<p>Say when I fill out my LSAC application I declare myself as a Native American, even though I am white. Could I later lose my admission or face any discipline? Do law schools actually check if someone is a certain race?</p>
<p>That's an interesting question, because not only do you have to certify to the law school on your application that all of the information that you've provided is true, many states require you to provide a copy of your law school application that has been certified by your law school to the bar in order for you to obtain admission. I believe that making false statements or providing false information on your application for admission to the bar is a crime in many states, if not all of them.</p>
<p>That's not a chance that I would ever want to take (of course, it wouldn't even occur to me to lie on an application either).</p>
<p>Committing fraud is an inauspicious way to start your legal career. It can keep an applicant from being admitted to the bar. If you read state bar discipline records, you might be surprised to find out how often discovery that an attorney has committed fraud leads to disbarment.</p>
<p>Does race play a big enough difference in admissions for someone to justify lying like that? I hear many top law schools will do follow-ups on those that claim native american status because you can be linked to a tribe. So, to what extent do law schools consider race and what races do they give breaks to, if any?</p>
<p>Yes, race plays a huge factor, and there has never been a legal case that defines race in the context of who can check the little box. Race is a self declaration. At the University of Michigan Law School case a rep said they may well not have ANY URM's if they did not use race as a factor. By the way, in every cell (LSAT and GPA) Asians had the lowest acceptance rate.
No school will define race for you. One minor exception is that some undergrad schools will ask for support if you declare yourself Native American.
Buy some old pictures of minorities on EBAy and claim they are your ancestors if you are ever questioned? I would not go that far, but checking the little box is strictly a self declaration. If there was a policy it would require DNA testing for ethnic background, as this would be the only true way to "prove" a background.
All schools claim that they do not discriminate based on race, so how could they expell you for lying when they claim that it makes no difference?
AA is racial discrimination, by definition. THis country needs to eliminate racial discrimination as much as it can. If the door is open to allow racial discrimination because a school thinks that it enhances the learning experience, then when else is it ok to use racial discrimination.
I truely hope that this upcoming SC case clears the issue and finds these race based policies unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The end of racial quotas is a great thing for all Americans.</p>
<p>Being African American is <em>at least</em> 5 points on the LSAT at a constant GPA. A quick perusal of lawschoolnumbers will make that very clear.</p>
<p>Oh boy, here we go again.</p>
<p>"The end of racial quotas is a great thing for all Americans."</p>
<p>Not for those who are opressed. It's great being rich and white in this country, it really is.</p>
<p>Heck, even either rich or white. Arguably, with one you can achieve the other, socially speaking. Which is why I favor an AA reform that focuses on socio-economic background and not ethnicity. Not surprisingly, however, is the fact that minorities would nonetheless be the more benefited from that approach.</p>
<p>I agree with you Wildflower. </p>
<p>I graduated from a public high school last May. Several of my classmates that are URM's are going to very good schools. (for example -- Case Western and University of Chicago). In some cases, these students received full rides to their respective college. It is likely that this is in part due to race. I think this is great, provided the URM student is not affluent. Many of the top graduates having URM status are affluent. Why should they get a large scholarship, when a non-URM student with equal ability gets nothing even if they have faced many more finacial and social obstacles? </p>
<p>A student w/ URM status who lives in a household with an income of 100k+ almost always has it much better off than the poor white student with parents working at minimum wage. Admittedly, these poor white students are going to get a hefty finacial aid package. Another case and point, more prevalent due to availability of finacial aid packages, the rich URM student may get a full ride while a white student who has had mildly less opportunities in life and has achieved more than the URM status student gets zero.</p>
<p>Let's face it -- today, money is everything. Finacial well being is much better indicator of academic success than race.</p>
<p>If we really want to make it a better world, maybe we should stop worrying about AA, and say death to the idea of rich people (regardless of race) taking up all the resources, moving into the suburbs, and sending their kids to fancy little prep schools.</p>
<p>FYI,</p>
<p>All minorities are underrepresented in law school.</p>
<p>*No single minority group in the United States accounts for more than 4% of the lawyers in the United States. The Law School Admission Council and its member law schools want to increase the numbers of lawyers from underrepresented minority groups in the United States. In response to a statement that there are too many lawyers in the United States, a prominent law professor explained, "There are not a lot of Latino, African American, Asian American or Native American lawyers. We are still woefully underrepresented in the ranks of lawyers." The information on this web page will be of special interest to members of minority groups who are considering legal careers.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Though this is true in general, its not true for the top 14 law schools. Asians are well-represented.</p>
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its not true for the top 14 law schools. Asians are well-represented.
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</p>
<p>How do you know this?</p>
<br>
<p>Asians are well-represented.</p>
<br>
<p>They are well represented relative to the U.S. population. They are underrepresented relative to their population at the schools that feed into the T14 (in other words, even when they go to top colleges, they are less likely to end up in top law schools).</p>
<p>
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All minorities are underrepresented in law school.</p>
<p>No single minority group in the United States accounts for more than 4% of the lawyers in the United States.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What you provided is about lawyers, not people in law schools. And who is the 4%, Asian Americans?</p>
<p>
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Why are law schools interested in recruiting minority students?</p>
<p>Historically, minority group members have been underrepresented in the legal profession. A substantial discrepancy remains between the percentage of minority members in society versus the percentage in the legal profession. To promote diversity in the profession, all LSAC-member law schools actively seek qualified African American, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian students as well as other students of color. (In addition, many schools consider such factors as economic and educational disadvantage when considering a candidate for admission.) Law schools find that diversity within the classroom enriches the learning process for all students.
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</p>
<p>Asians are included in the LSAC definition of minority, it seems.</p>
<p>Side note: I wonder how the language will change when "whites" as they call them are no longer the majority of Americans.</p>
<p>The 4% is not a total number (i.e. it's not 4% minority, 96% Caucasian), but rather no non-white group represents more than 4% of the industry.</p>
<p>I'm going to start a war with this, but I really don't want to... just try to take it for what it is.
-Affirmative action is much more important in law school than in undergrad - i.e. the "boost" to applicants is much larger. The stats that I've seen have quoted the boost as approximately 15 LSAT points. </p>
<p>African-Americans who graduate from college are more likely than their Caucasian peers to apply to law school, but, in the aggregate, have lower stats, hence AA.</p>
<p>The problem with this is that, unlike in undergrad, grades in law school are extremely important (unless you are in HYS). Passing the bar is also extremely important. After undergrad, no one cares what your grades were - they just want to see the B.S. Not so much in law school. Many journals are decided, at least in part, based on grades. Some half of African-American law students end up in the bottom 10% of their class at the end of their first year; overall, about half of black matriculants to law school will never pass the bar. This is despite the fact that they come in, on the average, expecting higher grades than their Caucasian peers expect. (Note that there is a bill going through Congress which would demand much more transparency in this issue.)</p>
<p>Consider that law schools will still charge students $50,000/year, whether or not they pass the bar. It is frightening to be in that much debt but not have what it takes to be an attorney. </p>
<p>Now, I don't want to start a war with this - I am just saying that this all shows that the system, as currently practised, is completely dysfunctional. I am not against having a diverse legal profession - in fact, I think that a lot of the problem with the law is how insulated it is. There are very few, if any, external checks on the system. I fully support opening the entire system up to a group that better represents society as a whole.</p>
<p>In my ideal world, law schools won't try to put Band-aids on problems that K-12 and college have handed to them. In my world, law schools would admit all types of people who have the potential to be successful attorneys, but lack the preparation, skills, and habits to be successful law students. The law schools, however (and some do this) should make such acceptances conditional upon completion of a pre-law school boot camp - get the pre-1Ls into shape before they have to compete in the classroom. It isn't a racial thing - there are plenty of students who simply have lacked the rigour in undergrad college, the writing skills, or the research skills to be successful students, despite having the intellect to do so if properly trained. I also think that, before you take $150,000 of someone's money, you ought to inform him that he needs a lot of help to be a successful student.</p>
<p>My two cents. Just because there is a tremendous amount of value in something does not mean that the methods used to achieve it are good or even justifiable.</p>
<p>Aries are you Canadian or from the UK? Just curious.</p>
<p>Neither, although you're the fourth person to ask me in the past few weeks. Apparently, I have a killer accent that, if I were male, would make ladies swoon. As it stands, however, my iron will, fabulous lilt, and pre-1950s spellings have earned me the nickname of Margaret Thatcher. I hope I don't make ladies swoon.</p>
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and pre-1950s spellings have earned me the nickname of Margaret Thatcher.
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</p>
<p>That is hot, like MIT-cheerleader hot.</p>