Bar exam dispute

Our commentary inadvertently cited the Scaife Foundation as supporting Sander's research. Sander is conducting his research through a consortium called Project SEAPHE, which received funding from the Searle Freedom Trust, a foundation that also funds Right-wing groups such as the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society and the Pacific Legal Foundation. This relationship was reported by The Chornicle of Higher Education on Jan. 18, 2008. We also mentioned a $1M grant, but the amount is actually $1.2 million, which is listed on Indiana University School of Law professor William D. Henderson's CV.

Keith Kamisugi @ 3:07 PM PDT, Sep 19, 2008

Accomodations have been reached all the time between presidents and congress when there is a compelling public interest involved. Surely professor Sanders and the Bar can agree on protecting indentities - unless the Bar has another agenda altogether.

David Blankenship @ 1:20 PM PDT, Sep 19, 2008

As an attorney, I agree. When I took the bar, we were under the impression that our information would be protected under lock and key forever (and signed documents saying the Bar would do just that). I would not want my score, biographical information and academic history being used in any study.

pbsd @ 12:39 PM PDT, Sep 19, 2008

I joined Sander’s project because of (and not despite) my core liberal values. The statistic that moved me to get directly involved was the unacceptable fact that fewer than half of all African-American law students will graduate and pass the bar exam. Only a third graduate and pass the bar the first time. Surely there are a number of forces at play—stereotype threat, socio-economic status, and latent test bias—that might explain some portion of the gap, and the requested dataset could be used to test many of them. But the investigation of a problem this severe should leave no stone unturned.

Jane Yakowitz @ 8:29 AM PDT, Sep 19, 2008

Nothing to hide?

Serra @ 8:28 AM PDT, Sep 19, 2008

I’m disturbed by the role that a number of socially progressive organizations have played in this process. Surely if a member of the public were to make a similar request in order to test intentional discrimination by the Bar against minority candidates, these organizations would not raise privacy as a complete barrier to all forms of disclosure.

Jane Yakowitz @ 8:28 AM PDT, Sep 19, 2008

We’ve requested only four variables that could be used to identify a bar-taker—race, law school, graduating year, and bar exam outcome. All of these variables are banded to ensure that no combination has fewer than five cases. For example, graduation years are clustered into bands spanning three graduating classes. Such banding eliminates the risk that minorities graduating from UC law schools following the passage of Prop. 209 will be identifiable using the race, law school, and graduation year information in the dataset.

Jane Yakowitz @ 8:27 AM PDT, Sep 19, 2008

Project SEAPHE sought the advice of national data preparation experts to insure that our privacy protocols adequately protected bar-takers. Consistently, the experts found that our methods were stricter than legally or practically required.

Jane Yakowitz @ 8:27 AM PDT, Sep 19, 2008

I’m the director of Project SEAPHE, Prof. Sander’s research institution at UCLA School of Law. Jackson and Solana’s statement has many factual errors, but the greatest (in the sense that it is untrue, easily fact-checkable, and incendiary) is their assertion that Prof. Sander’s research is funded by the Sarah Scaife Foundation. Our funding source, the Searle Freedom Trust, is described on our website (www.seaphe.org/about.php).

Jane Yakowitz @ 8:23 AM PDT, Sep 19, 2008