Are Law School Affirmative Action Programs Hurting Minorities?

The LA Times has an opinion article up about affirmative action programs at law schools hurting minority groups. The piece relies on the principle of the "mismatch effect," explaining that:

"Data from across the country suggest to some researchers that when law students attend schools where their credentials (including LSAT scores and college grades) are much lower than the median at the school, they actually learn less, are less likely to graduate and are nearly twice as likely to fail the bar exam than they would have been had they gone to less elite schools."

Even if this data is true, I have to disagree with the ultimate assumption that everything would be better off without affirmative action. In my mind, it is extremely important that minority groups have access to law schools at all levels. This lends legitimacy to a legal system that could be (and often is) unfairly applied to different racial groups.