Tameka Porter, a recent George Mason University PhD graduate, studies the effects of affirmative action at elite universities. It’s a timely area of research as the public debate over preferential admissions policies continues.
Opponents of affirmative action, including the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, offer the mismatch theory. Black students with low academic qualifications at prestigious universities are mismatched; they do not perform well academically. Mismatched, in this instance, means overmatched.
Porter has reviewed the data and draws a different conclusion.
“The results showed positive graduation effects for undergraduates with low academic qualifications who enrolled at a selective college,” Porter said. “This finding held constant for all of the racial groups in the study.”
Porter received her PhD in Public Policy from Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government. She currently works at the WIDA Consortium within the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
There is a lack of public consensus over the effects of affirmative action policies. There is even disagreement over the meaning of the term. These provide motivation for Porter’s research.
“I wanted to use statistical methods to derive a definition of affirmative action that was based on academic qualifications and institutional selectivity and then determine the extent to which mismatch occurs and if affirmative action at elite colleges benefits its intended recipients through higher degree completion rates,” said Porter.
Porter credits her time at the Schar School in helping launch her career. She chose the school’s PhD program in Public Policy because of its close proximity to Washington, D.C. and the reputation of the engaging and active faculty.
“Dr. James Finkelstein, Dean Rozell, and my committee have been instrumental and influential in my academic and career development,” she said.
She also learned much from her classmates whom she described as intellectually rigorous and thoughtful.
Most of all, she chose the program for its combination of theory and practice.
“The public policy program was of particular interest because it integrated theories of economics, statistics, and political science with thorough empirical evaluations of policy implementation in both the public and private sectors,” added Porter.
Tameka Porter’s research was recently featured in The Hill. Read more about “The Mismatch Myth.”