[UPDATE: Yale Law Journal’s editorial board has responded and it’s… not great. Check it out here.]
The Class of 2020 at Yale Law School is about 30 percent black or Latinx — part of the most diverse class in the history of Yale Law — which is why it’s raising some eyebrows that the new roster of 60 student editors of the Law Journal only sports one black student and two three Latinx students. That’s (a little over) 5 percent.
Perhaps all the black and Latinx students got lost to Thanos.
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But, Occam’s Razor being what it is, it seems much more likely that the current leadership of the Yale Law Journal just dropped the ball in epic fashion.
This outcome reflects an unfortunate turn from YLJ’s recent history. Three years ago, Yale Law Journal embarked on a remarkably self-reflexive effort to diagnose its historical diversity failures. It was a process that resulted in increasing numbers of BLSA and LLSA representation on the editorial staff over the past couple of years. Progress that appears to have hit a wall this year.
Lack of representation on law journals isn’t a new phenomenon — the University of Chicago has had its struggles in this sector as discussed in this classic from the Above the Law archives that touches on a lot of the same issues at play here:
Serving on the editorial board of a law review still provides a massive advantage for students hoping to score clerkships or prestigious Biglaw positions. Even if the act of editing a law review is little more than Bluebooking, it still matters… I certainly felt that (some of) the kids of multiple generations of lawyers in my class had an understanding of how to “think like a lawyer” 1L year that I couldn’t get right away. If they outperformed me in the first semester, that’s not a sign NYU didn’t know how to teach, it’s just what happens when people come from different backgrounds. So when the school has an opportunity to take action to ensure that students from traditionally underrepresented groups in the profession might get a prestigious opportunity to bolster the diversity of our profession’s next generation, that should be encouraged.
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Indeed, the fact that law reviews are mostly Bluebooking exercises provides even more reason why a journal should make a conscious effort to expand its diversity. The usual (and condescendingly stupid) arguments against affirmative action like “wouldn’t you want the best brain surgeon?” just don’t apply when we’re talking about finding someone to make sure everything’s properly italicized.
According to tipsters, neither Yale Law Journal leadership nor the school’s administration have responded to this situation. (UPDATE: YLJ’s editorial board has responded. Read more here.)
Apparently, they still can’t see the black and Latinx students on campus.
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.