What Is Quality? Advancing Value-Added Approaches to Assessing Law School Bar Exam Performance

U.S. News & World Report rankings and tier groupings are often used as proxy measures of law school quality. But many of the factors that contribute to both law school outcomes and U.S. News rankings (e.g., undergraduate GPAs [UGPA], LSAT scores, admission rates) do not reflect the impact law schools have on student outcomes, such as bar passage and employment. We propose a method for measuring institutional quality that is based on a school’s ability to improve its graduates’ likelihood of first-time bar passage while controlling for those students’ preadmission characteristics. Using a value-added modeling technique, we first isolate each law school’s expected bar performance for the 2013–2018 bar takers given those cohorts’ entering characteristics and the school’s attrition and transfer patterns, then identify the degree to which this prediction overperforms or underperforms the school’s actual bar performance. Additionally, we utilize a bar pass differential rather than a school’s first-time bar pass rate, allowing us to account for variation between jurisdictions’ grading and cut scores. Finally, we provide a ranked list of law schools based on their added value for each entering cohort

The Deuterium to Hydrogen Abundance Ratio Towards the QSO SDSS1558-0031

We present a measurement of the D/H abundance ratio in a metal-poor damped Lyman alpha (DLA) system along the sightline of QSO SDSS1558-0031. The DLA system is at redshift z = 2.70262, has a neutral column density of log(NHI)=20.67+/-0.05 cm^2, and a gas-phase metallicity [O/H]= -1.49 which indicates that deuterium astration is negligible. Deuterium absorption is observed in multiple Lyman series with a column density of log(NDI)=16.19+/-0.04 cm^2, best constrained by the deuterium Lyman-11 line. We measure log(D/H) = -4.48+/-0.06, which when combined with previous measurements along QSO sightlines gives a best estimate of log(D/H) = -4.55+/-0.04, where the 1-sigma error estimate comes from a jackknife analysis of the weighted means. Using the framework of standard big bang nucleosynthesis, this value of D/H translates into a baryon density of Omega_b h^2 = 0.0213 +/- 0.0013 +/- 0.0004 where the error terms represent the 1-sigma errors from D/H and the uncertainties in the nuclear reaction rates respectively. Combining our new measurement with previous measurements of D/H, we no longer find compelling evidence for a trend of D/H with NHI.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Freedom Is Not Enough... : Affirmative Action and J.D. Completion Among Underrepresented People of Color

In Fall 2022, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the future of affirmative action in higher education. Initially, affirmative action policies were adopted to give equal opportunity to communities who have been and continue to be harmed by discriminatory systems and practices. As we wait for the Court’s decision, it is crucial to understand how existent affirmative action bans impact underrepresented people of color’s (uPOC) graduate/professional degree attainment. Data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Center for Reproductive Rights is analyzed to determine whether affirmative action bans decrease the proportion of uPOC completing their law degrees (or enrolling in graduate programs). We utilize a differences-in-differences (DiD) estimation method, which compares pre- and post-ban rates of degree completion (and graduate school enrollment, where applicable) in states that implemented an affirmative action ban to those states without one. Using this technique, we find that the implementation of a ban decreases the proportion of uPOC completing their law degrees and enrolling in graduate programs. These effects are both practically and statistically significant. Despite the partisan controversy surrounding race-conscious admissions, our findings add to empirical research demonstrating the detrimental impact of eliminating affirmative action in college and university admissions

Upper-plate deformation of Late Pleistocene marine terraces in the Trinidad, California, coastal area, southern Cascadia subduction zone

Forming at sea level, uplifted shore platforms serve as long-term geodetic markers. The spatial distribution and elevation of marine terrace sequences offer insight into regional tectonics. In the Trinidad coastal area (California, USA), active tectonic processes reflect upper-plate deformation above the southern extent of the Cascadia subduction megathrust. A set of five uplifted and deformed Late Pleistocene marine terraces is preserved in the Trinidad region and provides an opportunity to analyze regional uplift, folding, and faulting. Using lidar imagery embedded within a GIS, we employ a surface classification model (SCM) that identifies uplifted marine terraces on the basis of their micro-topographical characteristics, i.e., low slope and low roughness. The SCM-based identification of marine terraces both supplements and verifies existing field mapping. We demonstrate the utility of the SCM, which can be applied to a variety of surface terrain analysis investigations that seek to identify smooth and/or rough terrain features, e.g., terraces and fault scarps. Age assignments for the five marine terraces, which range from 80 ka to \u3c500 ka, are based on paleo–sea cliff geomorphology and soil development trends. Specifically, the steepest, highest, and most prominent paleo–sea cliff, which is associated with terrace number 3, is correlated to the long-duration sea-level highstand centered at 125 ka (marine isotope stage 5e), exemplifying a novel method in relative age assignment for Pleistocene geomorphic features. Based on these age assignments, the average maximum uplift rates in the Trinidad coastal area are ∼1.0 m/k.y., and the average long-term uplift rate diminishes westward to ∼0.4 – 0.5 m/k.y. on the downthrown side of the Trinidad fault. Based on analysis of deformation using the high-resolution lidar imagery of the marine terraces, the Trinidad hanging-wall anticline represents a fault propagation fold that ceased to be active when the associated reverse fault, the Trinidad fault, daylighted to the surface ca. 80–100 ka. Based on deformation tilts of a marine terrace with an assigned age of 200 ka, the Trinidad anticline has accommodated at least 1 km of shortening in the last 200 k.y., which represents at least 2% of the convergence of the Juan de Fuca plate relative to North America over the same time period. Overall, both the hanging wall and the footwall of the Trinidad fault show long-term positive rock uplift, which implies that the Trinidad anticline and fault are contained within the hanging wall of a deeper structure. Therefore, the Trinidad fault likely splays off of the Cascadia subduction zone megathrust or off of a deeper thrust fault that splays off of the megathrust

Phase Zero

In October 2006 General Charles Wald, Deputy Commander U.S. European Com- mand, brought “Phase Zero” into the joint lexicon with the publication of an article, “The Phase Zero Campaign.”1 Over the last five years the concept of taking coordinated action in peacetime to affect the strategic environment has becomewidely accepted and is now integrated into theater campaign plans. These activi- ties focus on building capacity of partners and influencing potential adversaries to avoid war. In contrast, Chinese strategic culture has encouraged taking actions to defeat an enemy prior to the onset of hostilities for two and a half millennia