A Visual Composite of SALT Ideals

SALT is dedicated to achieving an inclusive system of legal education that offers opportunities to study law to men and women from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse population. Within every law school, the faculty and administration should also reflect this diversity.

Vigilance is required, so many years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, because of aggressive campaigns to limit a variety of methods that promote admissions to students of color. Enrollment of African Americans and Mexican Americans has declined since 1992. Despite a rise in the number of available seats in law schools and a rise of conventional qualifications—LSAT and college grade point average—fewer African Americans and Mexican Americans enrolled in first year law classes in Fall 2005 than in Fall 1992.

SALT has teamed with Columbia Law School to provide accurate data regarding the state of law school admissions for use by practitioners, scholars, activists, and law schools. See "A Disturbing Trend in Law School Diversity," for resources and analysis that will be helpful in local campaigns to improve access to law school. Professor Conrad Johnson was featured in the April 7 issue of Hispanic Outlook, which explored the issue. In June 2008, The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, issued "African American and Latino Enrollment Trends among Medicine, Law, Business, and Public Affairs Graduate Programs." 

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, October 2008, reported that law school admissions continue to decline, especially in higher tier law schools.  Eighteen of the thirty highest ranked law schools saw a decline in enrollments of African American students. However, twelve schools showed an increase, including the University of Chicago, which posted a 72% increase in enrollments since 1999.

The purpose of the report is to provide an analysis of the fields of medicine, business, law, and public affairs, and to present other relevant data pertaining to African American and Latino students in graduate education. The first section provides an overview of action policy and court cases. The second analyzes the relationship between affirmative action and nationwide enrollment trends of African American and Latino students in the four selected professional programs indicated. 

Throughout the Bush administration, the United States Commission on Civil Rights rather than promoting ways to include African Americans and other people of color attacked affirmative action admissions policies in law schools. Two aspects of its April 2007 report are most disturbing:

1. It joined the U.S. Department of Education in calling on the American Bar Association to drop its accreditation requirement that law schools demonstrate concrete action taken to achieve diversity in enrollment. This ABA requirement had been enacted to ensure that legal education was available to all qualified students no matter what their race or ethnicity.

2. The Civil Rights Commission stepped beyond its authority to request Congress to demand that every law school in the nation explain how it interprets the ABA diversity requirement and require a “bright line bar passage” standard that all law schools must meet.

On January 3, 2008, the Congressional Research Service issued a report "Political Balance Requirements at the United States Commission  on Civil Rights," holding that the appointment process used by the President to stack the Commission with ideological Republicans "violative of the political balance requirements of the statute." 

Higher Education Act, August, 2008:  Language in the Higher Education Act amendments stopped the Department of Education from its quest to decertify the ABA Council on Legal Education as the accrediting agency for American law schools.  NACIQI, the board that approves the certification bodies for institutions of higher education, was restructured, and within the Act, the NACIQI cannot be reconvened until after January 20, 2009, and the new Congress is in session.  

Voter Initiatives to End Affirmative Action: Only two state initiatives--in Colorado and Nebraska-- made it to the November 2008 ballot to roll back the vestiges of affirmative action that Grutter v. Bollinger preserved. Last term in Seattle School District No. 1, the Supreme Court weighed in to limit pipeline efforts by ruling that voluntary integration programs in Seattle and Louisville violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Originally five states were targeted for ballot initiatives that would ban any form of affirmative action in education, hiring, and contracting in Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Arizona, and Colorado.  The initiatives, promoted by Ward Connerly, the former member of the California Board of Regents, failed to get onto the ballot in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Missouri.

In Arizona, the  State Bar voted to oppose the ballot initiative, the first time such an action has been taken by a unified bar. 

SALT worked to generate editorials for placement in regional media educating voters in Colorado and Nebraska, the two remaining states.  And SALT produced three films that were released through YouTube.com for that purpose.

The initiative failed in Colorado, but passed in Nebraska.  

May 2008: The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law released new guidelines for prosecutors designed to promote equal justice, improve public safety and increase confidence in the criminal justice system. If adopted, the guidelines will reduce unwarranted racial disparities in the criminal justice system and provide prosecutors with practical tools to use in their work.