Abstract
This case study on Simpson's paradox is a fictionalized account of a famous case of alleged gender discrimination at University of California at Berkeley. "Jane Eyre" was a young woman who applied to the top Ph.D. programs in English in the United States. A seemingly perfect candidate, Jane was accepted to all but one program, "Bronte University." What went wrong? In aggregate, Bronte University's graduate school admitted a higher percentage of male applicants than female applicants, suggesting possible gender discrimination. But when the numbers are broken down into individual departments, we learn that each department actually admitted a higher percentage of female applicants than male applicants. This is the basis of Simpson's paradox: a trend appears in two separate groups that disappears when the two groups are combined. Students completing the case engage in a combination of individual work, small group discussion, and summative whole-class discussions. Originally developed for a college-level math for liberal arts course, the case is adaptable to any course in which students work with data that may lead to Simpson's paradox.