Robert Steinbuch didn’t expect to see his name in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Thursday.
But there it was.
“It was a complete surprise stumbling upon my name in the opinion,” said Steinbuch, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. “I had to reread it twice.”
In a 6-3 ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court effectively struck down affirmative action for admission to American colleges and universities.
In an opinion concurring with the majority, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas cited a paper written by Steinbuch and Richard H. Sander, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The paper, Mismatch and Bar Passage: A School-Specific Analysis, is to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Legal Education, said Steinbuch. It was submitted in 2017 and updated in March.
“As anyone who has labored over an algebra textbook has undoubtedly discovered, academic advancement results from hard work and practice, not mere declaration,” wrote Thomas. “Simply treating students as though their grades put them at the top of their high school classes does nothing to enhance the performance level of those students or otherwise prepare them for competitive college environments. In fact, studies suggest that large racial preferences for black and Hispanic applicants have led to a disproportionately large share of those students receiving mediocre or poor grades once they arrive in competitive collegiate environments.”
That is when Thomas cites Mismatch and Bar Passage, along with another paper by Sander.
[DOCUMENT: Read the research co-authored by Steinbuch » arkansasonline.com/630barpassage/]
“I was surprised because as on-point my article is, the rarity that any single professor gets cited by the U.S. Supreme Court is notable,” said Steinbuch. “Most professors go a career without ever getting cited by the U.S. Supreme court, and I was content to be among them.”
Besides being a law professor and an advocate for Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act, Steinbuch is also a columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Steinbuch expounded on the paper cited by Thomas: “If you let people in to a college or law school with lower grades than their classmates, because you just pretend that they have higher grades because you want to increase diversity, those very folks that you’re letting in with lower grades aren’t going to perform as well because, needless to say, grades are a reflection of ability. We did an empirical study of that.”
Steinbuch said he thought the Supreme Court ruling was right.
He quoted Chief Justice John Roberts from 2007: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
“And so, as a moral battle, affirmative action as employed today needs to stop,” said Steinbuch. “And at an empirical level, we have demonstrated that it actually doesn’t achieve the goals that it claims to support, meaning to help out minorities. You’re not helping minorities if you admit them to law school, for example, and then they can’t pass the bar.”
In the 1960s, as America was emerging from the Jim Crow era, it made sense to put a thumb on the scale when comparisons were close, said Steinbuch. But things are different now.
“Over the last 60 years, the notion of affirmative action has become, rather than a thumb on the scale, it has become a cinder-block on the scale,” said Steinbuch. “It has effectively become the defining characteristic that determines outcomes.
“Race has become the defining characteristic particularly in admissions in higher education and, significantly but not to the same degree, in the hiring for many jobs.”
When asked about using economic status as a factor in college admissions instead of race, Steinbuch said that was a valid option. Preference could be given to applicants who were economically disadvantaged.
“There are many ways to address disparity, but race is not a good proxy. It’s not fair,” said Steinbuch.