It’s mid-July, which means we’re about a month and a half away from the Fall 2018 semester starting at law schools across the country. As our readers know all too well, law schools have been attempting to diversity their classrooms for quite some time now, and yet the legal profession still remains as one of the least racially diverse professions in America. In fact, diversity in the legal profession has more or less flatlined since the Great Recession.
Which law schools have taken the call to diversify their student bodies the most seriously? Diverse: Issues in Higher Education has a ranking for that in its latest issue. Here are the top 10 law schools with the most minority graduates:
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It’s fantastic that three of the best law schools in the country are in the top 10 here.
Diverse also breaks down the law schools with the most African-American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian-American, and American Indian graduates. The top law schools for each of those categories are as follows:
- African-American: North Carolina Central 111 / 64 percent of grads
- Hispanic or Latino: Inter-American U. of PR 187 / 100 percent of grads[1]
- Asian-American: George Washington 84 / 14 percent of grads
- American Indian: Oklahoma City 9 / 7 percent of grads
Congratulations to each of these law schools on their efforts to increase diversity in the legal profession. What is your law school doing to promote diversity?
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[1] It should be noted that the law schools that came in first and second place for this particular ranking are located in Puerto Rico, so it comes as no surprise that the vast majority of their graduates are Hispanic or Latino. The law school that came in third place here was St. Thomas University, with 111 Hispanic or Latino graduates who made up 64 percent of the class of 2017.
Staci 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.