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Diversity Over Achievement in Legal Education
Guest Column | By Marion Edwyn Harrison, ESQ. | May 15, 2008
This
Commentary, on February 14, 2007, text following, discusses an aspect of the
disintegration of federalism in the context of the relationship between the
American Bar Association (“ABA”) and the Department of Education (“DOE”)
and the promotion of affirmative action. The substantive aspect, harmful
implementation of affirmative action, appears to have
worsened.
THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL, on April 28,
2008, published an Opinion column, “The ABA’s ‘Diversity’ Diktat” by University
of San Diego Law Professor and former Civil Rights Commissioner Gail Heriot.
The Professor is a reliable and realistic source. The gist of the excellent
column is the recounting of further ABA forcible
intrusion into the admissions practices of law schools and a particularly
horrendous example with respect to George Mason
University Law School
(“GM Law”), an excellent Arlington, Virginia
institution.
GM Law’s
extensive efforts to enroll minority applicants as law students and the pressure
put upon GM Law by ABA and DOE are detailed. One statistic
exemplifies the pressure. In 2003 17% of GM Law’s students were of racial
minorities. That percentage, high in relation to the percentage of college
graduates qualified for a serious law school, ABA deemed inadequate. Worse, contended
ABA, only 23 of
99 minority students were of African lineage. In 2004 of 111 minority students
once again 23 were of such lineage, another basis for ABA denigration of GM Law’s
extensive efforts to attract qualified minority applicants. (That GM Law had
offered admission to 63 appeared to count for naught in the march of the
ABA - DOE
onslaught.)
Imagine more
Federal Government intervention. In 2006 DOE caused ABA trouble with respect to DOE’s renewal of ABA accrediting authority, allowing ABA 18 months to right
itself - that is, to penalize more law schools which do not discriminate in
favor of minority applicants. The outcome - and especially the long-term
outcome - of that DOE intervention remains to be
seen.
Meanwhile, with
the number of young lawyers growing and the demand for young lawyers declining,
there inevitably is pressure from every direction. Thus, there are numerous
personal problems. Some approach tragedy, when an individual who should not
have been admitted to law school in the first place studies diligently and
incurs major personal debt, only to fail the bar examination or, passing it, to
encounter severe difficulty in job placement or fully to strike out.
The other
downside affects the American judicial system and American citizens who need
legal representation. Does one want to retain counsel who was admitted to law
school upon the basis of his or her race over more qualified applicants?
ABA
accreditation is the only accreditation that academically matters. If a law
school seeks ABA
accreditation the ABA Standards of Approval of Law Schools mandate a strong and
proven commitment to diversity. Common sense and the functioning of a competent
bar and judicial system self-evidently require color-blind and race-blind
admissions. Will there be a mandatory sequel for passing bar examinations?
How about for the medical, dental, engineering and other professions?
Marion Edwyn Harrison is President of, and Counsel for, the Free Congress Foundation.
This column is the property of the Free Congress Foundation and may not be reproduced without their permission. For comments and inquiries, contact Phyllis E. Hughes at
. Visit our website at www.FreeCongress.org
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1 Comment | Post a Comment
May 18 at 11:41 am | #1 | Link
Does one want to retain counsel who was admitted to law school upon the basis of his or her race over more qualified applicants?
——
To play devil’s advocate, law school might not matter at all to a rational consumer of legal services. The bar exam is supposed to be the measure of whether someone is competent to practice law, not undergrad GPA and LSAT, the two real determinants of who’s a “qualified applicant” to law school. That being the case, a consumer, after verifying bar passage, might do better to look at things like experience, disciplinary records and recommendations rather than the circumstances of law school admission.