David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

with identical grades and identical test
scores. Both are admitted to an elite law
school under an affirmative-action
program. One accepts and one declines.
The one who declines chooses instead—
for logistical or financial or family
reasons—to attend his or her second
choice, a less prestigious and less
selective law school. Sander and Taylor
looked at a large sample of these kinds
of “matched pairs” and compared how
well they did on four measures: law
school graduation rate, passing the bar
on their first attempt, ever passing the
bar, and actually practicing law. The
comparison is not even close. By every
measure, black students who don’t go to
the “best” school they get into