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 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. 
 
The United States Commission on Civil Rights rather than promoting ways to include African Americans and other people of color is attacking 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." 

Voter Initiatives to End Affirmative Action: Meanwhile, state initiatives are being introduced 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, where proponents are seeking to withdraw their petition and in Missouri where they missed the petition deadline.  However, there are still active campaigns to mount these initiatives in Nebraska, Arizona, and Colorado. 

In Nebraska, the State Bar opposed an almost identical proposed piece of legislation to amend the constitution in the same way that is envisioned by the ballot initiative.  That legislation was withdrawn, and the State Bar does not take positions on ballot initiatives.

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

In Colorado, the State Supreme Court on May 16, 2008, ordered that an alternative language initiative be placed on the November 2008 ballot that secures constitutionally permissible forms of affirmative action.  Click here for a copy of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision. 

Vigilance and optimism are necessary. SALT needs members who can provide help in generating thoughtful initiatives and responses to those who seek to narrow the field of who can be educated to serve our communities.

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.