In This Issue:

October 1999 -- Vol. 28, No. 2

News from the Annual Meeting

Representatives from more than 80 law schools nationwide voted on a range of issues affecting law students during the American Bar Association’s annual meeting Aug. 5-11 in Atlanta.

The ABA Law Student Division Assembly voted to support the Frank-Campbell bill, a bipartisan measure in Congress that would remove much of the sting for law students from the controversial Solomon amendment. That law denies federal funding—including certain federal student loans and grants—to law schools that block on-campus military recruiting in protest of the armed forces’ “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which discriminates against openly gay individuals.

The Solomon amendment affects Perkins Loan, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, and Work-Study programs. Although these funds constitute only a small percentage of the total income of many law schools, many law students rely on these funds. The Frank-Campbell bill would exclude all student loans and grants from funding blocked by the Solomon amendment.

The resolution in support of the Frank-Campbell legislation nearly failed to reach the Assembly floor. Last year, after a heated debate in the Assembly, a resolution to urge Congress to repeal the Solomon amendment failed by just one vote. This year, a majority of the Division’s Board of Governors ruled that a procedural provision precluded further discussion of matters related to the Solomon amendment for six years. The Assembly, however, voted to allow consideration of this year’s resolution.

Second Circuit governor Thomas Prol, a third-year student at New York Law School, spoke on behalf of the measure: “This is an issue that we cannot avoid—more than just gays and lesbians, this affects every law student we represent.” Despite the procedural protests, the Assembly adopted the measure by a handy margin.

The Assembly rejected a measure that would have urged the ABA’s Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar to encourage law schools to abandon admission policies that consider in any way race, creed, gender, national origin, age, or marital status. Perceived as an “anti-affirmative action” resolution, the measure encountered stiff resistance on the Assembly floor despite endorsement by the 15th Circuit.

“We should be looking forward to a true color-blind system for our inspiration rather than looking back to the discrimination of the past for our solution,” said resolution sponsor Robert Roberts, a second-year student at the University of Denver College of Law.

“I think theoretically the resolution is wonderful,” said resolution opponent Melane Conyers-Ausbrooks, a third-year student at Howard University School of Law and 11th Circuit governor. “Unfortunately, when similar policies have been implemented in the past, we have seen minority enrollment in graduate programs go down significantly.”

Conyers-Ausbrooks cited the impact of a 1996 anti-affirmative action ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Hopwood v. Texas, which resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of minority students at the University of Texas School of Law in just one year. Only four blacks and 25 Hispanics enrolled at the school in 1997, down from 31 blacks and 42 Hispanics the year before.

Continuing a trend toward backing innovative education finance measures, the Assembly approved a resolution that would encourage Congress to amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow employers to provide post-secondary educational assistance benefits to employees.

“Rapidly emerging technology and market competitiveness have forced the business sector to realize that an undergraduate degree is insufficient to develop a person’s lifetime potential,” said resolution sponsor Stephanie McGee, a student at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii-Manoa. “An employee should not have the disincentive of having employer-funded education allocated as taxable income when the employee is in pursuit of the employer’s market-dictated educational requirements.”

In a related development, the ABA House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to ask Congress for help in relieving the crushing debt newly graduated law students face as tuition fees continue to rise. The House of Delegates approved the measure, which originated in the Law Student Division last year, asking Congress to amend the Internal Revenue Code to include an educational loan repayment plan as part of a qualified benefit assistance program—a so-called “cafeteria plan”—that is sponsored by employers for employees. Such a plan is designed to encourage legal employers to defray newly hired associates’ education expenses.

The Law Student Division Assembly consists of the student bar association president and ABA representative from each of the 181 ABA-accredited schools in the country who attend the meeting. The 525-member House of Delegates is the overall policy-making body of the ABA. •

Brandon Bigelow, a second-year student at Boston College Law School, is Student Lawyer’s student editor.