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.
Diversity Over Achievement in Legal Education
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 to, the Free Congress Foundation
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