Prof Sanders: Affirmative Action in Law Schools, Part 1

As noted before, Prof Sanders is guest-blogging on the Volokh Conspiracy about his article. His post today talks about the basis of the issue:

Herein lies the collective action problem. The preferences awarded by the top tier law schools absorb all the black applicants that would be admitted, in a race-blind system, to second-tier schools. These schools must therefore choose between having essentially no black students or duplicating the types of preferences pursued in the top-tier. Nearly all the second-tier schools choose the latter course, thus putting third-tier schools into the same bind, and so on. The net effect of this system is to move nearly all blacks up a tier (or two) in the law school hierarchy, thus placing nearly all blacks at an enormous academic disadvantage in the schools they attend. The only net addition of blacks to the system comes in the lowest-tier schools, and the black students they admit have such marginal academic credentials that they face long odds against every becoming attorneys.