENCING STATISTICS, tbl.4, available at http://www.ussc.gov/sites/ default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2012/Table04.pdf (providing statistics on race of offenders in each primary offense category).
This brings us the long way around to present-day confirmation politics. C&C blogger Bill Otis is nominated to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. He has attracted some opposition for his view that the tough sentencing policies that were very likely a large factor in the major drop in crime beginning in the early 1990s were largely correct. That charge, at least, is on the issues. I will address it elsewhere. For now, suffice it to mention that his nomination is balanced with an equal and opposite advocate. Call it Newton's Third Law of the Sentencing Commission.
The other attack, though, has focused to a large extent on this post that Bill wrote defending Judge Jones from the ethics complaint discussed above, before the committee report.
Thus, when Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones said at a University of Pennsylvania Law School talk that blacks and Hispanics are more violent than whites, a consortium of civil rights* organizations filed a complaint. The complaint calls for stern discipline, on the grounds that the remarks were "discriminatory and biased."Not walking on eggs, for sure, and not the way I would have written it, but does this blunt language warrant an accusation of racial bias? No, for the same reasons that the Garland Committee gave.
So far as I have been able to discover, it makes no mention of the fact that they're true.
The statement must be considered in the context of the debate in which is occurs and the clarifying effect of the subsequent comments. The debate relates to overall statistics of racial groups, not any suggestion that all members of any group share any characteristic regarding crime. The statement does not suggest that members of any group have any inherent propensity toward crime, and such an implication can only be read in by applying a presumption that all conservatives are bigots until proven otherwise (a presumption that a great many people on the left seem to apply regularly).
If there were any doubt on this point, it is eliminated in the comment thread. The Garland Committee notes that "we must consider Judge Jones' comments in the context of her express clarification during the question-and-answer period," and so it is with the comment thread for this post. Bill expressly endorses the propositions that "differences in group averages or rates say nothing about individuals" and " race and criminality have no causative relationship."
One article fumes at Bill's use of the once-preferred but now Politically Incorrect term "Oriental." I will address that in another post. This one is too long already.
The bottom line is that there is nothing here. Considered in full context, this is simply a statement of an inconvenient but undeniable fact. Professor Wax, Judge Jones, and Commissioner-nominee Otis have been and are being attacked for stating the truth in a society that often, as Professor Wax says, "put[s] the quest for psychological comfort over openness on matters central to how our society is organized."
Decencyevolves: Professor Wax was justifiably suspended from teaching first year classes when she made racially derogatory remarks about her students that she was in no position to know, given Penn’s policy on blind grading:
https://abovethelaw.com/2018/03/professor-declares-black-students-rarely-graduate-in-the-top-half-of-law-school-class/
Given that, you might choose a better example.
Given that both the "justifiably" and "racially derogatory" elements are your comment are far from given, I think I will stick with my example.
The post you link to refers to the original Wax & Alexander op-ed as "white cultural supremacy," which it most certainly is not, and uses childish insults such as "reptilian brain." It has zero credibility.
The proposition that a blind grading policy is so airtight that the faculty has no idea who the top students are is far from certain.
Professor Wax made assertions based on her impressions from teaching a large number of students without having hard data. Given the controversial nature of the subject, that was unwise but hardly racist.
The point of the most recent op-ed is that the school is denying her access to the hard data to prove the point one way or the other. The privacy objection is a dodge. Data can be anonymized and aggregated to protect the privacy of individuals. Social scientists do it all the time.