Asian-American Engineers Passing on Lucrative Career Doesn't Add Up

Two stories today for your simultaneous consideration:

Asian-Americans are underrepresented in law:

Asian-American enrollment in law school has declined more steeply than that of other racial and ethnic groups, according to a report documenting a glass ceiling for this group in the law.
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The report, “A Portrait of Asian Americans in the Law,” suggests the decline could be because of instability in the market for legal employment, the relative attractiveness of other professions, and recruiting efforts by law schools seeking African-American and Hispanic students.

The report’s major conclusion—that Asian-Americans are underrepresented among the top ranks of the legal profession—was released in January. Findings include: Asian-Americans are the largest minority group at major law firms, but they have the highest attrition rates and the lowest ratio of partners to associates. Asian-Americans make up only 3 percent of the federal judiciary and only 2 percent of state court judges.

The second story is Law School Admissions by College Major:

The chart makes a strong case supporting the conventional wisdom that the GPAs from different college majors are not equivalent. Although French majors and mechanical engineering majors have the same average LSAT, the average GPA for French majors is more than 0.3 higher, which is an enormous difference in the tightly stratified world of law school admissions. The applicant with a 158 LSAT and a 3.25 GPA in mechanical engineering likely has similar prospects as an applicant with a 158 LSAT and a 3.55 in French, but the latter is probably more likely to be admitted to law school and receive a scholarship.

This bias toward higher-GPA college majors creates several problems for law schools. The schools may end up admitting students who will not perform as well as others who were not admitted. In addition, schools miss out on students with science backgrounds who have strong employment prospects in areas such as patent prosecution.

Obviously, high-scoring Asian-American STEM students are idiot savants.  They could go into law, where they're doubly underrepresented. They could make so much money their distant ancestors would awake and cry with happiness at the blessings of corporatized postmodern western culture.    Even the most culturally atavistic, conservative cousins across the Pacific will instantly be quoting Wall Street and buying each other Thomas Friedman books at Christmas.

Instead, the Asian-American STEM student chooses to do "other things."  Well, my Asian- and Asian-American friends, how about instead of shooting off real rockets of limited practical utility you blast through that legal sector glass ceiling?

You can't cure cancer unless you secure the patents first, and need I remind you that no one - no one - solved Fermat's Last Theorem until after the jurisprudential breakthrough of Sony v. Universal City Studios (1984).

Obviously, law schools do the situation no favors.  Presumably under the belief that Asian-American STEM students don't need the benefits of a law degree as much as certain other non-whites, law schools have declined aggressively pursuing these particular marks.

Well, my beloved law schools, that's racist stereotyping.  Who are you to assume that these young individuals wouldn't find law an infinitely more satisfying career than the traditional STEM options?  Who are you to assume that BigLaw only wants the Asian-American as a niche specialist?  Who are you to assume that these youths and their well-intended tigerparents fully evaluate the available information and routinely determine that law school is a no-go post-recession?

Such presumptive race- and ethnicity-driven evaluations are wholly inappropriate for vaunted institutions of higher learning.  If you're going to scam Latinos and African-Africans, you damn well should be exploiting the Asian-American youth, too.  Fair's fair, law deans.

Law schools should develop programs specifically targeted to luring the Asian-American STEM lemming back to the law school scam. Scholarship programs, targeted guilt-inflicting initiatives, and outright lies about the need for international law and IP attorneys seem to be good starting points.  Survivor bias alumni speeches are also good.  Misleading graphs, even better.

Asian-American STEM grads also bear some blame.  Why give law - and by extension, social justice - the childish cold shoulder?  Because other opportunities - boring opportunities irrelevant to the Rule of Law - appear more instantly gratifying?  Because you don't see Asian-Americans filling the ranks of BigLaw partnerships?  Because the hip TV lawyers are all white?  Because your parents are pushing you into a more stable and less alcohol-fueled STEM field?  Because you care more about paying a reasonable amount of debt in a timely matter with a productive career?

Well, grow up, snowflake.  Be your own person and take the bait like a fully integrated old-school Eisenhower American.  If I know the shallow depravity of law schools, they'll even cook it in curry sauce and pair it with rice for you.

That obviously wouldn't be how those of Anglo-Saxon stock get bamboozled hook line and sinker, but fully realized exploitative multicultural paradises aren't built in a day.