The Most Diverse Law Schools And The Equal Opportunity To Become Unemployed

Diversity rankings are, sadly, not about the diverse job prospects available to graduates of these schools...

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about the On Being A Black Lawyer’s ranking of the best law schools for black people. I thought that list was pretty useful.

This one is less so.

I’m looking at the National Jurist rankings of “most diverse law schools” and, I gotta tell you, I can’t really see why anybody would or should care about them. Don’t get me wrong, I like diversity, I think it’s critically important to a good educational environment.

But I guess I find “diversity” to be a kind of binary issue: either you have a diverse campus, or you don’t. And we can argue about what makes a place diverse, what gets you over that intangible line. But being the “most diverse” is kind of like being the “most wet” person at the beach. I’m sure that distinction goes to somebody, but the key distinction is separating the wet from the dry.

I dunno, maybe I’d be more interested if any of these “most diverse” student bodies had better than a “snowball’s chance in hell” at getting a job….

To its credit, the National Jurist’s ranking of most diverse law schools isn’t just a proxy for “law schools with the most brown people.” They make the point that having a lot of people of just one race doesn’t count as diverse. So the rankings look at campuses that have a high mix of people. They’re also looking at schools with a high percentage of minority faculty.

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Here’s the top ten (click to enlarge):

You can see the full list here.

Now, I look at the top ten and I immediately think, “Well, it’s good to know that these schools are happy to take everybody’s government-backed loans equally.”

It’s not that I want to be a cynical hater about everything, but having a diverse campus isn’t worth a whole lot if people are struggling to find work. The critical thing about going to law school is getting a job. It’s all well and good for a school to invest money in minority outreach… but if you’re just reaching out to convince people to take out loans that they’ll struggle to pay back because your school isn’t providing good post-graduate employment options, then maybe the minorities were better off being left alone?

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Somebody needs to come out with a rankings of law schools with the most “diverse” kind of legal jobs enjoyed by their recent graduates.

Most Diverse Law Schools [National Jurist]