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46 UCLA L. Rev. 1583 (1998-1999)
Reflections on the Shape of the River

handle is hein.journals/uclalr46 and id is 1597 raw text is: REFLECTIONS ON THE SHAPE OF THE RIVER Stephan Thernstrom Abigail Thernstrom The debate over race-conscious admissions to selective colleges and universities has taken a new turn. The emotionally fraught moral argument continues, but facts-long largely hidden from public view-are now in the mix. The much-celebrated work by William G. Bowert and Derek Bok, The Shape of the River, adds to our store of data and is thus a welcome addition to the literature. But in this Book Review, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom conclude that the evidence upon which this brief for racial preferences relies does not withstand close scrutiny. Bowen and Bok contend that the weight given to race in the admissions pro- cess at highly selective colleges and universities is slight, and that preferentially admitted students do well both in school and beyond. Their own numbers, how- ever, paint quite a different picture, the Thernstroms find. Preferences are truly preferential, and black students admitted under racial double standards do not fare well academically. Other data on law and medical schools tell much the same story: Heavy racial preferences are coupled with high failure rates relative to those of whites and Asians. Race-conscious admissions to elite schools have, according to Bowen and Bok, created the backbone of the black and Hispanic middle class, but their book contains data on neither Hispanics nor Asians, a serious omission. More impor- tantly, the Thernstroms argue that admissions officers at elite institutions do not in general determine the socioeconomic fabric of African-American life. Through- out, Bowen and Bok's argument is marred by ahistorical reasoning, lapses in logic, methodological flaws, missing information, and missed opportunities to gather or further interpret important data. Bowen and Bok are militant advocates of diversity, and yet they provide no definition of the term and thus no standard against which diversity policies can be assessed. Moreover, they fail to engage the serious moral arguments of those who oppose all race-conscious policies. The Thernstroms conclude that critics of preferential policies are right to believe that sorting Americans into arbitrary racial categories perpetuates terrible habits of mind deeply at odds with the nation's unrealized egalitarian dream. * Winthrop Professor of History, Harvard University, and Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute. ** Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute, and member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. Some of the material here was first published in a previous essay. See Stephan Thernstrom & Abigail Thernstrom, Racial Preferences: What We Now Know, COMMENTARY, Feb. 1999, at 44. We are indebted to Curtis Crawford for penetrating comments on an earlier draft of this Book Review, and to Sam Thernstrom, who offered his usual expert editorial advice. 1583

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