Despite an increase in capacity, law schools have been admitting fewer African-American and Mexican American students over the last 15 years.
As director of the Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic at the Columbia University Law School, law professor Conrad Johnson knows that digital technology has the power to highlight and amplify social justice concerns and to enable people to take direct action. Under Johnson’s leadership, the clinic has developed and maintained the Columbia-hosted Web site titled “A Disturbing Trend in Law School Diversity,” which highlights more than a decade of declining to stagnant African-American and Mexican American enrollment at U.S. law schools.
The Web site features 12 graphs taken from Law School Admission Council (LSAC) data showing how first-year African-American and Mexican American enrollment has declined 8.6 percent, from a total of 3,937 in 1992 to 3,595 in 2005. The Web site notes that in 1992 there were 176 accredited U.S. law schools and by 2006 that total had increased to 195 accredited schools, offering a gain of nearly 4,000 first-year seats for law school students. It’s also shown that, while African-American and Mexican American applicants have endured falling admissions rates, their undergraduate grade point averages and Law School Admission Test scores have improved during the same period.
“Instead of measuring this year against last year, we decided to say ‘let’s look at 15 years and let’s look at LSAT scores, GPAs and capacities of law schools to take in new students,’ and I think that’s going to be particularly important to continue to monitor the fuller picture as opposed to a small slice of the picture,” Johnson notes.
