Law schools, measures of merit and the public's perception of the legal profession

Black Issues in Higher Education, July 24, 1997 by Leo Romero

I see the affirmative action debate and the role of the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) in that debate as the major challenges facing this organization - and legal education - over the next several years.

The last thirty years have seen an opening up of law schools and the legal profession to women and people of color. When I started law school in 1965, only one woman and one Black were in my class. All of my professors were white men. Nationally, the picture was no different. Only 4 percent of the law students entering in the years from 1965 to 1968 were women - and the percentage of minorities was even lower. At that time, law schools didn't even keep track of minority enrollment.

Last year, the picture was very different. Look at almost any law school today and you see minority students and minority faculty, although not enough.... We have made tremendous progress, not only in transforming legal education, but also in transforming the face of the legal profession. Our task, however, is not complete. And it is becoming more difficult with the recent attacks on affirmative action policies and practices in law school admissions....

At law schools throughout the Fifth Circuit [U.S. District Court], which decided the Hopwood case [which disallows the use of race as a factor in college admissions], minority applications have dropped significantly.... The real shocker, however, occurs when one considers a particular school. For example, the effect of Hopwood at the University of Texas shows . . . [that] applications from Black students fell 42 percent this year, and eleven have received offers. For Hispanics, the number of applicants dropped by 16 percent, and thirty-three have been admitted.

Even more disturbing is the outcome. On May 21, the Dallas Morning News reported that only one Black student has agreed to enroll in the University of Texas Law School's entering class next fall, and only twelve Hispanic students have sent in tuition deposits to secure a place.

The picture for California public schools is no better, with the number of Black applicants dropping by 24.8 percent and of Mexican American and Hispanic applicants by about 23 percent. Again, when these figures are examined at a particular school, the effect of Proposition 209 [which bans the use of racial preferences for any state-funded organization in California] and the [University of California] Regents' policy [which forbids the use of racially sensitive admissions and scholarship strategies in the UC system] becomes even more disturbing.

According to an Associated Press article on May 15, the number of Blacks admitted to Berkeley's law school tumbled 81 percent and Hispanic admissions fell 50 percent. These percentages translate into fourteen Black students admitted for fall 1997 compared to seventy-five last year, and thirty-nine Hispanic students compared to seventy-eight last year.

These trends portend a return to the law school of the 1960s. If law schools are precluded from taking race and ethnicity into account in the admission decision, the number of minority students will drop dramatically.

A recent study points to the fact that we cannot abandon affirmative action policies if we are to continue to have minority students in our law schools. The study shows that admission decisions based exclusively on LSAT scores and undergraduate grade-point averages will deny admission to most minority applicants - even though they would successfully complete law school and pass the bar examination. This study clearly confirms the LSAC's cautionary statement against over-reliance on the LSAT and supports the use of race and ethnicity as essential factors in the admission decision.

The study further shows that law schools have been doing the right thing all along. We have been using race and ethnicity as positive factors in order to achieve a diverse student body. We have not relied on the LSAT or undergraduate grade-point average as the factors determining admission decisions.

Because of the challenges to affirmative action, the LSAT has come under increasing scrutiny. This organization has a major challenge: explaining the validity of the LSAT as a predictor of first-year success and at the same time, explaining its limitations. This will not be easy....

Unfortunately, too many inside and outside of legal education misperceive the utility of the LSAT. Too many think the test is the perfect or the only measure of merit. We in legal education have also sold the public at large the wrong message about it. Clearly, applicants believe that the test measures merit and that a higher test score of one or two points alone warrants admission over an applicant with a lower score. Anti-affirmative action plaintiffs in the lawsuits make the LSAT score a central part of their claims, alleging that they should be admitted because their test scores and grade-point averages were higher than many other applicants - mostly minority - who were admitted.

We in legal education must debunk the popular myth that the LSAT is the measure of merit.... The LSAT is a good product but it cannot and should not be used as the sole determinant of admission to law school. Like any good product, the test can be misused, and we should ensure that we provide sufficient warnings to all constituencies about the dangers in misusing it....