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The Shape of the River

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Misters Bowen and Bok have written two books superimposed on one another.

One book is a careful, dispassionate explication of a significant data set obtained over more than two decades for student cohorts at a set of colleges and universities practicing selective admission. These data to do not make a case for or against affirmative action in admission. They are however an extremely valuable resource for placing discussions about selective admission on a factual basis. It seems silly to this reviewer to debate whether the data are "scientific" or not. For other reviewers in this space to have attacked the book without substantiation as "unscientific" only reveals their own bias in this heated debate.

The other book is one of opinion and political values. Bowen and Bok argue a traditional progressive line of thought: that the most prestigious institutions have a responsibility to build a better society and that part of this mission is achieved by helping downtrodden segments of society to better themselves. No set of data can prove these values to be correct, nor can any data refute the dominant opposing view: that admission to the most prestigious institutions should be a reward for great personal merit as measured by an examination system. These are human values that, like religious beliefs, are not subject to straightforward empirical verification.

Readers on either side of the affirmative action debate will find some solace in the data presented in this book. Read with care, this book can provide a basis for more constructive debate. Take for example the famous Thomas Sowell assertion, cited (as Gospel!) by the Reader from Lansing, that students admitted to prestigious schools under an affirmative action plan will have a poor success rate. This is a factual assertion that is tested by the studies reported by Bowen and Bok. As it happens, success (measured by graduation rate) is extremely high at the most selective institutions for affirmative action minority students. This result does not "prove" that affirmative action is good, but it certainly should help us get past one specious argument and move on to more fruitful debate. And please, dear reviewers, read the book next time before you write your review.

I was really impressed by this book, and I came to it as a skeptic. I've never been a big fan of affirmative action in the awarding of contracts, but I've always been more ambivalent when it came to programs that were about giving opportunity. It's not like my SATs were through the roof and I've done okay in life.

It impressed me were that Bowen and Bok weren't screaming "agenda" in the book, even though they clearly come out saying that these programs help society in a lot of ways. But they give the minuses as well, and so they don't strike me as the rampant ideologues that seem to dominate any conversation we have about public policy in this country.

They also have a ton of data that seems like it was carefully collected rather then your normal "instant" poll of 14 people. One of the big things that I learned from all these data was that the white alumni report that they learned a lot in college about how to get along with people of other races. They want these programs, not just the blacks. A few notable conservative voices may think that these schools shouldn't have these policies but apparently 79 percent of the people who went to these schools think that they should (or even have stronger policies like them), so I would think that they deserve a little more say in the matter.

I don't really understand the earlier comment by the reader from Lansing. I don't see where this book says that only by going to these schools will people succeed. Also, if (as the reader argues) people who would end up being bumped down to the next level end up doing just fine (as I'm sure many would) then why does it matter who gets into the better schools? You can't have it both ways. The data in the book shows that everyone gets a boost from going to the better schools, and this boost is even bigger for the black students.

Finally, I was convinced by their whole discussion of what's "fair." I don't quite get why some people believe that admitting by SAT scores alone is fair, but the fact that lots of people (and lots of black people) are born in lousy neighborhoods or go to poor high schools is somehow also "fair." Fair is not a very straightforward idea. To the people who say "Gee blacks are getting so much advantage these days," I guess my first question would be "so, would you rather be black?" I doubt it. If these schools are giving people opportunities to give society more black doctors and judges, and the white people think they're benefitting as well, then that seems "fair" to me.

The book is VERY dense and long winded at times, but needs to be. I think this and D'Souza's "The End of Racism" for example should be required reading, one after the other, in an AP social studies class or PoliSci one. Its a very detailed analysis of the actual empirical results of decades of this policy, and is very convincing.

I think all liberals should have to read D'Souza or similar, and all conservatives this book.

Here is a book that will be important because of the importance of its authors. Derek Bok and William Bowen are both former presidents of Ivy League colleges.

I will not make any effort to analyze every aspect of their book, but as an educational researcher I believe that there is a need to be critical of the methods used to arrive at their conclusion--namely, that race-based admission policies have increased opportunities for black students to obtain jobs in professions that have been mainly closed to them.

The authors provide nothing by the way of a reasonably scientific attempt to determine the accuracy of their claim. If they really wanted to prove their point, it would be necessary for them to show that, had there been no "race-sensitive" admissions policies, the students who were enabled to attend prestigious colleges and universities because of race-sensitivity would not have been successful in life.

It seems the height of snobbery and arrogance to have former presidents of "prestigious" institutions claiming that the policies they used, and the education their schools delivered to the students, have been the "cause" of the success of these students. Implicit in this view is the suggestion that only by attending universities like Harvard or Princeton--and not some other college or university (without the "assistance" of race-based admissions policies)--could these students have achieved success.

Thomas Sowell has opined that students who are rejected from Berkeley, or any other selective college, would probably do quite well at some other (less selective) institution where they would be in the mainstream (i.e., among students of similar ability). The probability of dropping out of school is significantly greater when the vast majority of one's "peers" are functioning at a significantly higher level.

In this book, Bok and Bowen claim that students who might be rejected at the most selective schools would no longer be able to become part of the "backbone of the emergent black middle class." How about the other millions of college students who cannot attend the most selective schools? Are they being prevented from becoming part of the emergent middle class (backbone or otherwise)? Of course not!

To be truly scientific in their approach, Bok and Bowen would have to take a sample of 700 equally qualified black students (based on, say, GPA, majors, and SAT or ACT scores) who were not accepted at selective-admissions schools, and compare their success with the 700 who they did study, who had been admitted to selective schools via affirmative action. Limiting their study to students at the selective colleges and universities (and excluding all others) greatly weakens their conclusions.

It's a shame they didn't do such a study. Somebody should, if only to provide a convincing test of their hypothesis. Until this is done, Bok and Bowen will have provided a convincing political tract, but will not have answered the question about the real benefits of race-based selection policies.

The debate over Affirmative Action is nearly always ill-informed, polemical, and fraught with racial symbolism. While many reject The Shape of the River because they are unable to look past their personal prejudices, those that consider it with an intelligent and open mind find a great deal of strong statistical evidence to support the well-reasoned conclusions of the book's authors. Those that call the book "arrogant" without addressing any of the specific points of the authors look suspiciously like people with no grasp of statistics.

Bowen and Bok have created a supremely comprehensive dataset that allows them to analyze in detail the effects of affirmative action. This is social science at its best.

This book doesn't resolve the issue of affirmative action. Instead it makes clear just what the policy options are. The AA debate is charged with emotion and myths; only a study such as this can properly frame the debate.

I don't support AA, but I think anyone interested in the topic should read this book.

The Shape of The River continues the same liberal deception and dogma we have come to expect in the debate over affirmative action, and this helps racists of all stripes- liberal and conservative ones. See Sowell on the data.

1) The authors skew their results towards elite private colleges, that most black students don't attend. Their sample has 24 private institutions and only 4 state institutions. But in fact only 9% of blacks attend private institutions. In addition they are selective in their sample of actual black students. Two thirds of those sampled have one or more parents with college degrees- something not typical of the black college going population as a whole. With such a selective sampling it is no wonder the authors got the "results" they wanted.

2) The authors lump together blacks admitted with no special preferences with those admitted under lower standards, rather than separating them out so as to disguise the impact of AA. But in fact, as numerous other studies show, where black students are similar to their white counterparts, their graduation
rates have been similar. In other words they are cutting the mustard, just like everybody else. But where there are those admitted under lower standards, then there is a wide gap in graduation rates.

3) Several other studies contradict the author's conclusions and for some strange reason they will not make their base data public so that others can analyze it. As shown above, they lump together blacks enjoying no special preferences with those admitted under such- disguising the impact of preferences. Their refusal to release base data (like any normal academic study would), suggests something fishy at work.

Some have used various items in the book to argue for the declining intelligence of the black population, based on the fact of high IQ black women having fewer children. But this is bogus. In fact the intelligence scores of blacks (along with other initially low IQ whites) have been rising for decades. As Thomas Sowell points out, it is the "norming" of IQ tests from their earlier baselines so that increases are reshuffled to yield a "normal average" of 100, that has concealed black
progress. When progress is measured from the original baselines, in fact, whole nations have experienced rising IQs, undermining the racist assumptions of so called "decline".

Some whites would like to assume that black folks can't learn anything unless they get some sort of "special help" or conversely, that black progress is due to "preferences." Either way, the presumption is something doled out by white people.
But back in the Jim Crow era, when blacks were blatantly and systematically denied opportunities open to whites, blacks were making progress without any "special" help or "preferences". All black PUBLIC schools like Dunbar High in Washington DC consistently produced test scores for decades above the white average. As far back as the First World War, black soldiers from northern states, places like New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio scored higher on mental tests than white soldiers from southern regions like Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi.

By the way, the academic performance gap between Asians and whites is even bigger than the gap between blacks and whites according to Thernstroms' new book "No excuses". So white performance ain't anything to write home about either. People should remember this the next time they so easily point fingers at black people-- whether to condemn them, or "help" them with yet more deceptive and dubious "preferences."

I have read the book twice. Truth often is stranger than fiction. The book is complicated but the central theses is that blacks "need" lower standards to succeed in school, jobs and life. Basically, it says they cannot succeed in life without me the arrogant, academic white liberal providing lower standards for admissions to college for you, the blacks.

The whole subject of differences in test scores, academic achievement is a touchy subject. White IQ averages 100 and Blacks IQ averages 85, a gap of 15 points. Many believe, that the difference will be less once equal opportunity is provided. These people believe in equal opportunity and believe "all races" have the ability to succeed.

Bok and Bowen basically comes and says they CANNOT succeed without lower hurdles, lower admissions criteria, the aid of white paternalism. Bok and Bowen have basically accepted the very notion that blacks are inferior to whites and they will never succeed without the white man support. Its again the ideas of the "white man burden" to civilized the Africans in our midst. If this is not white racism at its worst. I have no idea what it is. Paternalism of liberal whites toward blacks is the worst form of racism possible. It is the "plantation mentality" at work again. If you behave toward the plantation master, I will invite you inside the masters house and let you have the goodies.

There no way to get around it: Bok and Bowen are academic racists.... academic racists of the worst type because they believe intrinsically that blacks are inferior to whites and only through their "benevolence" will blacks succeed. I find this ugly, distasteful and objectionable.

For public universities like the Universities of California, Texas, Michigan, etc. It is well known for decades now that there is two-admissions process. One process is for Whites-Asians and another process is for Blacks-Hispanics. At the University of Michigan, Whites-Asians will be auto-reject at the 6% percentile of applicants. Blacks-Hispanics at 6% will be auto-accept. Berkeley has had a gap year after year of 250-350 SAT points between the two groups. The NYT published the SAT scores of white-Asians, in the 1200-1300 range, whereas blacks-hispanics were in the range of 900, under a thousand. It is no secret-open seceret now that public universities have two-admissions process based on your race. It's like there is two-universities, one for you and one for me.

The only reason I write this is that public universities are under public control and public scrutiny. Much of the data came out of Freedom of Information Act request.

Private universities meanwhile are not publicly obligated to release their admissions data. But here in this book, by the former Presidents of Harvard and Princeton, they are publicly admitting they have two-admissions process. If you are white, your application will be placed with other white applicants and if you are blacks, you will be competing against other blacks.

It's an open admission of a two-system admissions process with the blacks system of admissions with much, much lower standards. I would think this is a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but Bok and Bowen insists "the only way they can make it"

This white academic racism of Bok and Bowen reminds me of the separate drinking fountains of the old US South. One fountain for whites and a shabbier one for the colored. Bok and Bowen is here endorsing the white racism of the US South. White and Blacks cannot drink from the same fountain, Bok and Bowen is saying they cannot "compete" because they are just too dumb.
Instead of the KKK of the south promoting the inferiority of blacks, we have the President of Harvard and Princeton, respected academics, promoting the inferiority of blacks. I consider this academic racism the worst form of "hate" imagination because it is an intellectual, accepted belief that blacks are inherently inferior.

Needless to say, I find the white racism of Bok and Bowen shocking and objectionable. Moreover, they openly admit that Ivy schools have a two-tier system of admissions, one for me and one for you people will be shocking to many readers. Bok and Bowen even defends the two-system admissions process.. lower standards for blacks.Shocking.

Please buy the book, read it, and judge it for yourself. Your opinion might be different than mine, but the white racism of Bok and Bowen is the racism of the worst imaginable type.... they have concluded and accepted blacks are inferior and they need a lower set of standards to go anywhere in life or college, with the white man help of course. If this is not racism, I have no idea what is.

The authors of this book once again raise the question of whether those who work in the social "sciences" will ever allow their work to be subjected to the same academic rigor as the physical sciences. To wit, William G. Bowen is the head of the Mellon Foundation, which is in possession of the research used to justify the claims made in this book. In real science the data would be made available to anyone. In the case of this book, however, the Mellon Fundation will only make the data available under "special" circumstances:

"Requests for access ... must go beyond a general desire to recheck results; they should instead offer sound reasons for believing that there is a likelihood of error or misinterpretation in the work of others..."

That's a quote from the Mellon Foundation's guidleines to obtain the data. In other words, in order to get a chance to prove that it's wrong you already have to be able to prove it's wrong. Hmmmm....Not very scientific for these two "social scientists."

National Review's Melissa Seckora recently gained fame for disproving much of the data used to justify Michael Bellesiles' book "Arming America." Mr. Bellesiles reputation has come under furious assault for the falsification he used to support his book's thesis. Perhaps a similar fate awaits these 2 men, if their data ever actually becomes available. Perhaps if Mr. Bellesiles had been the head of "his own" foundation? (It is, of course, Mr. Mellon's money - I'm sure he's spinning in his grave.)

This book is astounding. The authors' primary premise?

That affirmative action has helped...those whom it has helped.

To paraphrase any self-respecting pre-pubescent person...Well, DUH !

One would be rather surprised if the data pointed anywhere else.

OF COURSE affirmative action has helped a segment (but only a small segment, generally of the most well-to-do) minorities. This addresses not at all the more important question: How *should* we help these folks? Which methods are least unfair, and which will give the greatest net benefit. At what level should affirmative action take place. (Isn't it kinda' late by graduate school?) Ah...these are rather more difficult issues, and ones too tied in the practical, as opposed to back-seat commentating.

The authors have sucked on two of the tastiest teats of government (that's you) -funded academia, and have the gall to apportion those sinecure benefits drastically differently to later generations. (Even this wouldn't be so bad if the pain were suffered evenly. Alas, it is not. Pro-AA defenders ought to be slapped when glossing over this painful reality: The burden is "shared" by an exceedingly narrow group: *poor* white males.)

The moment *every* tenured professor and *all* administrators are willing to resign ...*then* I'll sign on to a proportional representation model. (Not so easy once it's *your* ox being gored, eh?)

For those who've already "got theirs" to decide the issue for those who haven't is mind-numbing arrogance.

Yet another point poorly addressed: How much affirmative action are we talking about? Few (including me) would complain about an extra point or two, but that's obviously not what we're talking about, here (or else there wouldn't be so much fuss). How much, exactly, are we?

Thus, lie is given to the book's subtitle: are we "considering" race, or are we saying To Hell With It, We Need A Certain Result And We'll Get There, By Gum. We might indeed get there, but we shan't stay there for long if we've destroyed our principles in the process.

For shame.