Harvard And Discrimination in Admissions: Is The Big Issue Being Ignored? – Eugene Steuerle

“In tracked systems, differences multiply. Following upon the work on relative age effects by Canadian psychologist Roger Barnsley, Malcolm Gladwell discussed in his book Outliers that Canadian children born early in the year were much more likely to become professional hockey players than those born later in the year. At the very early age in which Canadian kids start playing, the former group on average is more mature physically and mentally. That early advantage gives them more playing time and skill development that often adds to their relative advantage in the second year, and so on In the third and succeeding years.

“The Supreme Court provides an extreme example of how tracking plays out along for years to come, with eight out of nine of the current justices having attended Yale or Harvard law school. Amy Coney Barrett was the rare modern exception, though she did come along another track for modern Republican appointments to the Court—association with the Federalist Society. The historical bias wasn’t quite so bad, with law schools like Texas and Berkeley having had one each in their history, compared to 22 for Harvard. Only three law schools have had more than three.”

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