Law Schools

How Much Has Law School Diversity Changed After A Year? Data Says...

It ain't over yet!

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law firm diversity…Not that much!

The Court’s decision in SFFA v. Harvard raised a bunch of questions. If affirmative action is so injurious to the 14th Amendment, why can military academies still use it? Aren’t legacy admissions — a proxy for grandfathering in descendants of wealthy white alumni — just as onerous? What will the student bodies of the most prestigious law schools look like with affirmative action gone?

The answers to these questions are not yet ripe. That said, we do have developments worth mulling over as gestures toward what the answers could be: Judge Bennett upholding the Navy’s use of affirmative action, University of Pittsburgh, Wesleyan University, Virginia Tech, and others have gotten rid of Legacy Admissions, and, what will be the focus for the remainder of the article, diversity in law school enrollment holding steady. Reuters has coverage:

Racial and ethnic diversity in law school enrollment did not decline in 2024, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on affirmative action in college admissions and fears that the number of diverse law students would plummet as a result.

The percentage of Black and Hispanic students in the current first-year juris doctor class of 39,684 is nearly identical to 2023 — which was the final full admissions cycle before the affirmative action ban took effect — according to data released on Monday by the American Bar Association. The percentage of Asian first-year students increased 2 percentage points to 9.76% compared with 2023.

What does this mean for the future of racial diversity in our legal landscape? Ultimately, it is too early to tell.

Generalized data is nice and all, but the really important stuff hinges on what’s happening at the prestige heavy schools. One big name outlier is Harvard Law. The New York Times reported that the number of Black students at Harvard Law immediately plummeted to 1960’s numbers. Since 1970, Harvard Law has admitted around 50-70 Black students per year. This year they admitted 19. Other high prestige schools may have similar drop-offs. We may very well see less and less diversity at high prestige institutions while lower ranked schools see the rejected T14 candidates as discounted ways to boost the overall GPAs and test scores of their incoming classes. From a bird eye’s view this could still look like maintaining or even increasing diversity in the student body, even as T14 schools become more and more monocultural.

Put simply, it looks too early to panic, but be cautious about celebrating too soon. A full breakdown of SFFA v. Harvard‘s consequences would require a longitudinal analysis of how students place over time. Acceptance is an important data point, but it is just as important to see where students place for their summers, their first gigs after they cross the stage with their JDs, who gets equity partner opposed to non-equity, and who ultimately ends up on the Supreme Court.

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In the meantime, take whatever concrete actions you can. Keep applying to your dream schools! Put nose to page and study your heart out! Oh. And prepare for the spite suits arguing that proxies for diversity are the culprit for this year’s numbers. There’s no way Blum & Co. are going to be happy with the overall numbers post-affirmative action lining up with pre.

Law Student Diversity Held Steady After Affirmative Action Ban, ABA Says [Reuters]

Earlier: The Trend Of Diverse Law School Applications Goes Upward
The Slippery Slope Of Ending Affirmative Action Has Moved On To Its Next Target: Women And ‘Proxies For Diversity’
ABA Committee Decides To Diversify Diversity. It Should Come With A Clear Reason For Why That’s Important.

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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