Minorites Make Up Less of Law School Classes Nationally

The number of minority applicants to law school has skyrocketed over the past decade, but the proportion of black and Mexican-American law students has not.

Over the past 15 years, research by Law School professor Conrad Johnson and his clinic notes that as the number of total law school students nationally has risen—with an increase of about 4,000 matriculants—black and Mexican Americans have been applying to law school in constant numbers. These applicants, over time, are performing better on two of the determining factors for law school: grade point averages and Law School Assessment Test scores. But since 1992, the representation of both groups has decreased as a proportion of the population of law school students as a whole.

Johnson and his students used data from the Law School Admissions Counsel to depict these national trends on a Web site formed as a collaboration of the Society of American Law Schools and the Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic at the Columbia University School of Law.

“In real numbers, there were actually fewer African American and Mexican American first year law students in the Fall, 2005 class ... than existed in Fall, 1992,” states the Web site.

In the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger cases, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments deeming the consideration of race in university and law school admissions unconstitutional.

“You would think steady demand, increased quality, and greater capacity for enrollment would lead to greater numbers, but that’s not the case,” Johnson said. “It’s a little-known fact and a stunning outcome, and it probably reflects a number of things. But it’s something I think most people don’t see. They see some diversity around them and assume diversity.... If they don’t like affirmative action they think there’s too much of it.”

Johnson said one cause of the trend may be the pressure exerted on schools by the U.S. News and World Report’s rankings, which base their numbers chiefly on LSAT scores and GPAs—areas in which privileged applicants have access to more resources for enhancing performance.