SAN FRANCISCO—In a bitter fight over the effects of affirmative action, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that law school data on race, attendance and grades should be available to the public.
The unanimous decision represents a legal victory for a law professor seeking to test his theory that minority students are actually harmed by preferential admissions policies.
University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Sander created a firestorm when he published his “mismatch theory” in the Stanford Law Review in 2004.
Critics swiftly attacked his conclusions, saying Sander understated the positive effects of affirmative action and based his thinking on inadequate statistics.
To further his research, Sander sought the data with a public records request in 2008. The state bar association denied the request, prompting the lawsuit.
Sander said Thursday that the state bar database is “unparalleled” to other demographic sources he uses in his research.
“Having access to this large database is just so enormously valuable,” Sander said. “This is a big breakthrough.”
