07/14/2009
At the heart of the Ricci case, which Judge Sonia Sotomayor attempted to bury so that it couldn’t be appealed when she heard it by upholding the lower court’s anti-Ricci decision without an opinion (outraging her mentor Judge Jose Cabranes), is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Four-Fifths Rule.This regulation says that on any employment test, the lowest scoring ethnic group better pass at a rate at least 80% as high as the highest scoring ethnic group.
The fashionable Advanced Placement tests provide us with a database to test the reasonableness of the rule that gives the Disparate Impact theory its teeth. As I mention in post below, blacks only pass AP tests at a per capita rate not Four-Fifths but One-Twentieth of the Asian rate.
But what about just those more elite students who bother to take AP tests? How reasonable is the Four-Fifths rule for them?
The gaps are smaller, but not a single AP exam would pass the EEOC’s Four-Fifth’s Rule, as the table below shows. (And many colleges require not just scores of 3, but 4s or 5s, which make the racial gaps substantially larger.)
| Passing Rates | White | Asian | Black | Hispanic | Min / Max |
| Total Exams | 62% | 64% | 26% | 42% | 40% |
| Italian | 47% | 28% | 19% | 66% | 29% |
| Econ: Macro | 56% | 62% | 21% | 27% | 34% |
| Hum Geography | 59% | 61% | 21% | 34% | 34% |
| Enviro Sci | 60% | 58% | 20% | 31% | 34% |
| World History | 55% | 59% | 20% | 27% | 34% |
| Chemistry | 57% | 65% | 23% | 30% | 35% |
| Econ: Micro | 66% | 70% | 25% | 36% | 35% |
| Statistics | 63% | 68% | 24% | 34% | 35% |
| English Lit | 69% | 63% | 24% | 36% | 35% |
| Spanish | 53% | 55% | 28% | 80% | 35% |
| Biology | 54% | 59% | 21% | 26% | 36% |
| US History | 53% | 56% | 21% | 27% | 38% |
| English Compos. | 67% | 64% | 27% | 33% | 40% |
| Gov: US | 57% | 54% | 23% | 28% | 40% |
| Comp Sci A | 61% | 61% | 25% | 35% | 41% |
| Comp Sci AB | 73% | 78% | 32% | 61% | 42% |
| Physics B | 64% | 64% | 27% | 31% | 42% |
| Gov: Compar. | 64% | 67% | 30% | 42% | 44% |
| Chinese | 77% | 99% | 75% | 44% | 45% |
| Music Theory | 71% | 78% | 36% | 46% | 46% |
| Calculus AB | 65% | 66% | 30% | 39% | 46% |
| Japanese | 57% | 84% | 44% | 40% | 48% |
| Art: History | 62% | 57% | 31% | 43% | 51% |
| Euro History | 65% | 65% | 33% | 40% | 51% |
| Psychology | 72% | 71% | 38% | 48% | 53% |
| French Lit | 70% | 71% | 38% | 48% | 53% |
| Physics C: Mech | 75% | 76% | 44% | 50% | 58% |
| Latin Lit | 67% | 69% | 42% | 52% | 60% |
| Studio Art: Drawing | 70% | 77% | 48% | 56% | 61% |
| Latin: Vergil | 62% | 69% | 47% | 44% | 63% |
| German | 66% | 73% | 46% | 60% | 64% |
| Physics C: E&M | 70% | 73% | 47% | 55% | 64% |
| Calculus BC | 82% | 82% | 55% | 63% | 67% |
| Studio Art: 2-D | 70% | 72% | 52% | 59% | 72% |
| Spanish Lit | 70% | 77% | 56% | 60% | 73% |
| Studio Art: 3-D | 64% | 67% | 50% | 49% | 73% |
| French | 57% | 57% | 49% | 42% | 74% |
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.