The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions

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.

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.

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.

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.