A very recent (May 19, 2006) article in The Chronicle of Higher Ed on (il)legality of preferential hiring discussing many of the issues we are facing.
Another Chronicle paper (from the March 19, 2004, issue) arguing for the economic affirmative action programs instead of racial ones.
A fundamental work of an UCLA law professor that questions the effectiveness of affirmative action (on the example of law schools). Sander shows that half of all black law students rank near the bottom of their class after the first year of law school, and that black law students are more likely to drop out of school and to fail the bar exam. The article estimates that the number of new black lawyers in the US would grow by 8% if affirmative action programs at all law schools were ended, since black students would instead attend less prestigious schools where they would be more closely matched with their classmates, and thus perform better. The article has sparked heated initial reaction and Sander is patiently providing response to all critics on his web-site.
Sander helped to develop a socioeconomically-based affirmative action plan for the UCLA School of Law after the passage of Proposition 209 which prohibited the use of racial preferences by public universities in California. (By the way, this change occurred after studies that showed that the graduation rate of blacks at UCLA was 41%, compared to 73% for whites.) It would be worthwhile to find more details about this program.
From exec summary: "recent research shows that college admissions preferences do not offer even the practical benefits claimed by their supporters. Because preferences do not help minority students, policymakers and administrators of all political persuasions should oppose their use.
Affirmative action defenders frequently and correctly tout the importance of college to the goal of improving life prospects. But preferences at selective schools have not increased college access. They cannot do so because most minority students leave high school without the minimum qualifications to attend any four-year school. Only outreach and better high school preparation can reduce overall racial disparities in American colleges.
Affirmative action produces no concrete benefits to minority groups, but it does produce several significant harms. First, a phenomenon called the "ratchet effect" means that preferences at a handful of top schools, including state flagship institutions, can worsen racial disparities in academic preparation at all other American colleges and universities, including those that do not use admissions preferences. This effect results in painfully large gaps in academic preparation between minority students and others on campuses around the country.
Recent sociological research demonstrates that preferences hurt campus race relationships. Worse, they harm minority student performance by activating fears of confirming negative group stereotypes, lowering grades, and reducing college completion rates among preferred students."
Recent social science research has not been kind to supporters of affirmative action. Over the past several years a growing body of research by sociologists, economists, and political scientists has been accumulating which seriously calls into question many of the most cherished assumptions of affirmative action supporters regarding the effects of race-based preferences in university admissions. The great irony in the matter is that much of the research that has proved most damaging to the case for racial preferences in higher education has come from studies sponsored by some of the very same organizations that have been the most active in the past in their support of the affirmative action initiatives.
Studies surveyed show that there is widespread hostility among white and Asian college students to the preferential treatment of blacks and Hispanics; that this fact heightens racial tensions on campus; and that it also increases the feeling on the part of the beneficiaries of racial preferences that they are academically inferior and incapable of a high level of academic performance. This last factor is shown to have a harmful effect on the academic achievement of black students -- who earn considerably lower grades in college than their SAT scores would predict -- and it is also related to the fact so few black students persist with an initial freshman-year intention to pursue a career in academic teaching. Material is also presented that suggests that affirmative action policies in colleges and graduate schools create a perverse incentive structure that discourages black and Hispanic students from working as hard as their white and Asian peers.
The report concludes with some reflections on why a policy that has been shown to have almost all of the pernicious effects that its many critics have always said it would have is still with us thirty years after its inception. Dr. Nieli believes that a peculiar form of post-60s white guilt is at the heart of white administrators' support of affirmative action, and that the need to alleviate this guilt through symbolic gestures rather than to set wise educational policy is what sustains a clearly irrational set of programs whose multiple faults recent social science research has only too well illuminated.
A very intereting article discussing methodological flaws in surveys designed to measure racial diversity benefits.
From the press release: The University of Michigan falsely concludes from this that a positive relationship has been established between racial diversity and supposedly beneficial educational outcomes. "It is unfortunate," said Malcolm Sherman, Professor of Mathematics at SUNY/Albany, "that a world-class university like the University of Michigan would twist data that refute its own claims about the educational value of diversity."