By Faye A. Silas

 “As presidents, we can use our position as a bully pulpit. There’s no reason for leadership not to use the forum to speak to the issue. Engaging in a debate is critically important,” Raymond Marshall, past president of the Bar Association of San Francisco and the State Bar of California, told members of the National Conference of Bar Presidents during a panel discussion on the bar’s role in ensuring diversity. 

Because diversity efforts are being challenged, Marshall says it is important for the bar to be a resource for factual information. “Affirmative action/diversity is a sensitive issue. Getting hard data on how much progress has been made or hasn’t been made is useful. That will lay the foundation for an honest dialogue,” he says.

“A diverse faculty will attract minority students.”

- Beverly McQueary Smith
 

“There was bias in the profession and it caused us to create (minority hiring and retention) goals and timetables” for achieving racial diversity, Marshall remarks. “We had hard data to discuss the lack of progress.” 

Bars can also play a role in education by getting members involved in schools. The San Francisco bar, for example, has created a law academy and mentor programs for young people, and has adopted a school.

“It is critically important for young children to see lawyers,” he says.

Noting that he would not have become a lawyer were it not for affirmative action and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, Robert Brown Jr., dean of the University of West Los Angeles School of Law in Inglewood, says that law schools should look at individual students and their backgrounds separately when making admissions decisions. 

“I did not have objective criteria to get into UCLA law school. I would not have become a lawyer were it not for affirmative action, (but) people like myself can rise to the occasion when given the opportunity, ” says Brown, who addressed the group.

The fact that the University of West Los Angeles law school does not hold accreditation from the American Bar Association is an advantage because the school doesn’t have to charge students as much tuition, thus making it more feasible for minority students to attend. While the law school’s program is comparable to other accredited schools in preparing students to become lawyers, the school chose not to seek accreditation so that it would not have to adhere to several ABA nonsubstantive standards--standards that would have elevated the cost of legal education, he says

Brown encouraged law firms to expand their recruiting pool by looking to law schools like the University of West Los Angeles. The presumption that graduates of non-ABA-approved law schools aren’t “real” lawyers is a fallacy, says Brown, who adds that among the graduates of his law school are 30 sitting judges and an assistant secretary of health and human services.
 

Erosion of affirmative action 

Court decisions striking down affirmative action in law schools and referenda such as California’s Proposition 209, in which voters statewide approved a measure that forbids preferential treatment to individuals and groups in public education, have derailed efforts to foster diversity, panelists say. For example, since the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996, UCLA law school graduated only one black student last year. 

As former dean Michael Sharlot tells it, the University of Texas School of Law undertook affirmative action when it realized that the selective inclusion of minorities would not occur due to their varied backgrounds. In the 1970 and 1980s, the school increased recruiting and financial aid, and broadened its admission criteria to improve the enrollment of minority students. These efforts resulted in more black and Hispanic graduates than produced by many other law schools. In addition, the school’s enrollment of the two groups was comparable to the enrollment of majority students. 

“It is important that the bar be inclusive. Unless the system is open and reflective, feelings about the (justice) system won’t be positive. Race-conscious affirmative action is the most effective way to diversify the profession,” Sharlot says.

However, in Hopwood v. Texas, the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the University of Texas law school could not consider race in admissions, and the 1996 decision led to the dismantling of the school’s affirmative action program. (On March 27th, a federal judge in Detroit ruled that the admissions standards at the University of Michigan School of Law were unconstitutional because race was used to judge applicants. The school is expected to appeal the decision.) 

“Despite the restrictions, we have tried to maintain a diverse student enrollment,” Sharlot says, adding that the alumni have raised $4 million for scholarships to minority students. In addition, the University of Texas has started a 2-year law school preparation institute for minority undergraduate students, which includes a writing program and law school admissions test (LSAT) preparation, as an attempt to prepare students for the admissions process.

A diverse faculty in law schools will attract minority students and enhance students’ chances to succeed, says Beverly McQueary Smith, professor of law at Touro College in Huntington, N.Y., and past president of the mostly black National Bar Association. 

The author is the editor of Bar Leader.