The Columbia Law School Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic released a startling study, surprising for two reasons. First was the point of the study. Despite higher test scores and undergraduate GPAs, there has been a 7.5% drop in the number of blacks admitted compared to 1993, along with an 11.7 percent decline for Mexican-Americans.
In addition, many blacks and Mexican-Americans are being shut out of all law schools they applied to, to the tune of 61% for African-Americans and 46% for Chicanos. By comparison, only 34% of white applicants were denied at every school they applied to.
The second is that since 1993, there have been 3,000 first year seats added to the law school pool. I went to a law school of 600 people. That’s like opening another of my law school every three years until today. Except the vast majority of the seats created aren’t going to be at law schools with the type of employment prospects (however bad) that mine had. No wonder we have a glut of unemployed lawyers.
Going back to those statistics, I would like to see one thing though. Are those decreases showing that fewer members of these minority groups who apply are admitted, or that law schools contain fewer of these minorities? Either way, a curious data point.
