I have a discussion on Minding The Campus this morning of a new study whose authors, all economists, found that the promise of preferential treatment actually increases “human capital development,” social-science speak for studying and doing homework. The first sentence of my discussion:
“There’s nothing wrong with the first sentence of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s new report, “Affirmative Action and Human Capital Development,” which defines affirmative action as “the practice of granting preferential treatment to under-represented (UR) demographic groups,” but it’s down hill from there.
To see how far down hill, you’ll have to read the whole thing.
