| The the L.A. Times anti-SAT op-ed, which I criticize in the post below, has one especially noteworthy statistical claim: "[W]hite students score 206 points higher on average than nonwhites" on the SAT, "according to Psychology Today." To begin with, this seems to be a misquote of the Psychology Today article, which says "Whites outscore African Americans on average by 206 points." African Americans are fewer than half of nonwhites in America, and less than 40% of the nonwhites taking the SAT (note that the SAT statistics treat Hispanics as nonwhite). Second, it is whites and Asians who score much higher on average than blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics. According to Time, Oct. 27, 2003, the racial breakdown of SAT averages was:
The Times quote is still correct as to blacks (rather than "nonwhites"), and it does make an important point. But don't the numbers have a somewhat different impact -- one much less compatible with the "evil whites oppressing nonwhites" subtext that one often hears in connection with the SAT -- when one sees that the gap is between Asians and whites on one side and blacks and Hispanics on the other, rather than between whites and nonwhites? -- Posted by Eugene Volokh to The Volokh Conspiracy at 1/21/2004 03:13:39 PM |
