Study: As U.S. Grows More Diverse, Law Student Population Whitens

By WSJ.com



A study released by Columbia Law School earlier this week reveals an interesting — some might say troubling — trend: the population of U.S. law schools is growing paler.

The news: From 1993 to 2008, law schools added about 3,000 spots for first-year students. But both the percentage and the number of black and Mexican-American law students declined in that time frame. Click here for the NYT story; here for more about the study, from Columbia.

The author of the study, Columbia Law prof Conrad Johnson, told the NYT that what makes the declines particularly troubling is that in that same period, both groups improved their college grade-point averages and their LSAT scores.

“What’s happening, as the American population becomes more diverse, is that the lawyer corps and judges are remaining predominantly white,” John Nussbaumer, associate dean of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School.

And what explains the trend? Nussbaumer, for one, hurls some of the blame toward that old institution that everyone loves to hate: U.S. News & World Report.

Read more:

Study: As U.S. Grows More Diverse, Law Student Population Whitens