Early data from a handful of top U.S. law schools shows the percentage of nonwhite students enrolling this year has remained mostly unchanged following the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring colleges and universities from considering race in admissions.
Six of the top 20 U.S. law schools—as ranked by U.S. News & World Report—have disclosed some racial diversity data on their websites or provided it directly to Reuters as of Sept. 5. Of those, five reported that the percentage of first-year students of color this fall increased or remained steady this year. One said that figure declined.
The five that reported either no change or increases in the percentage of minorities in their entering classes were the University of Virginia School of Law; the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law; Cornell Law School; Vanderbilt University Law School; and the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Minority enrollment for first-year classes at those five law schools averaged 44%.
The University of California, Berkeley School of Law was the sole law school of the six to post a year-over-year decline—falling to 50% students of color from 57% last year. A Berkeley Law spokesperson said the California school, which has been under a state-imposed affirmative action ban since 1996, did not change its admissions process and that the makeup of its class fluctuates every year.
Representatives of Vanderbilt, Cornell and UCLA's law schools declined to comment on the composition of their first-year classes. Virginia, and USC Law did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The data that most schools provided doesn't reflect possible shifts between different minority groups such as Asian, Black, and Hispanic students.
Schools will be required by mid-October to report their minority enrollment numbers to the American Bar Association, the accrediting body of U.S. law schools, in December. That data will provide breakdowns for different demographic groups.
Last year was the final law school class admitted before the affirmative action ban was fully in effect and collectively the most racially diverse on record at 40% students of color.
In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
That ruling does not bar colleges and universities from knowing applicants' race, but many law schools chose to withhold that information from admissions officers starting this year in order to ensure compliance with the decision. Once they have enrolled students, schools can access that information from applications or by polling their new class.
For law schools, the full impact of the affirmative admissions ban may have been blunted by the fact that this year’s applicant pool was both 6% larger and more racially diverse than the previous year, according to data from the Law School Admission Council. Applicants of color accounted for nearly 48% of the pool, up from about 47% in 2023.
About half of the top 20 law schools told Reuters they either didn’t yet have diversity figures for their new classes or would not release those numbers until after they have been officially reported to the ABA.
Some U.S. universities have reported admissions data by demographic group. For example, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's incoming freshman class this year dropped to 16% Black, Hispanic, Native American or Pacific Islander students compared with 31% in previous years, which officials attributed to the affirmative action ban.
In past years, many law schools touted the diversity of their new classes as soon as they arrived on campus in August and early September.
Some legal consultants point to fear of lawsuits as a possible reason for the delay.
A wave of legal challenges over diversity initiatives at law firms, schools, bar associations, and companies brought by conservative legal groups is likely prompting a "charged climate," said Aaron Taylor, executive director of the AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence, where he conducts research on law school diversity and affordability.
Law schools may be "extra cautious," he said, because gains in minority students could yield a “threatening letter from some conservative activist group,” while declines could draw criticism from diversity advocates.
This year's relative dearth of racial data, a shift from previous years when schools "all used to put up their diversity numbers" as soon as possible, could mean that schools are waiting for their peer schools to report first, said law school admissions consultant Mike Spivey. That delay, he said, could be a bid to reduce their chance of becoming targets of lawsuits.
Read more:
Final law class admitted before affirmative action ban is most diverse on record
Law student diversity, especially at top schools, shrank after affirmative action bans, study finds
