Any of these formulations show that differences in background credentials explain nearly all of the differences

February 2006 Affirmative Action in American Law Schools A Critical Response to Richard Sander’s “A Reply to Critics” * **Richard O. Lempert, William C. Kidder, *** ****Timothy T. Clydesdale, & David L. Chambers Authors’ Note: This is a working paper representing our initial reactions to the reply essay by Richard Sander that was published in the same issue of the Stanford Law Review as our empirical critique of his article on law school affirmative action. As such, our views may be refined later and we encourage criticism of this working paper. To facilitate the readers’ ability to track rather complicated back-and-forth arguments between Professor Sander and the four of us, quotations from Sander’s reply essay are in RED ITALICS, and are followed by our response to each claim. OUTLINE I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY……………………………………………………………………..2 II. INTRODUCTION: THE ART OF SANDER’S RHETORIC…………………..7 A. “Mismatch” as a Moving Target: First-Time Versus Eventual Bar Pass Rates…….. .8 B. The Number of Black Lawyers: A Side Issue?.............................................................9 C. Revisionism About Part VIII of Systemic Analysis…………………………………..10 D. Has Systemic Analysis been “thoroughly replicated”?.................................................11 III. SPECIFIC COMMENTS………………………………………………………………………14 A. Arguments on the Mismatch Effect……………………15 1. LSAT & UGPA Explain 90% of Black-White Differences?................... ...