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Employment Opportunities and Conditions for the African-American Legal Professoriate: Perspectives from the Inside
No full textAfrican Americans are underrepresented on the faculties of American law schools. It is estimated that while they make up 13.1% of the U.S. population, members of this group make up only 8.4% of the tenured faculty at American law schools. Even that marker is not a true measure of the nation\u27s law faculty racial diversity in what can be characterized as predominantly and/or historically white law schools (hereinafter, HWLSs). That is, American law faculty compilations by race do not ordinarily disaggregate HWLSs from others in the American law school universe; the percentage of tenured faculty who are African-American at the nation\u27s HWLSs is likely closer to 6%.
Furthermore, scholarship on the subject suggests that once appointed to a tenure-track law faculty position, the conditions of employment for African Americans at HWLSs are often problematic for them. These difficult employment conditions may be reflected in the higher attrition and lower tenure rates for African-American law faculty, as compared to white law faculty. Moreover, there has been only one African-American dean of a top-fifteen law school in the nation\u27s history, and only a handful to date in the entirety of the nation\u27s Tier I law schools. Though there have been no statistical compilations on point, other law school leadership posts also seem to largely elude African-American faculty at HWLSs
Do Racial Preferences Affect Minority Learning in Law Schools?
No full textAn analysis of the The Bar Passage Study (BPS) reveals that minorities are both less likely to graduate from law school and less likely to pass the bar compared to whites even after adjustments are made for group differences in academic credentials. To account for these adjusted racial gaps in performance, some researchers put forward the mismatch hypothesis, which proposes that students learn less when placed in learning environments where their academic skills are much lower than the typical student. This article presents new results from the BPS that account for both measurement-error bias and selection-on-unobservables bias that makes it more difficult to find a mismatch effect if in fact one exists. I find much more evidence for mismatch effects than previous research and report magnitudes from mismatch effects more than sufficient to explain racial gaps in performance
Reimagining Merit as Achievement
No full textHigher education plays a central role in the apportionment of opportunities within the American meritocracy. Unfortunately, narrow conceptions of merit limit the extent to which higher education broadens racial and socioeconomic opportunity. This article proposes an admissions framework that transcends these limited notions of merit. This “Achievement Framework” would reward applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds who have achieved beyond what could have reasonably been expected. Neither race nor ethnicity is considered as part of the framework; however, its nuanced and contextual structure would ensure that racial and ethnic diversity is encouraged in ways that traditional class-conscious preferences do not. The overarching goal of the framework is to help loosen the “Gordian knot” binding race to class by ensuring that higher education opportunities are apportioned in true meritocratic fashion
U.S. News\u27 Views on Including Diversity in Our Best Law Schools Ranking
No full textThe current U.S. News Diversity Index identifies law schools where law students are most and least likely to encounter classmates from a different racial or ethnic group. The greater the diversity index value, the higher likelihood each person a student meets on campus will be from a different ethnic group than his own. A lower index value means it\u27s less likely the ethnic group will be different than his own
Minority and Total Enrollment, 1971-2013
No full textThis source includes data on minority and total enrollment at ABA-approved law schools for the academic years beginning in 1971 to 2013
Two or More Races Enrollment, 2010-2013
No full textThis source includes data on enrollment of multiracial students by class year at ABA-approved law schools for the academic years beginning in 2010 to 2013
Student Attrition, 1981-2012
No full textThis source includes data on student attrition by class year at ABA-approved law schools for the academic years beginning in 1981 to 2012
Should Law Professors Have a Continuing Practice Experience (CPE) Requirement?
No full textThis article considers whether law professors should have a Continuing Practice Experience (CPE) requirement, just as lawyers in most jurisdictions have a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirement. In the face of criticisms of legal education for failing to prepare students to be practicing lawyers and for generating scholarship that is of little to no use to practicing lawyers and judges, CPE offers one way to facilitate a connection between legal education and law practice. This article considers the potential benefits of CPE (and reasons why law professors might be resistant to CPE). The article also discusses ways in which the American Bar Association’s Standards for the Accreditation of Law Schools and the Association of American Law Schools’ Statement of Good Practices by Law Professors could be revised to adopt (or, at least, endorse) CPE. Finally, the article addresses two questions relating to the development of a CPE requirement: specifically, what types of activity should “count” as CPE and how much of such activity should law professors have to engage in
Cornerstones, Curb Cuts, and Legal Education Reform
No full textThis essay seeks to contribute to this dialogue by offering both theoretical and practical observations about legal education reform. This approach reflects the judgment that current efforts to improve legal education will only get so far unless underlying impediments to change that are often invisible become better understood. The essay provides legal educators with theoretical insights from the design, organizational behavior, education, and psychology literature in order to help that process along. Theoretical insights can be hard to apply in the abstract, however. The essay therefore also offers practical recommendations about both small and large actions that might be taken by faculty members, law schools, and national legal education organizations in order to facilitate needed change
Full-Time Enrollment by Gender and Race/Ethnicity, 2009-2013
No full textThis source includes data on full-time enrollment by gender and race/ethnicity at ABA-approved law schools for the academic years beginning in 2009 to 2013