Attorney at Law
James P. Scanlan is an attorney specializing in the use of statistics in litigation. He has published about 60 articles on legal or public policy issues. About half have pertained to the use of statistics in the law and the social and medical sciences, especially regarding the patterns by which standard measures of differences between outcome rates tend to be systematically affected by the prevalence of an outcome. Most notably, the rarer an outcome the greater tends to be the relative difference in experiencing and the smaller tends to be the relative difference in avoiding it, a pattern termed “Scanlan’s Rule” by scholars in the UK. Thus, for example, improvements in health or healthcare tend to decrease relative differences in favorable health outcomes, while increasing relative differences in the corresponding adverse outcomes; increasing loan approval rates tends to decrease relative differences in approval rates while increasing relative differences in rejection rates. Without recognizing this and related patterns it is not possible to soundly interpret data on group differences in outcome rates.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Topics
Usual, But Wholly Misunderstood, Effects of Policies on Measures of Racial Disparity Now Being Seen in Ferguson and the UK and Soon to Be Seen in Baltimore
In a February 22, 2016 commentary for The Hill titled “Things DoJ doesn’t know about...
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COPAA v. DeVos and the Government’s Continuing Numeracy Problem
On January 4, 2017 – fifteen days before the change in administrations and fourteen days...
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The Misunderstood Relationship Between Racial Differences in Conduct and Racial Differences in School Discipline and Criminal Justice Outcomes
A September 13, 2017 Mother Jones article (“Black Kids Are 5 Times Likelier Than White Kids to...
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United States Exports Its Most Profound Ignorance About Racial Disparities to the United Kingdom
I have discussed in many places – most comprehensively in “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014),...
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The Pernicious Misunderstanding of Effects of Policies on Racial Differences in Criminal Justice Outcomes
On September 12, 2017, the Sentencing Project released a “Fact Sheet: Black Disparities in Youth...
EEOC, OMB, and the Collection of Data That Can’t Be Analyzed
The decision of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to pause implementation of an...
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Innumeracy at the Department of Education and the Congressional Committees Overseeing It
On July 21, 2017, preparatory to a July 24 Federalist Society teleforum titled “Are Existing...
Are Existing Civil Rights Policies Based on a Statistical Understanding That Is the Opposite of Reality? - Podcast
James Scanlan, Roger B. Clegg
Civil Rights Practice Group Podcast
For decades, the DOJ’s civil rights enforcement policies regarding lending, school discipline, and criminal justice...
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The Government's Uncertain Path to Numeracy
At 2:00 p.m. on July 24, 2017, with Roger Clegg moderating, I will be presenting a...
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Racial Impact Statement Laws in New Jersey and Elsewhere
On February 27, 2017, the New Jersey Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee reported favorably on Senate Bill...