DEAN WORMER SAYS FACULTY CAN'T ACKNOWLEDGE THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ASTERISK.

It exists, and two Georgetown Law faculty members committed a Kinsley gaffe on an open online conference.  "The two adjunct professors, Sandra A. Sellers and David C. Batson, seemed to be unaware they were being recorded, according to a roughly 40-second clip of their conversation that generated widespread outrage after it was shared online."  You never say anything around a computer, or send an electronic mail, that you'd be ashamed to show your mother.

"You know what? I hate to say this," Ms. Sellers said on the video. "I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks — happens almost every semester. And it's like, 'Oh, come on.' You know? You get some really good ones. But there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy."

As she spoke, Mr. Batson murmured, "Mm-hmm," but did not challenge her remarks.

That's a firing offense.  But it puts me in mind of Private Nyetnyev being sent to the gulag for 25 years and two weeks for calling his colonel an idiot: two weeks for insubordination, and the rest for revealing a state secret.

in any event the phenomenon of a disproportionate number of black students being near the bottom of the class at many law schools appears to be real. (This is of course an average effect; the actual grades differ by student and by school. Schools that don't have race-based admissions preferences, or that have smaller race-based preferences, might lack such an effect, or have a much smaller effect. My own [University of California] campuses, for instance, are forbidden by law from offering race-based preferences; to the extent such a prohibition is complied with, one would expect both black students' predictors and their grades there to be much closer to the overall class median. I don't know what the actual statistics are for UC law schools, or for my UCLA law school in particular; to my knowledge, such numbers are generally not publicized.)

The local Dean Wormer, Bill Treanor, responded in the predictable way.

As I wrote to you last night, I am appalled that two members of our faculty engaged in a conversation that included reprehensible statements concerning the evaluation of Black students. I have further reviewed the incident and have now spoken to Professor Sellers and Professor Batson, giving each the opportunity to provide any additional context. I informed Professor Sellers that I was terminating her relationship with Georgetown Law effective immediately. During our conversation, she told me that she had intended to resign. As a result of my decision, Professor Sellers is no longer affiliated with Georgetown Law. Professor Batson has been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action, the results of which will inform our next steps. Until the completion of the investigation, Professor Batson will have no further involvement with the course in which the incident arose.

"Appalled" is standard academic-speak, you'll hear it when somebody hears about a governor groping a secretary, but a few thousand dead people in rest homes is business as usual.

The disaggregation of  predictors and performance in law schools is not public in the California system, nor is it public at Georgetown.  "Georgetown Law has not claimed Sandra Sellers incorrectly characterized the academic performance of her black students."  Off to adjunct gulag for revealing a state secret you go!