- Affirmative action debate - again
Now we have the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommending that law schools disclose the use of racial preferences in their admissions processes. The commission's report draws on the conclusion of a 2004 study by UCLA law professor Richard Sander - specifically, that preferential admissions create a "mismatch" between black students and law schools and results in academic and economic disparities for blacks. Of the 141,031 students enrolled last year in law schools, 9,529 were black. Needless to say, not everyone was happy with the report. From the National Law Journal:
The civil rights commission's report "shatters the hopes and dreams of minority students who want to attend law school," said Michael Yaki, a Democrat appointed by Congress to the commission in 2005. "The United States Commission on Civil Rights has turned its back on the next generation of minority lawyers," he said. Yaki, a partner in the San Francisco office of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmo, and Arlan Melendez, the other Democratic commissioner and chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, issued a 27-page joint dissent to the report. Sander said that he had hoped his 2004 study would have generated more "internal" reforms at law schools, but he added that he supported additional research about the effects of affirmative action in law schools. "Very little of what needs to be done has been done," he said.
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| 02:03 PM Aug 29, 2007 | Email the Daily Dragon | Email this Article | Post Comments |
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