A new study contends that use of the LSAT is reducing black enrollment in law schools.
The study, titled “The Marginalization of Black Aspiring Lawyers,” claims to show that “Black people who aspire to be lawyers endure marginalized existences, which span the law school admission process through the matriculation process and into the law school classroom.”
Specifically, the study found that among law school applicants who sit for the Law School Admission Test, it takes more black applicants than white applicants to yield 1,000 offers of admissions.
The study, which appeared in the Florida International University Law Review, also found that white students with LSAT scores similar to black students are more likely to receive offers of admissions, and that black applicants who are admitted are less likely to receive non-need-based financial aid than other groups.
Aaron Taylor, the author of the study and the executive director of the AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence, argues that his data shows the exam is reducing diversity in the field of law by limiting black enrollment and restricting black applicants to lower-tier law schools.
Taylor also questioned the utility of the exam in predicting applicants’ future success.
While many sponsors of the exam tout its effectiveness in predicting first-year success in law school, Taylor notes that various studies have shown the LSAT does not predict future success in taking the bar exam, which qualifies a law school graduate to practice law.
“Law schools exist to produce successful lawyers and leaders,” Taylor writes in the study. “The first year of law school is merely one step, albeit one of inflated importance, on the path from layperson to lawyer. The fundamental goals of legal education are longer term.”
Melissa Harris Thirsk, vice president and chief marketing officer of the Law School Admissions Council, the organization that sponsors the LSAT, told Inside Higher Ed that she disputes Taylor’s conclusions. Instead, she pointed to other factors she said the council believes have resulted in lower-than-desired black admittance.
Thirsk noted that Taylor’s study found that blacks on average scored lower on the LSAT than white and Asian applicants, and generally submit their applications later in the application cycle.
Thirsk also pointed out that black applicants generally apply with lower grades and are older at the time of application, further reducing their likelihood of admittance when compared with other groups of applicants.
However, Thirsk did admit that law schools place too much importance on the exam because increased selectivity is one means of driving up their rankings in well-known publications.
“We regularly remind our member law schools to use the LSAT correctly,” Thirsk said. “We believe that the overreliance that Aaron [Taylor] criticizes is driven by too much focus on U.S. News & World Report rankings and, in some cases, a failure on the part of schools to understand that even if they choose to focus on rankings, they have room to admit a wider range of LSAT scores.”
U.S. News & World Report releases yearly, widely-publicized rankings for all law schools, which potential applicants often use when deciding where to apply.
Thirsk noted that the council does support efforts to provide free test preparation and academic advising for minority law school applicants.
Ultimately, Taylor’s concerns might be alleviated by a recent trend, should it gain wider traction: since 2017, law schools at Harvard, Georgetown, and Northwestern have begun accepting the Graduate Record Examination (which is widely seen as more applicant-friendly) in place of the LSAT.
Troy Worden is a recent graduate in English and philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was president of the Berkeley College Republicans in 2017.
