Law Schools

The Whitest Law Schools In America (2021)

Diversity and inclusion matter. Some of these schools really need to shape up.

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Year in and year out, we watch law school after law school pay lip service to their commitment to diversity in the legal profession, with promises to recruit and retain more underrepresented minority (i.e., racially/ethnically diverse) students. Despite these continued assurances, and despite the fact that many schools have made great efforts to improve the diversity of their incoming classes, there is still much more to be done. In fact, there’s now a ranking that tells us exactly which law schools have prioritized their diversity and inclusion efforts — and which schools really have a lot of work to do.

Allow us to introduce you to the Whitest Law School Report, a study produced by Vernellia Randall, professor emerita at the University of Dayton School of Law. The report measures diversity in 200 U.S. law schools, identifying an excess whiteness ranking. “Law schools profess a commitment to educating a racially diverse population and a lack of diversity is often blamed on the available applicant pool,” Randall notes, but the applicant pool excuse isn’t just stale, it’s just plain wrong.

Before we get to the Whitest Law Schools, let’s discuss Randall’s methodology:

The Whiteness of a law school is based on its Total Whiteness score, Excess Whiteness over LSAC applicant pool, and Excess Whiteness over state population. The higher the score, the more inappropriately White the school. Total Whiteness is the percentage of White students in first-year enrollment for 2017-2019. We counted all Hispanic students as nonwhite. We counted students with race unknown as White.

Excess Whiteness is based on the percentage of White students in the school compared to the LSAC applicant pool. The LSAC applicant pool was a sum of the excess Whiteness in the national LSAC pool, the regional, and the state LSAC pool. The higher the number, the more the number of White students in the school exceeds the available LSAC pool. The final component is the excess based on the state population. Schools have a responsibility to serve their state’s legal requirements. The higher the number, the more schools are not serving their own racially diverse state.

So, which law schools are the whitest in the country? Here are the top 10 (the lower the rank, the higher the whiteness):

  1. University of Georgia
  2. Samford University
  3. Mercer University
  4. Pepperdine University
  5. Southern Methodist University
  6. Campbell University
  7. Baylor University
  8. Stetson University
  9. University of South Carolina
  10. University of San Diego

Here are some additional facts about the overwhelming whiteness of the law school community. Of the 200 law schools considered in this report:

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  • 21 Schools (10%) had no excess whiteness;
  • 153 schools (76.5%) had more whites in their first-year class than was in the National LSAC application pool;
  • 124 schools (62%) had more whites in their first-year class than the state applicant pool;
  • 119 schools (59.5%) had more whites in their first-year class than was in the regional pool;
  • 139 schools (69.5%) had more whites in their first-year class than was in the state population.

Click here to read the full report.

It’s time for law schools to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to diversifying their incoming classes. During a time in America when racial equity is finally being given its due, diversity and inclusion are simply too important for law schools to continue to put on the back burner. Let’s get to work.

2021 The Whitest Law School Rankings [Race, Racism and the Law]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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