Posted on February 20, 2006

Ole Miss Law School Aims for More African-Americans

Andy Kanengiser, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo), Feb. 17, 2006

OXFORD — The University of Mississippi law school is endorsing a goal to bolster its African-American enrollment while altering its admissions standards.

The school wants to achieve a 15-20 percent minority student enrollment during the next three years and beyond, law Dean Samuel Davis said.

To do that, the law school faculty agreed Friday to revise its admission policy. One of the changes would have the admissions committee consider more applicants of all races at the lower end of the scale in terms of test scores.

The new admissions policy “affirms the goals of academic excellence, of having law students who are predicted to achieve academic success,” but “also embraces the goal of diversity,” Davis said. “Diversity adds to the educational experience of all students.”

The minority enrollment in the current first-year class that entered in fall 2005 was nearly 16 percent, and among those, the African-American enrollment in the class was almost 13 percent.

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