Affirmative Action

Michael Kinsley doesn't agree with Stuart Taylor and Richard Sander's book about affirmative action.  He admits that he has no way to dispute the facts that Taylor and Sander lay out, but that he just feels it's wrong.  Kinsley summarizes the book extremely well, and basically summarizes my opinion of why affirmative action is not a good policy.  (Basically, affirmative action causes a mismatch between students and institutions so students go to schools they're not prepared for which causes their education to suffer; they would be better off succeeding in a worse school than failing in a better school).

The crux of Kinsley's opinion comes in two paragraphs:

Even if massive numbers of minority students who wouldn’t otherwise make the cut are getting into Duke, that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to hack it there, or would be happier at Wake Forest or the University of Richmond. All of Sander and Taylor’s data can’t capture the myriad reasons students apply to one place or another, find happiness or not, do their homework or not, drop out or go on to engineering school.

The idea that a minority student who can get into Harvard, by favoritism or otherwise, would actually be well-advised to turn it down in favor of, say, Ohio State -- not because he thinks Ohio State is just as good or better but precisely because he thinks Ohio State is a lesser school -- strains credulity. But that is the advice Sander and Taylor are giving him. Check with me before you take it, please.

The first paragraph basically says that their theoretical model can't capture the details of what's going through applicants' minds.  Granted.  But does that matter?  Does it refute the fact that Taylor and Sander have (I presume) provide statistics that show that affirmative action students are more likely to drop out?  That's what matters!

The second paragraph provides no argument whatsoever.  It basically simplifies the authors' point and presents it in a way that is emotionally unappealing.  "Your advice is to go to worse schools?  Are you crazy?!"

I wonder if Taylor and Sanders provide research on this issue beyond hard statistics.  Liberals always say their pro-science where conservatives are anti-science.  What does the science say here?