Affirmative Action:
Science Weighs In

He had a personal stake: it was he, after all, who had written the affirmative action policy that took effect in 1967.

This February, almost three years later, he found himself on the witness stand in federal court for eight hours - four hours testifying as author of the program that was under attack, and four hours explaining the research he had done with Law School colleagues David L. Chambers III and Terry Adams, who is also on the faculty of the university's Institute for Social Research.

"Nothing in my career has given me more professional satisfaction than working on this study with colleagues and being able to present our results in court," says Lempert, a former Sociology Department head. "I also think our study is better than it would have been had we not been going to present it in court and face the possibility of cross examination. That made us constantly recheck ourselves, our data, our samples for bias."

By the time Lempert took the stand, the undergraduate lawsuit had been summarily decided in the university's favor by another federal judge after presentation of an abundance of expert psychological research reports on the educational merits of diversity. When the Law School case was heard, that same research was entered into evidence, but now the Washington-based Center for Individual Rights, representing the plaintiff in the class action suit, was agreeing that campus diversity was both desirable and a "compelling government interest," but arguing that nevertheless the Law School weighed race too heavily.

That issue - whether race could play any part at all in deciding who is and is not admitted as a law student in order to "level the playing field" - went to trial, with the legal system's full panoply of testimony and cross-examination. The trial lasted two weeks. Lempert's research became a focal point of the trial because, in studying the records of three decades of University of Michigan law graduates, he and his colleagues showed:

• Minority graduates are as successful as whites. They earn high incomes, are as satisfied with their careers, and give significantly more back to the community.
• Among all graduates, a high proportion think classroom diversity enriched their education.
• Basing admissions on LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) scores alone would have forced out two-thirds of Michigan's minority law school students, but LSAT scores and undergraduate grade point averages bore no relationship to future earned income, career satisfaction, or community service.
• More minorities than whites graduated with education-related debts, and those in debt owed substantially more than their white counterparts, contrary to common belief that minorities are disproportionately helped with scholarship aid.

"It is very important for science to weigh in," says Lempert, "important that courts that face terribly important questions have a factual background from which to approach these issues. Courts are influenced by their views of reality. Too often they can be influenced by anecdotes, horror stories, media reports, or biased research that gets popular publicity.

"Judges need the benefit of more careful social science research, scientific testimony that allows a judge to ask questions and get behind the appearances, and allows us to explain the limitations and qualifications of the research. In our case, for example, the judge might well have thought that LSAT scores are related to how well the lawyers do in practice. We were able to refute the stereotypes."