"Diversity" according to the ABA, anyway.

[Overpaid Slacker]

The ABA's 'Diversity' Diktat
By GAIL HERIOT
April 28, 2008; Page A19

If you have ever wondered why colleges and universities seem to march in lockstep on controversial issues like affirmative action, here is one reason: Overly politicized accrediting agencies often demand it.

Given that federal funding hinges on accreditation, schools are not in a position to argue. That is precisely why the U.S. Department of Education, which gives accreditors their authority, must sometimes take corrective action. George Mason University's law school in northern Virginia is an example of why corrective action is needed now.

GMU's problems began in early 2000, when the American Bar Association visited the law school, which has a somewhat conservative reputation, for its routine reaccreditation inspection. The site evaluation team was unhappy that only 6.5% of entering students were minorities.

Outreach was not the problem; even the site evaluation report (obtained as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests) conceded that GMU had a "very active effort to recruit minorities." But the school, the report noted, had been "unwilling to engage in any significant preferential affirmative action admissions program." Since most law schools were willing to admit minority students with dramatically lower entering academic credentials, GMU was at a recruitment disadvantage. The site evaluation report noted its "serious concerns" with the school's policy.

Over the next few years, the ABA repeatedly refused to renew GMU's accreditation, citing its lack of a "significant preferential affirmative action program" and supposed lack of diversity. The school stepped up its already-extensive recruitment efforts, but was forced to back away from its opposition to significant preferential treatment. It was thus able to raise the proportion of minorities in its entering class to 10.98% in 2001 and 16.16% in 2002.

Not good enough. In 2003, the ABA summoned the university's president and law school dean to appear before it personally, threatening to revoke the institution's accreditation.

GMU responded by further lowering minority admissions standards. It also increased spending on outreach, appointed an assistant dean to serve as minority coordinator, and established an outside "Minority Recruitment Council." As a result, 17.3% of its entering students were minority members in 2003 and 19% in 2004.

Not good enough. "Of the 99 minority students in 2003," the ABA complained, "only 23 were African American; of 111 minority students in 2004, the number of African Americans held at 23." It didn't seem to matter that 63 African Americans had been offered admission, or that many students admitted with lower academic credentials would end up incurring heavy debt but never graduate and pass the bar.

GMU's case is not unique. In a study conducted several years ago, 31% of law school respondents admitted to political scientists Susan Welch and John Gruhl that they "felt pressure" "to take race into account in making admissions decisions" from "accreditation agencies." Several schools, like GMU, have been put through the diversity wringer.

The GMU law school was finally notified of its reaccreditation in 2006, after six long and unnecessary years of abuse – just in time for the next round in the seven-year reaccreditation process. Even then, the ABA could not resist an ominous warning that it would pay "particular attention" to GMU's diversity efforts in the upcoming cycle.

Perhaps the ABA believes that the Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger allows it to force law schools into affirmative action orthodoxy. If so, it is mistaken. In Grutter, a razor-thin majority held that the Constitution permitted the University of Michigan Law School to discriminate against whites and Asians to obtain a racially diverse class.

That decision, however, was rooted in the notion that "universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition." In the majority's view, universities are not subject to the same equal-protection standards as other governmental entities; they are instead entitled to deference in their academic judgments. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor put it, "'[t]he freedom of a university to make its own judgments . . . includes the selection of its student body.'"

Whatever the merit of this reasoning, the ABA is not a university, and its Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is not entitled to academic deference.

As the Education Department's designated law school accreditor, the council decides whether a law school's students will be eligible for federal loans. As state accreditor, it decides which schools' graduates may sit for the bar examination. It is thus part of the governing bureaucracy – the kind of institution academic freedom is supposed to protect universities from.

That's why the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommended that the ABA leave issues of diversity to individual law schools. If academic freedom confers upon law schools the right to discriminate, it must also confer a right not to discriminate. Unfortunately, the ABA has instead put into effect more stringent diversity standards.

So now it is up to the Education Department to bring the ABA to heel. In 2006, when the ABA's status as accreditor was itself up for renewal, opposition came from many quarters on many grounds. Surprised, the Education Department put the ABA on a short leash, giving it only 18 months before its next renewal, and requiring it to submit its official correspondence for inspection.

It is now time to find permanent solutions to the problems of ABA abuse. Foremost on the Education Department's list should be to get the ABA out of the diversity business. It is one thing for a law school to adopt its own discriminatory admissions policies; it is quite another to force it to do so on pain of losing federal funding.

Ms. Heriot is a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a law professor at the University of San Diego. In the 1990s, she was employed at GMU for one year, but had no involvement with the issues in this commentary.

[gprsh924]

This kind of thing probably makes me more angry than anything else can. Lower standards for minorities? Pretty sure that's called racism not affirmative action. How bout we let the most qualified people in regardless of their creed or color.

Imagine the heyday Jesse Jackson would have it was discovered that a school had lower standards for white people.

[sammyg2]

Someone needs to sue the freaking lawyers (ABA).

[Overpaid Slacker]

In my experience, once you've lowered the bar, you *have* to have a curve (and I detest grading curves in principle and practice) in order to better camoflage the fact that all of those people who did not earn or "merit" their way in are substantially inferior to those that did.

JP

[Rot 911]

This has gone on for years (I graduated law school in 1990). I remember talking to a fellow law school student over lunch one day. He was from Guam. Was talking about having a meeting with his professor "mentor" that afternoon to talk about classes and getting sample outlines. WTF????????????? I was on my own to figure things out and minority students had professor mentors!

[MRM]

Nonsense. What does a Swedish pop rock group know about diversity?

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by MRM

Nonsense. What does a Swedish pop rock group know about diversity?

Oh yeah. I heard one of em died so now it's ABA instead of ABBA. Makes sense. There were very diverse. Two had blond hair, but one had brown hair and one had red hair.

[Jim Richards]

And they were gender diverse, though I wonder if they might've considered adding transsexuals to the mix. Nah, that probably would throw off their harmonies.

[Tobra]

This is news how again?

I thought this was common knowledge.

Ask yourself a question. If you are going to choose between two lawyers, and you know for certain the blue lawyer had lower standards to qualify for admission than the red lawyer, which would you pick?

So a school can be punished for not being attractive enough to certain ethnic groups and forced to accept less qualified applicants. gee, that sounds like a good idea

[MRM]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Oh yeah. I heard one of em died so now it's ABA instead of ABBA. Makes sense. There were very diverse. Two had blond hair, but one had brown hair and one had red hair.

That's my definition of diversity: blonds, redheads and brunettes in the same group.

[Rick Lee]

How can GMU get in trouble for having 23 blacks out of 99 minority students? That's still about twice the percentage of blacks in the general population.

[MRM]

On a slightly serious note, "diversity" in this context is a code word for black. If they were interested in diversity they would look to the nonwhite population. But Asians, and Hispanics, to an extent, are not underrepresented in most popuations. So the grand gurus of diversity have decided that the goal is to get more blacks into programs.

The whole California Board of Regents case came to a head when they proved that Asian kids had to score higher than white kids to get into school. The system in place then requirted admissions proportionate to the population of each group in the general population. Since so many Asian kids wanted to get into the UC system, they were competing against more applicants, and therefore had to score higher. The effect diminished with each group, so that Asian kids had to score higher than whites to get admitted, whites had higher (but very similar scores) to hispanics, who had higher scores than blacks.

[Rick Lee]

The word "diversity" makes me want to vomit. If my company ever makes us do diversity training, I'll walk.

[the]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

The word "diversity" makes me want to vomit. If my company ever makes us do diversity training, I'll walk.

Sounds like we not only need to sign you up for the Diversity in the Workplace workshop at 9:00 a.m., but also the Sensitivity Training workshop after lunch!

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by the

Sounds like we not only need to sign you up for the Diversity in the Workplace workshop at 9:00 a.m., but also the Sensitivity Training workshop after lunch!

Yeah, I'll get right on that.

My company did make us all attend a "Respect In The Workplace" class. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected. When they went around the room asking everyone for examples of what made them feel respected, most said "Oh, when someone says 'thank you' or 'please' or 'good job', etc". I said, "I feel most respected when people leave me the hell alone."

[sammyg2]

LOL, I regulary attend and participate in our voluntary diversity council at work. Yes, me

[SlowToady]

Maybe if white society hadn't oppressed and exploited blacks and other minorities for the past few hundred years, and if they didn't keep up this systemic, institutionalized, de facto racial oppression, measures like this wouldn't need to be taken.

[the]

Originally Posted by SlowToady

Maybe if white society hadn't oppressed and exploited blacks and other minorities for the past few hundred years, and if they didn't keep up this systemic, institutionalized, de facto racial oppression, measures like this wouldn't need to be taken.

White society exploited and discriminated against Asians for quite a while. Why are measures like this not needed for Asians anymore?

(And, in fact, as the U of Cal case showed, Asians are in fact now REVERSE discriminated against for college admissions).

It does seem that the minorities that the govt has jumped in to try to help the MOST have in fact made the LEAST progress.

Serious, not a rhetorical, question.

[Moses]

Admissions preferences in law school may be frustrating, but there are SO many law schools (even night schools) that "affirmative action" will not serve as an absolute barrier to a career in law for anyone. You might not get the school of your choice, but you can still go to law school.

Where "affirmative action" gets ugly is when the desired resource is limited. Minority directed government contracting and medical school admissions are some things that come to mind.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by the

White society exploited and discriminated against Asians for quite a while. Why are measures like this not needed for Asians anymore?

(And, in fact, as the U of Cal case showed, Asians are in fact now REVERSE discriminated against for college admissions).

It does seem that the minorities that the govt has jumped in to try to help the MOST have in fact made the LEAST progress.

Serious, not a rhetorical, question.

Dude, don't try to confuse the issue with facts.