My immediate preparation was almost my undoing. My 21st birthday celebration took place the night before the LSATs, and several friends and I closed down more than a few bars that night. I was surprised I did as well as I did, since I pretty much took a pass on the first hour of the test.
Seriously, though, blacks have been ill-served by affirmative action admissions to top law schools. They tend to cluster in the bottom third of their classes at those schools, and many become disillusioned and lose any incentive to try to excel. Many of these students would do better to attend lesser law schools where they would be more competitive.
The other insidious effect of affirmative action is its tendency to devalue the degrees minority students achieve. I read today that Justice Thomas, in his new book, says that he believes potential employers discounted his law degree from Yale because he was assumed to be the beneficiary of affirmative action.
I work at a new law school, and in the past year I’ve seen perfect examples of what affirmative action leads to. Our first class had approximately six or seven black students. At the end of the first year, four of them had fallen under the academic requirements to remain in school. One of their fathers was on our board of directors, and was a big contributor to the school. Remarkably, she was allowed to stay. Another had attended Yale as an undergraduate, and was one of only two black males. He was allowed to stay as well, but had to repeat his first year. He’s well on his way to failing again.
Recently, the school had a meeting about the formation of our law review. The debate was mainly focused on what criteria would be used to allow students to join. The wiser members of the faculty wanted membership to be based solely on test scores and academic achievement. The nitwit liberal members of our school were upset by this, stating if we based it solely on academic achievement, we’d never get any black students on the review. Academic life is grand.