Here is a more recent study on AA that some might appreciate:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/chavez062101.asp
"If you're a black or, to a lesser degree, Hispanic applicant, your chances of being admitted to medical school are far greater than whites or Asians with the same college grades and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores. At the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1997, the odds ratio of a black applicant being admitted over a white with the same grades and MCAT scores were nearly 30-to-1. At the State University of New York, Brooklyn, the odds were nearly 23-to-1 in 1996 and were 9-to-1 in 1999. At the University of Maryland in 1999, they were 21-to-1, and at the University of Georgia in 1996, they were 19-to-1. At Michigan State University College of Human Medicine they were 12-to-1 in 1997 and 14-to-1 in 1999.
But more disturbing even than the finding that medical schools seem to be admitting less-qualified students on the basis of race and ethnicity is that many of these students can't pass their licensing exams, despite greater resources directed toward helping them than other students received. At every medical school CEO studied, substantially larger numbers of black students than whites either did not take or failed their initial licensing exams, and, in most instances, failed their subsequent licensing tests as well.
These higher failure rates don't just mean personal disappointment. Since medical education requires a huge allocation of resources -- and at state schools, this usually means tax-payer funding -- medical students who do not go on to become doctors are a poor investment. More than 3,500 white and Asian students were not admitted to the schools CEO studied, despite having better grades and test scores than black and Hispanic applicants who were given preferential treatment. Since grades and, in particular, MCAT scores are very good predictors of performance on the licensing exams, we know that a higher percentage of these students would have passed the exams if they had been admitted.
So, who wins? Certainly not the whites and Asians denied the opportunity to study medicine. But neither do the blacks and Hispanics who were admitted to medical school but could not survive there. And all of the rest of us -- of all colors -- suffer, too, from a shortage of qualified doctors."
