The “mismatch” theory behind Scalia comment

Supreme Court justice’s opinion puts spotlight on minority students

washington» Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, no stranger to controversy, is drawing fire after suggesting that African-American students might be better off attending “slower-track” universities.

In a hearing of oral arguments for the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, to decide whether race-conscious admissions should be upheld at Texas’ flagship university, Scalia on Wednesday cited “those who contend that it does not benefit AfricanAmericans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school — a slower-track school where they do well.”

He went on to say: “One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. ... They come from schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.”

While many dismissed Scalia’s statements as a classic provocation from one of the Supreme Court’s most vocal conservative judges, his argument has roots. Scalia was referring to a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the case that details a notion popular among affirmative action opponents: the “mismatch” theory.

In the last decade, some scholarship has gathered around the idea that affirmative action in fact hurts its “intended beneficiaries,” defined in the research as minority students, who are “mismatched” to universities that grant them admission in part because they belong to an under-represented demographic at those institutions.

The most prominent articulation of mismatch theory comes from Richard Sander’s “A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law,” published in 2004 in the Stanford Law Review. Sander argues that because minority students who are admitted to a school through race-based admissions tend to have lower academic credentials, they struggle to thrive in a learning environment with higher standards than those for which their prior education prepared them. This scenario, according to Sander, has a ripple effect that causes these students to opt for a less difficult major or decide not to pursue further education because of the perception that they are not suited for an academic environment.