Diversity Meets Data at George Mason Law
The American Bar Association considers, as part of its accreditation requirements, a law school’s commitment to a diverse student population. For top-ranking institutions, that usually means some combination of aggressive outreach, race-conscious affirmative action and on-campus support services to help recruit and retain underrepresented minorities.
But what if the ABA’s diversity standard led some students on the path to failure?
Since 2005, when The Stanford Law Review published a controversial and highly publicized study concluding that there would be more black lawyers if law schools did not use affirmative action in admissions, opponents of such policies have argued that race-based preferences actually harm those whom it is intended to help. Yet there is also evidence that concerted outreach and support efforts can, if applied properly, prevent the potential negative effects of race-conscious admissions practices.
The “mismatch” theory, as it’s been called, posits that some African-American students have struggled and at times dropped out of highly competitive law schools even though they might have thrived at lower-ranked or less rigorous institutions, and gone on to pass the bar exam. The article concluded that without affirmative action, black students would be better “matched” with institutions that meet their qualifications, and that disparities in failure rates would disappear.
Now, an organization that opposes race-conscious admissions policies asserts that it has found data from one particular institution illustrating the sort of dynamic the study would predict. According to data obtained through a public records request, from 2003 to 2005 some 45 percent of African-American students at George Mason University School of Law, outside of Washington, had grade-point averages below 2.15, defined as “academic failure.” For the rest of the student body, however, the figure was 4 percent.
While the law school confirmed the numbers, it also provided details showing that since those years, the number of admitted African-American students increased while instances of “involuntary academic attrition”—in which students are no longer permitted to continue the program unless they reapply and show improvement to achieve good standing—dropped to zero. Moreover, officials attributed the gains to an expanded outreach program that pairs each incoming minority student with both a student and an alumni mentor.
In 2004, the law school enrolled seven black students, four of whom were placed on involuntary academic attrition. In 2005, an equal number of black students enrolled, but five of them could no longer continue for the same reason. The next year, the law school began to see improvements: In 2006, one black student out of eight admitted suffered academic failure; in 2007, the enrollment of first-year African-American students climbed to 13, and none of them failed out.
{snip}
The law school has seen its share of controversy surrounding diversity issues. The ABA has repeatedly questioned whether the school was doing enough to attain a sufficiently representative student body, a dispute that has at times spilled over into the public arena. The public records request, filed under the Freedom of Information Act by the Center for Equal Opportunity, revealed the stark gap in academic failure rates contained in a letter from the law school’s dean, Dan Polsby, to the ABA in response to a site visit report.
{snip}
ABA Standard 501(b) states: “A law school shall not admit applicants who do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its educational program and being admitted to the bar.”
While some critics have placed blame for the disproportionate failure rate of some minority students on the ABA, others defend the association’s standards and contend that schools should be taking more responsibility for the success of their students. “I don’t think any school should be failing 45 percent of any of its cohorts,” said Michael A. Olivas, the William B. Bates Distinguished Chair of Law and director of the Institute of Higher Education Law & Governance at the University of Houston Law Center.
{snip}
The ABA concluded in its site evaluation report in 2000 that the relatively low enrollment of minority students at the school could be attributed to a dearth of “need-based scholarship grants, to minority or any other applicants” (which has since changed); an “[unwillingness] to engage in any significant preferential affirmative action admissions program”; and “its general reputation as a conservative law school.” In 2004, the school admitted 63 African Americans to the law program; seven accepted the offer.
Faculty critics, however, place the blame for George Mason Law’s low enrollment of African-American students elsewhere: on the distorting effects of affirmative action. If the school has historically been more reluctant to embrace race-conscious admissions policies than its peer institutions, then, the theory goes, minority students admitted to Mason would have higher-ranked alternative choices than their white and Asian peers. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that “black students tend to turn down our offers” in disproportionate numbers, said Michael I. Krauss, a law professor on the faculty.
Standards and Accreditation
The ABA’s standards on equal opportunity and diversity affirm that law schools must take “concrete action” to provide “full opportunities for the study of law and entry into the profession by members of underrepresented groups, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, and a commitment to having a student body that is diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.”
{snip}
Gail Heriot, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law and a former associate dean at George Mason Law, cited the document in her concurring statement in the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’s 2007 Report on Affirmative Action in American Law Schools. Heriot, who is a member of the bipartisan commission, first publicized the numbers from the public records request, which described student data after she left the school, in a blog post last week critical of the ABA’s practices on diversity.
“I think it’s fair to say that the standards [encourage] schools to seek diversity in an individualized way,” said Steven R. Smith, dean of California Western School of Law and former chairman of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. “In that sense, I think they’re fairly open to schools being able to approach diversity in ways they want, as is true in most accreditation standards.”
{snip}
(Posted on June 27, 2008)
Comments
The disparity in admissions standards caused by affirmative action at the nation’s leading law schools is shocking. To be remotely competitive for admission at one of the nation’s very elite law schools, White and Asian students typically have to score in the top 5th percentile on the LSAT and have at least a 3.5 GPA from a rigorous undergraduate program. To gain admission to those same schools, Blacks need only be in the top 30th percentile with a GPA of 3.0. There are now approximately 200 law schools (I’ve lost count), and they are ranked into four tiers (50 per). To give some perspective, a typical black student entering Harvard Law (currently ranked 2nd) would, if he were White with the exact same LSAT and GPA, be lucky to get into any school in the top tier. Or, to put it another way, without affirmative action, and based purely on a LSAT / GPA evaluation, there would be almost no blacks in tier one law schools, particularly in the elite “top 14” (and especially in the super elite top 6).
Posted by Kevin at 6:36 PM on June 27
As I understand it, George Mason isn’t quite as liberal as academia in general. I know that a Ph.D. candidate at GM make the Paranoia-Industrial Complex (SPLC, Pro-Defamation League, etc.) and criticism thereof, the topic of his thesis. He interviewed Mark Potok, the Poverty Palace’s director of publications, and Potok told him in confidence that, while their magazines and fundraising letters don’t reflect it, that the SPLC is most obsessed with the CofCC.
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:44 PM on June 27
In the celebrated Bakke Case, a black applicant Patrick Chavis was accepted to the University of California at Davis Medical School with miserable MCAT scores and a GPA below 2.5 ,while Allen Bakke, who had excellent scores, was turned down. Ultimately Patrick Chavis became the poster child for affirmative action. Here’s a chronicle of what transpired, the colossal downfall of Patrick Chavis, and how the entire newsworthy incident relating to affirmative action was swept under the rug.
http://www.coloringthenews.com/html/preface.html
Posted by at 7:43 PM on June 27
And what will happen when states successfully ban race based preferences?
I’ll tell you what. There will be a STRONG preference for graduates of those schools located in those states.
One of the many reasons McCain must be our next President, and not Obama. This election is CRITICAL. Some of the Supreme Court judges could drop dead of old age at any moment. McCain MUST be the one to choose their replacements.
Why? Because he will choose originist judges who will kick legislation like banning affirmative action back to the states. Individual states will pass those laws and those states will have an incredible competitive edge over those states that don’t (which will cause even more states to pass laws like this). Imagine you are a business owner and need to locate a branch somewhere. You KNOW hiring unqualified minorities is a serious threat to your business. You’d like to prevent that but fear being called a racist and being sued into oblivion. But, if you locate in a state with laws banning AA, you are de facto shielded from this problem. More to the point, your competitors who opt differently CAN’T COMPETE WITH YOU.
When it comes to hiring a legal eagle to handle contracts, disputes etc., you’d be rightly concerned about plummeting standards and incompetent attorneys. How do you avoid this? Check where they went to school. States where AA is banned will, naturally, graduate more qualified students (who will not be of color). This becomes a vicious circle as poorer grades of students stay away from these schools, not wanting to have to compete with smart people. It’s easier to graduate if you go to school with people who average IQ of 85.
But what happens when these people get out into the real world? The graduates from schools in non-AA states will crush the graduates from AA permissive states whenever they go head to head.
And this is how we’ll beat the liberals. They actually believe diversity is a strength. But it is actually the most severe of weaknesses. They MUST have an overbearing federal system to FORCE people accept the lowest common denominator. But what if you weaken that and allow people of like mind and talents to congregate together and CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES the ways, means and standards for their communities? The personal power of these communities will VASTLY outgrow those where liberals decide these matters. As that power grows, so will their influence.
They key is reigning in abuses by the court system. McCain will do this. Obama will do the opposite.
Posted by at 7:59 PM on June 27
“…others defend the association’s standards and contend that schools should be taking more responsibility for the success of their students.”
I wonder what the frustration level of the professors and teachers across the nation is running at now. To continually pour your heart and soul into the attempt to impart your worthwhile knowledge to a person who meets you with a blank look when you present the most simple of the parts. I imagine it causes teeth gnashing and hair pulling. And now on top of all of this, regardless of how well you play the pc game, you are exposed to the risk of career loss should the grade point averages not work out. Talk about walking in someone else’s shoes.
Posted by Drew at 8:49 PM on June 27
“But what if the ABA’s diversity standard led some students on the path to failure?”
When have these types of people cared about the lives they’ve ruined? They will force a square peg into a round hole and both the hole and the peg end up in splinters. They could care less as long as they achieved their primary goal: diversity, AT ANY COST.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 10:28 PM on June 27
There is a mini-shocker buried in this article:
In 2004, the school admitted 63 African Americans to the law program; seven accepted the offer.
How can you criticize a school for low black enrollment when only one in nine that are accepted chooses to enroll? It looks to me like this law school is completely blameless, even from the ABA’s warped view of the world.
By the way, this is the same left-leaning ABA which used to pass judgment on the qualification of candidates for the Supreme Court. One good thing George Bush did is simply drop the involvement of the ABA in the process. That was a major improvement.
Posted by Reader-1 at 11:53 PM on June 27
What does it matter? They got in through race preferences, they will graduate through race preferences, and they will get high paying jobs through race preferences, from which they can’t be fired. After they mess up for a few years, they will be given a golden handshake, a bonus, and they will go into politics where they will enjoy race preferences.
Posted by at 7:40 AM on June 28
When I joined the U.S Army back in 2000, our Drill Instructors for Basic Training told us that it didn’t matter how many us passed or flunked out because they would still have their job. Maybe if more businesses and schools were like this, we wouldn’t have as many problems as we do today.
Posted by Alex at 8:22 AM on June 28
Anonymous writes:
“They key is reigning in abuses by the court system. McCain will do this. Obama will do the opposite.”
Please contact me immediately. I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you. This once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity won’t last long so act now while the market is HOT!
Posted by Bernie at 10:38 AM on June 28
A capitalist competitive society is wrong. A capitalist competitive affimative action society is dying. We need a capitalist cooperative society where poor people should be given the chance to compete. Afirmative action should be given to poor people only. Really this country has planted the seeds of it,s own destruction. Usually when a group of people is under attack they band together. Not the whites. If a white is being harrassed by people of color they jump on the bandwagon and harrass them too. Voting, i,m voting third party. Theres really nobody to vote for,
Posted by at 11:45 AM on June 28
I don’t understand the uproar. You don’t have to be intelligent to be a lawyer “just a natural born liar” is all and I think the blacks would be almost overqualified there? Lawyers make the laws, enforce the laws and bend the laws to suit themselves and their cronnies. In my estimation why should anyone care who gets into this profession?
Posted by Mookie at 1:09 PM on June 28
:…program that pairs each incoming minority student with both a student and an alumni mentor.”
So what happens after this “qualified” African is GIVEN their diploma? Are they paired with another student and mentor when they go for the BAR exams?
And, after they are GIVEN a law license, are they paired with another lawyer and partner/mentor?
When does the white man’s burden end? When does the white man’s baby sitting end?
Why are not white and Jewish and Asian students paired with others and given a mentor? Is it because of the color of their skin?
I will tell you what the REAL GOAL is here. The push is on to get Africans into top positions of every company, regardless of the inability of the black. GIVE these unqualilfied Africans whatever “degree” they need to be GIVEN the job position, be it CEO, Law Partner, etc..
Meanwhile, a whole bunch of white men will be working “under” this African doing the real work.
The African gets the title, the job, the cute young single white blonde secretary, the company car, expense account, etc and all this African has to do is be a token figurehead. It is to keep the Sharpton and Jesse law suits away.
That is the plan folks. The plan is to make the white male the new slave for the Black slave owners. What a hideous world we have coming. Who is behind this?
Posted by LOGIC at 1:55 PM on June 28
What scares me is that this type of mentality — giving preferences to undeserving and unqualified blacks — takes place in medical school, flight schools, police academies, etc. These are professions where lives are at stake.
I would NEVER go to see a black doctor or get on a plane with a black pilot. You’re just asking for trouble. Who knows how incompetent that black is and how he got his job.
George Manuelian
Atherton, CA
Posted by George Manuelian at 2:56 PM on June 28
I attended GMU Law between ‘03 and ‘06. The ABA hates GMU law because it has strict standards for grading and was previously completely race-neutral in its admissions standards. The school also is conservative- or libertarian-leaning and doesn’t shy away from challenging liberal dogma.
The ABA is a liberal-dominated organization that bullies schools into stupid affirmative-action preferences, and has managed to bully GMU Law into lowering its standards by threatening to remove its accreditation even though it is one of the most quickly rising top-tier law schools, now around 38 or something in US News. In fact, it is considered underrated by some, since it experiences clear liberal prejudice in the opinions that US news solicits of other schools’ professors. So it’s a pretty tough school all together.
To those who think somehow the legal profession is unimportant, I have to say that you could not be more wrong.
The only reason, imho, this country is still running, is because our legal system still generally puts away people who are criminals and anti-social elements. We have more people in prison than any other country as a percentage of the population, and those are disproportionately hispanics and blacks. But they are incarcerated in proportion to their crimes, unlike in places like South Africa. I think that so long as judges have a sense of the rule of law and put these people away, our civilization will survive.
However, if affirmative action EVER extends to the law and judgeships, we will go down the tubes very very quickly. That will be the end of any high-minded ideals about fairness, rationality, and the rule of law. However, difficult it may be to reach such ideals in practice, we do a pretty damn good job right now. If that changes, we are in real trouble.
To my mind, one of the only things keeping that from changing is the fact that lawyers and judges are all sorted basically by IQ. The LSAT is basically an IQ test, as well as a test of culture (reading comprehension) and rational thinking. Those in the top go to the top schools and get the top clerkships and posts as Judges, if they desire. If you ever see an effective challenge to the LSAT on diversity or racial or cultural grounds due to the disparity between white and black performance on it, mark my words, that will be the beginning of the end.
Posted by at 8:04 PM on June 28
The chinese and africans in America are taking full advantage of this ridiculous system of my skin color counts more than your color. What really gets me is any non-white from any country has advantages in my country that I don’t have even though I served four years in the military. I’m sure obama will help us with this problem right?
Posted by Lars at 10:08 PM on June 28
8:04PM on 06/28,
Sir, get yourself a bit more experience and then come tell us how well the “justice system” is working.
Tom Iron…
Posted by Tom Iron at 10:46 AM on June 29
despite the understandable anti-lawyer bias of some of the posters here, lawyers who graduate with 2.15 GPA averages generally end up in neighoborhood law-criminal, estates, traffic tickets, DUI etc-at a fairly low level. These washouts do not have any influence on the major legal court decisions that determine a very large amount of how society allocates resources or exercises social controls.
Major publich policy is made by lawyers at large law firms, judges in appellate(appeals) courts and obviously politicians. The role of Congress and legislatures however is far less than many people think, and the role of courts and major corporations much greater.
Major corporations, law firms and the significant courts employ highly intelligent, high achievement lawyers who either usually go to the top, nearly all-white law schools or have close to 4.0 averages through the three years of law school. The movers and shakers often have law review experience which does require significant skill in written expression and research talent. Yes, Obama, edited the Harvard law review, but no one has claimed he isn’t smart, even if he is enamored of affimative action and big government.
Most blacks who pass the bar, ( a small number), never are heard from again if you are looking at big decisions that affect state or federal policies. Who cares if a prototypical “Tashika Thompkins” has Esq. after her name?
The fact is that she is not going to be admitted to decent law schools, if she does she probably will drop out, if she graduates she won’t pass the bar, and if she does the chances is that her clients will be low income, non-paying deadbeats.
Few, very few, black lawyers now handle big financial deals or make major political decisions. (Hey, we need a few more Clarence Thomases.)And that is not going to change. Not because of the ABA nor because of Barack Hussein Obama. Not even Wall St with its increasingly “liberal” bias is going to trust mergers and acquisitions to someone who can’t spell or define acquisition!nnai dn uo ip os
Posted by feller at 11:10 AM on June 29
We have now had a bit more than forty years worth of affirmative action in an attempt to correct the “under-representation” of minorities (read black Africans)in the professions and other high intellect occupations.
It appears to have met with forty years worth of unmitigated failure, or worse, the installation of incompetents in positions requiring great skill and competence for success.
I would be extremely reluctant to see a black physician, not because I could know for a fact that he was substandard, but rather because I couldn’t feel comfortable that he’d had to meet the same standards required of white and Asian doctors.
The sad fact is that these people are a burden to any society in which they’re found in sigificant numbers, and no amount of desperate effort to elevate them has ever widely succeeded.
The environment in which they originated evolved a race of prolific breeders, and bringing them into a modern Western society is tantamount to importing weeds into a well-tended and productive garden. And supporting them with affirmative action and other preferences amounts to fertilizing the weeds and eventually choking and finally killing the garden.
Posted by john at 12:45 PM on June 29
I practice appeallate law in a western state. I know every contract appellate attorney and every judge and justice on the four non-federal appellate courts. None of us are black.
Posted by at 9:45 PM on June 29
This legal profession requirement of graduation from an American Bar Association accredited law school is a rip off, for the reasons stated in articles authored by George C. Leef, one of which is entitled “Lawyer Fees To High? The Case For Repealing Unauthorized Practice of Law Statutes”, in the Journal known as “REGULATION”, from the Cato Institute. Less than a month ago, I emailed this particular article to every member of the New Jersey State Assembly “Regulated Professions” Committee.
Posted by Richard Paul Zuckerman at 10:17 PM on June 29
“The next year, the law school began to see improvements: In 2006, one black student out of eight admitted suffered academic failure; in 2007, the enrollment of first-year African-American students climbed to 13, and none of them failed out.”
One can only imagine the pressure placed upon professors to pass those black students (“pass those blacks or else!”) and the grade inflation that goes on. George Manuelian is right. Unless I personally know that a black doctor, lawyer etc. is top notch, I would never trust one. By ending affirmative action, legitimate black doctors and lawyers would face less “prejudice”. The harder they push, the greater the stigma for those they pass.
Posted by jewamongyou at 10:27 PM on June 29
I attended GMU Law between ‘03 and ‘06. The ABA hates GMU law because it has strict standards for grading and was previously completely race-neutral in its admissions standards. The school also is conservative- or libertarian-leaning and doesn’t shy away from challenging liberal dogma.
Without quoting the entire post I must say from experience that I believe you are very mistaken in your beliefs of how the legal system in the U.S. works. The truth is, it doesn’t!! unless you have the money to make it work. The old premise of “Innocent until proven guilty” is void where prohibited by lack of funds. A person can in fact, be railroaded to make a plea because a conviction of a lesser charge would put him out of jail where he may be totally innocent but without the funds for a PROPER attorney to prove him innocent. Having fallen affoul of the U.S. legal system through no fault of my own, I can tell you how frustrating our lelgal system is. MONEY makes our legal systgem work, nothing else! no money, no justice. I have figured out on my 60 years that an attorney is a man who can find ways for another man NOT TO KEEP HIS WORD.
Posted by Skip at 12:39 AM on June 30
>>>> Law school must do more to help unqualified non-whites succeed.
This reads like that joke in Houston a couple of years back. A BLACK guy CONTINUALLY FAILED HIS BAR EXAM — and was crying the blues because failing it once more would forever bar him from practicing law in Texas. His anger? The standards were set too high!
What this intellectually challanged would-be-attorney failed to grasp was that standards were high — not to keep his kind out of the profession — but to ensure that any attorney practicing in Texas had good professional knowledge and training so he could properly represent his future clients.
Maybe the standards SHOULD be lowered. Not only in the legal profession but also for the medical profession. Then let’s see who would trust themselves to a Black affirmative action surgeon or other medical specialist.
Just WHAT is wrong with Blacks? They childishly are incapable of understanding academic requirement are set high, have to be high to ensure professionalism in by attorneys as well as the medical profession. Just as only a fool would trust a surgeon who got his certification based on affirmative action; only a fool would want a basically incompetent attorney representing him.
Houston’s Patricia Slade, Regent of TSU, Houston’s Black University, was charged with misuse of nearly %200,000 in school funds — for landscaping and improving her home. Did she hire a Black attorney to handle her defense? Of course not! She hired the best criminal attorney in the area,Dick Deguerrin, a White attorney. This speaks volumes for affirmative action, right?
Tutoring a weak student is one thing; trying to push a failing minority student through law school an entirely different matter. The ABA needs to pull its collective brains out of an impossible part of its anatomy and face reality!
To “SKI”, you are right, of couse. That super sharp criminal attorney got Slade off cheap — some restitution of what she stole but did not have to admit to having stolen. Criminal attorneys could care less about guilt or innocence. Only about how much the accused can afford to pay to beat the rap. OJ Simpson being a textbook example of that.
Posted by Fed Up at 1:12 PM on June 30
Black law school graduates may have little effect on judge-made law, but they manage to finagle their way into high paying jobs via the same affirmative action sentiments that got them into law school. Just ask Michelle Obama, who probably failed the bar exam, but manages the affirmative action department of a major university. Practicing law, I ran into several Black trial-level judges who clearly had their seats because of their color. They basically didn’t know what they were doing.
My law school had two blacks that I recall. One was a New York City policeman. I remember taking a special writing course and sitting behind him. When the course ended for the day and he had left I stopped at his desk and looked at what he had written. He was functionally illiterate. Couldn’t write a coherent sentence, no sense of grammer, punctuation, spelling, nothing. He quickly left school before his first semester was over.
Posted by Victor Gerhard at 1:44 PM on June 30
“I attended GMU Law between ‘03 and ‘06. The ABA hates GMU law because it has strict standards for grading and was previously completely race-neutral in its admissions standards. The school also is conservative- or libertarian-leaning and doesn’t shy away from challenging liberal dogma.”
I know of another bridge for sale…
“However, if affirmative action EVER extends to the law and judgeships, we will go down the tubes very very quickly. That will be the end of any high-minded ideals about fairness, rationality, and the rule of law. However, difficult it may be to reach such ideals in practice, we do a pretty damn good job right now. If that changes, we are in real trouble.”
You, apparently, have never run afoul of the law. As someone who has, it appears the main requirement for judge is to be black, a woman, or both.
Posted by at 2:26 PM on June 30
Having fallen affoul of the U.S. legal system through no fault of my own, I can tell you how frustrating our lelgal system is. MONEY makes our legal systgem work, nothing else! no money, no justice. I have figured out on my 60 years that an attorney is a man who can find ways for another man NOT TO KEEP HIS WORD.
The access that ordinary Americans have to the courts is like the access that the Christians had to the lions.
Most states have blatantly unconstitutional laws requiring all judges and lawyers to be members of the ABA. Our entire legal system is a scam that is run by the ABA for the benefit of ABA members.
Posted by qwerty at 3:01 PM on June 30
What does it matter? They got in through race preferences, they will graduate through race preferences, and they will get high paying jobs through race preferences, from which they can’t be fired…
Posted by at 7:40 AM on June 28
Luckily, there’s a stumbling block that prevents the many Affirmative Action black law students from actually becoming a lawyer: They must pass the bar exam, which doesn’t have special accommodation for blacks. Blacks are almost 6 times as likely to fail the bar as whites.
Posted by Jill at 3:59 PM on June 30
The biggest favor any one could do for black or white applicants is to deny them admission, especially to any school below the top 20 or so.
There are far too many lawyers in this country. The only good paying jobs are impossible to get unless you went to a top-20 law school, or at least a top 40 with a class rank above 10%. Even then, you’re not making that great of a living after you pay $2000 a month for student loans, especially considering the fact that you are working the equivalent of two full time jobs, will never see your family, and will probably be divorced within a year or two. If you know a lot of rich people and can be a rain-maker, you may eventually make partner. But would it have been worth it?
There are a lot of second-rate law schools out there ruining a lot of people’s futures, both blacks and whites, and many of them simply need to be put out of business altogether.
Posted by sofita at 3:59 PM on June 30
Accreditation in a large part is measured by inputs (e.g., number of classrooms, number of books in the library, number of faculty and degrees held, etc.), not outputs (i.e., how many pass the bar exam). Requiring an affirmative action program is just one more input that accreditors can use to hammer schools into instituting their liberal ideas. Therefore, the quality of an institution is not assured by accreditation. Schools seek it out so they can meet the requirements of government students loans. “Diversity is diametrically opposed to quality.” — Dinesh D’Souza
https://www.goacta.org/publications/index.cfm?categoryid=F745F7DB-DA35-5EAD-78F3AE1C5703E059
Posted by sedonaman at 4:56 PM on June 30
“There are a lot of second-rate law schools out there ruining a lot of people’s futures, both blacks and whites, and many of them simply need to be put out of business altogether.”
I’ve heard that before, there are too many lawyers in America for the number of jobs available, and there are more lawyer jobs in America or something than in the rest of the world combined. A lawyer told me that, that there are too many lawyers. I used to live in a town that has, what is probably, a 3rd rate law school, and he said too many graduate and want to practice in the very same town and so the work isnt there. However, only 20% of all adults will graduate from college. A college degree of any kind has to be a huge advantage. If you’re black, it’s liable to make you president.
Posted by at 2:23 PM on July 1
“I used to live in a town that has, what is probably, a 3rd rate law school, and he said too many graduate and want to practice in the very same town and so the work isnt there.”
Indeed, not only is the work not there, but you still have to pay back your student loans from law school, which can easily amount to $1500 a month. Hopefully, you don’t owe even more from undergrad expenses, because that can leave you paying even more. Sadly, a degree from a poorly regarded law school will leave you in a much worse position than you would have been without the degree, because you will be deemed “overqualified” for many law-related jobs like paralegal or parole officer that otherwise might have been of interest to you. Low ranked law schools are really a scam.
Posted by sofita at 12:36 PM on July 2