The Educational Diversity Project: Analysis of Longitudinal and

LSAC GRANTS REPORT SERIES
ƒ The Educational Diversity Project: Analysis of Longitudinal
and Concurrent Student and Faculty Data
Charles E. Daye
Abigail T. Panter
The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Walter R. Allen
The University of California, Los Angeles
Linda F. Wightman
The University of North Carolina, Greensboro
ƒ Law School Admission Council
Grants Report 10-01
March 2010
A Publication of the Law School Admission Council
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary .................................................................................................................1
Overview of the Educational Diversity Project ......................................................................2
Background......................................................................................................................2
The EDP Year 3 Focus Group Study.......................................................................................7
Background......................................................................................................................7
Method.............................................................................................................................8
Results...........................................................................................................................11
The EDP Year 3 Web Survey..................................................................................................15
Background....................................................................................................................15
Method...........................................................................................................................16
Results...........................................................................................................................21
The EDP Law Faculty Interview Study ..................................................................................49
Background....................................................................................................................49
Method...........................................................................................................................50
Results...........................................................................................................................54
Data Analyses and Dissemination ........................................................................................64
General Approach..........................................................................................................64
Preliminary Implication From the Findings of the EDP .......................................................65
Focus Groups ................................................................................................................65
References ..............................................................................................................................69
Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................70
Appendix A..............................................................................................................................72
Appendix B..............................................................................................................................78
Appendix C..............................................................................................................................99
Appendix D............................................................................................................................125
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Executive Summary
The Educational Diversity Project (EDP) is a national, longitudinal, and multimethod study
of law students that assesses how student body racial/ethnic diversity may affect the
educational environment. By assessing a broad set of experiential and psychological
characteristics, we seek to understand (a) the individual differences that incoming students
have upon entry to law school and how these differences do or do not relate to race/ethnicity
(and other personal characteristics); and (b) how individual differences identified during the
first weeks of law school may frame a student’s legal training, interaction with classmates with
diverse viewpoints, and personal decisions about how they will use their legal training in
employment after graduation. The study also examines to what extent student variability would
be attenuated if there were no racial diversity.
Over 8,000 incoming students from 64 ABA-approved law schools completed the EDP
baseline assessment during the first weeks of law school and described how race and other
personal factors related to diversity in student background, family background, lifetime
experience, sociopolitical attitudes, educational expectations, and career aspirations. At
graduation, a subset of these individuals completed a follow-up survey to assess how their
experiences in law school, attitudes, and plans for the future may have been affected by the
diversity of their law school class. These data were supplemented by LSAC law school
application information and first-year averages (FYAs) in law school. Focus groups with a
smaller cohort of 203 law students from 11 schools in each law school year allowed us to
probe the nuances of law student life each year. Finally, to learn about pedagogy with respect
to discussing race in the classroom and legal analyses of cases, law faculty from the schools
in the random sample were interviewed.
Major findings showed that race/ethnicity is associated with (a) differences in student
backgrounds, attitudes and belief systems, and expectations at the start of law school; (b)
differences in student academic experiences, personal burden and resources, and
professional aspirations during law school; and (c) changes in perceptions about the
importance of diversity in an educational setting and prejudices as a result of law school.
Professors differed in their attitudes about the importance of student diversity, believing that
student diversity has significant beneficial effects on the quality of the educational classroom
environment and the learning process and yet not reporting that they themselves have
changed their classroom behavior due to student diversity in the classroom. They reported that
they contributed to enhancing student racial/ethnic diversity in many different ways in their law
school environment.
From our open-ended interview sections, we expect to see that variances among
professors will be influenced in particular by whether professors teach first-year or upper class
courses, general or specialized courses, or small or large courses; and by whether professors
perceive that the subject matter of the course has specific content that might be relevant—or
perceived by students or professors to be relevant—to particular racial or other perspectives.
To date, our data from students and faculty show that racial/ethnic student body diversity in
law school provides a rich context for student learning, interacting, and understanding for
students and faculty members.
1
Overview of the Educational Diversity Project
Background
When Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) affirmed that educational institutions may consider race as
a factor in admissions, questions remained about whether there was an adequate empirical
link between racial/ethnic diversity and educational benefits.
The Educational Diversity Project (EDP) examines three research questions:
•
Does race/ethnicity (and other personal factors) relate to educational diversity in law
schools, as defined by individual differences in student background and history,
attitudes, academic experiences, and career aspirations? Does race/ethnicity
incrementally contribute to diversity in ways that other personal attributes would not?
•
Does a student’s racial/ethnic diversity, along with the racial/ethnic diversity of other
fellow students, provide a context for learning, interacting, interpreting the educational
setting, and changing future academic and professional expectations during law school?
If so, in what ways?
•
To what extent would student variability be attenuated if there were no racial diversity?
We found no published empirical studies of the contribution that race/ethnicity makes to
educational diversity during law school, nor how aspects of educational diversity would vary if
there were no racial diversity.
A Brief Overview of Study Components
To understand how race/ethnicity contributes to the law school educational process, the
EDP research team selected a design that emphasized and valued multiple assessments and
data sources. Our design incorporated different definitions of diversity in the law school
environment. Through this multi-year investigation, we assembled a unique national data set
that included responses from incoming law students to an extensive baseline survey; Year 3
survey data; student focus group data in each year; and archival information about
standardized test taking, application behaviors, student performance after the first law school
year, undergraduate institutions, and law institutions. Table 1 presents EDP’s data elements by
year.
A data collection effort focused on law school faculty is underway. Our December 2005
report presented our survey of incoming law students in the fall of 2004, the development of
baseline data, and our projected additional efforts. The current report describes our activities
that sprang from developing and administering the baseline survey and our efforts to enrich
our data collection and analyses beyond our baseline assessment of incoming law students.
This report also documents our research during the period of July 1, 2007, to June 30,
2008. The proposed research activities were to:
2
1. Conduct a 30-minute telephone interview tapping law school faculty members’
pedagogy surrounding race in their courses.
2. Continue data analyses and appropriate multilevel data modeling; link baseline data to
LSAC registration data, FYAs, and the Year 3 email survey of law students; analyze
themes in the Year 3 Focus Groups data; and analyze faculty interview data. Before
describing our yearly progress, we provide a very brief review of the major EDP study
components.1
TABLE 1
Data elements for the Educational Diversity Project including institution, student survey, student focus
group, and faculty interviews
Pre-Fall
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Post-Spring
Data
2004
2004–2005
2005–2006
2006–2007
2007
Law School
1. Institutions
Undergraduate
Attributes:
Attributes:
ABA
IPEDS
2. Sampled
Students
LSAT
Registration:
LSAC
Baseline Data:
EDP
Law School
Exit Survey:
EDP
FYAs:
LSAC
3. Student Focus
Groups
Focus
Groups:
EDP
Focus Groups:
EDP
4. Law Faculty
Focus Groups:
EDP
Faculty
Interviews:
EDP
Note: The data elements shown in the darkened areas were obtained as part of this funding period and are
of primary importance in this final report. ABA = American Bar Association; IPEDS = Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System.
EDP Baseline Survey
The EDP research team tracked a cohort of incoming law students at U.S. law schools
beginning in fall 2004. The EDP baseline survey was administered to more than 8,000
incoming law students at 64 ABA-approved law schools during the first weeks of law school.
There were two samples: a smaller convenience sample (n = 14 schools) and a larger random
sample (n = 50 schools), consisting of a multistage random sample of schools and participants
1
The UNC IRB and/or a law school–specific application was submitted and approved for these EDP components and annual renewals:
(a) the baseline national EDP survey; (b) three amendments for the student focus groups (Years 1, 2, and 3); (c) an amendment for Year 3
EDP web survey; and (d) the law faculty interview study (required for UNC IRB only). The number of interactions with IRBs per law
schools was quite high: 64 for the baseline survey alone.
3
with an oversampling of schools with high student minority representation. In most analyses,
the convenience sample is treated separately and is used to explore basic relationships among
study variables.2
The EDP survey instrument probed six different potential “diversity” domains, which are
summarized in Table 2. These domains were: Diversity of Student Background, Diversity of
Family and Context, Diversity of Experiences, Diversity of Perspective, Diversity of Educational
Expectations, and Diversity of Career Aspirations.
We included institutional characteristics for the students’ degree-awarding undergraduate
institution (from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System; IPEDS) and their
current law school (from ABA fall 2004 data sets). The included institutional variables were:
cost, size, minority representation, selectivity, student–faculty ratios, and other information.
To supplement student-reported family income, we coded annual salaries and job attributes
from the parental/guardian occupations using the Occupational Network Online (O*Net;
http://online.onetcenter.org/) from the U.S. Department of Labor.
TABLE 2
Diversity domains assessed in the Educational Diversity Project baseline survey of incoming law students
1. Diversity of Student Background
Socio-Demographic
Pre-Law Education and
Work History and Financial Status
Characteristics
Preparation
• Part-time, full-time student
• Gender
• High school type
status
• Racial/ethnic
• Location of pre-college
• Number of hours worked
background
education
during college
• Age
• BA year
• Expected work for pay
during law school
• U.S. citizenship,
• Undergraduate institution
nationality
• Debt upon law school entry
• Highest level of education
achieved
• Hometown
• Primary financial
responsibility
• Current marital
• LSAT score
status
• Had an influential work
• Age at first thought of law
experience that influenced
• Religion, spirituality
school
decision to attend law
• Political orientation
school
• Sexual orientation
2
The procedures for the national baseline survey involved sampling, receiving commitments from law school deans at sampled
schools, obtaining Institutional Review Board approval for participating law schools, mailing survey packets to identified contact people at
the law school for administration during orientation activities, and data processing and analysis of completed surveys. See Panter, Daye,
Allen, & Wightman (2006) for more details about the sampling and procedures for the baseline EDP survey. The baseline instrument is
available upon request. The baseline survey instrument is available online at http://www.unc.edu/edp/pdf/edp_survey.pdf.
4
TABLE 2
Diversity domains assessed in the Educational Diversity Project baseline survey of incoming law students
(continued)
2. Diversity of Family and Context
Family Structure and
Family and Neighborhood
Messages about Race
Parental Attributes
Context
• Intergroup contact
• Parental guardians
• Language in home and
• Racial socialization
before age 18 years
spoken English
• Ethnic identification
• Estimated family income
• Grew up with
• Common fate
mother, father
• Neighborhood attributes
• Highest completed
education for
parental guardian
• Longest occupation
for parental guardian
• Longest job for
parental guardians
3. Diversity of Experiences
Experienced Discrimination
• Lifetime
discrimination due to
race/ethnicity,
gender, and/or other
personal
characteristics
• Everyday
discrimination
• Specific
discrimination
experiences
• Coping in the face of
racial conflict
4. Diversity of Perspective
Government Policies and
Attitudes
• Federal and domestic
spending
• Homeland security
• Military aid
• Need to monitor the
citizenry
• Acceptability of using
military force
• Immigration laws
Undergraduate Academic Activities and Experiences
• Intergroup contact
• Ethnic studies and women’s studies
• Missed responsibilities
• Interaction with faculty outside of class
• Participated in certain activities or discussions (e.g., study abroad,
student government)
• Experience with a mentor (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, reasons for
choosing)
Social Attitudes: Rights and
Values
• Zero-sum immigration
• Entitlements for all
citizens
• Abortion
• Gay and lesbian rights
• Work ethic
• Glass ceiling
• Fairness of college
admissions process
Social Attitudes: Race
• Symbolic racism
• Race relations
• Miscegenation
• University admissions
5
Discrimination Against Societal Groups
• Racial minorities
• Low socioeconomic status
• Women
• Disability
• Immigrants
• Older adults
• Whites
• Religious groups
TABLE 2
Diversity domains assessed in the Educational Diversity Project baseline survey of incoming law students
(continued)
5. Diversity of Educational Expectations
• Expected participation in
• Experiences and
• Perceived fairness of
extracurricular activities during
involvement during the
college admissions
law school
senior year of college
• Support for racial and
cultural diversity in
• Expected potential learning
• Expected class rank in
experiences within the formal
law school
higher education
law school classroom
• Expected qualifications
• Style of learning
and abilities of fellow
• Self-trait ratings
• Desired classroom
law students
environment
6. Diversity of Career Aspirations
• Reasons for
•
attending law school
•
Desired work settings
• Likelihood of encountering
after graduation
discrimination due to race or
gender in the work place
Desired type of law
practice
• Knowledge of the University of
Michigan affirmative action
• Relevant factors in
cases
choosing a law-related
job
Note. Diversity of Student Background (2 pages, 25 items); Diversity of Family and Context (2 pages, 9
items); Diversity of Experiences (3 pages, 11 items); Diversity of Perspective (3 pages, 9 items); Diversity of
Educational Expectations (2 pages, 10 items); Diversity of Career Aspirations (2 pages, 8 items).
Supplemental Data on Registration, Application Behavior, and Law School Performance
Approximately 75% of the EDP baseline participants consented to allow our research team
to link their data to existing LSAC registration and grade information. We supplemented the
EDP national survey database with a wide range of ancillary, archival information including
LSAC registration information (e.g., race, gender, LSAT scores, number of times taking the
LSAT, law school application outcomes), and FYAs in law school.
Student Focus Groups
A subset of approximately 200 students who participated in the baseline EDP survey
agreed to speak to the EDP research team about different aspects of their law school
experience during each year of law school. We conducted focus groups with these students
from 11 schools in three U.S. regions in the spring of 2005, 2006, and 2007.3
Each year the general themes for the focus groups varied. Year 1 protocols involved
understanding the first-year experience, the incoming class diversity, and how race and gender
were treated in analyses of specific legal cases. Year 2 protocols involved activities of the
year, sources of support (financial, emotional, intellectual), mentoring, relationships with
3
The focus group procedures involved selecting law schools from the participating EDP survey set, obtaining IRB approval for
participating law schools, contacting students who agreed to be recontacted at baseline, convening and conducting race-matched focus
groups, transcribing audiotapes, analyzing the transcripts with ATLAS.ti, and identifying key themes.
6
faculty, course choices, and perspectives on student diversity in the second year. Year 3
protocols involved sources of support during law school (financial, emotional, intellectual),
mentoring, relationships with faculty, future plans, and perspectives on student diversity.
EDP Year 3 Web Survey
To assess students’ law school experiences, attitudes, and professional aspirations, we
designed, piloted, and deployed a pre-graduation Web survey. This survey was distributed to
the subset of law students who, during the EDP baseline assessment, consented to be
recontacted by our research team later in law school.
EDP Law School Faculty Interview Study
To broaden our perspective about how racial diversity issues are communicated to
students in the context of legal cases and in higher education more generally, we conducted a
law faculty interview study to learn about teaching philosophies, attitudes, and experiences of
law professors. Recruitment and data collection for this study, which began in February 2008,
is currently underway.
In the next sections, we focus on four major areas that were developed during the project
period: the EDP Year 3 Focus Groups, the EDP Year 3 Web Survey, the EDP Faculty Law
School Interview Study, and analysis and dissemination efforts.
The EDP Year 3 Focus Group Study
Background
A major activity for the project period was conducting our Year 3 Focus Groups. As a way
to recognize the complexity of student attitudes and provide a nuanced view to our quantitative
baseline data, the EDP has been conducting focus groups with a subset of baseline survey
respondents during the second semester of Year 1 and Year 2 of law school. We continued
with a Year 3 round of focus groups, as these data have allowed us to provide a much-needed
context for rich interactions, feelings and perceptions, and behaviors of law students
(especially students of color) during their last law school year as they approached graduation.
Each year we oriented our focus groups with a different “theme” (Year 1: diversity now
versus the undergraduate years, analysis of legal cases during the first year; Year 2:
relationship with faculty, mentoring, views about how the second year is going).
The Year 3 Focus Group protocol centered on global assessments of the law school
experience, especially with respect to the students’ evaluation of student diversity, diversity in
terms of relationships formed during law school that may last over time, expectations about the
future in terms of career, contact with law students, and Bar passage; and the extent to which
law school met their expectations in terms of academics, intellectual life, and interpersonal
relationships.
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Method
Participants
Focus group participants were 39% male and 61% female. They were 27% Black, 11%
Asian/Pacific Islander (API), 9% Latino, 50% White, and 3% Other. There were more women
than men in every racial category except Other.
Year 3 EDP Focus Group Protocol
Our 2005 meeting with the students (Year 1 of law school) focused on questions regarding
the first-year law school curriculum. In 2006 (Year 2 of law school), we broadened this further
to include more questions on interactions and on the job search for the second-year summer.
Appendix A provides the Year 3 protocol (discussion questions and short pre-discussion
survey) for the EDP focus group component. This year, as it was the participants’ final year in
law school, we expanded our protocol questions once again to incorporate themes from
throughout their three-year law school careers.
We asked about a broad range of issues, including: student experiences as members of
law student organizations, journals, and other extracurricular activities affiliated with their
school; the benefits of interactions with faculty and other mentors (those who did not have
mentors felt this was a limitation); their perception of diversity at their school; overall
satisfaction with their law school; and plans for after law school graduation. Focus Group
Coordinator Meera Deo created initial drafts of these protocols that were then reviewed and
revised by co-principal investigator (PI) Dr. Walter Allen (UCLA), co-PI Dr. Abigail Panter
(UNC), and co-PI Professor Charles Daye (UNC).
Each focus group participant also completed a brief survey. The 2007 survey asked
students to characterize their interactions with students from different racial/ethnic
backgrounds, levels of support from different sources, plans for Bar preparations and summer
finances, and long-term career goals. These were also created by Meera Deo with additions
from the PIs. Where possible, we tried to synchronize items that were presented in the focus
group and the EDP Year 3 Web Survey (described in the next section).
Procedure
Developing the Protocol. From July 2006 to September 2006, we worked on developing
and refining the protocols for the Year 3 Focus Group component. Once these documents
were finalized (or close to finalized) we began the process of applying for Institutional Review
Board (IRB) approval at the 11 focus group law schools. During the period between October
2006 and May 2007, we piloted the Year 3 protocols with a group of third-year UCLA law
students, hired staff to conduct the groups at the different sites around the United States,
conducted all of the focus groups, began data transcriptions for the focus groups, and entered
and checked all data for the pre-discussion survey.
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Approach. For our data collection during this year, we used the same methodology as in
Years 1 and 2. We first secured IRB approval from the 11 schools where we were tracking law
students. We also worked closely with our law school contacts to help handle logistics for our
data collection visit. These logistics included helping us determine appropriate timing, given
student classes and calendars, and securing law school rooms where our research team could
stay for the number of days that it took to complete our focus groups.
The EDP has spent considerable time conducting follow-up focus groups with law student
participants. To hold these meetings we first had to complete a number of initial steps: creating
appropriate protocols, obtaining IRB clearance from all school sites, and contacting and
arranging meeting times with all enrolled subjects. We then met with students at each site.
After these meetings, we transcribed the sessions, reviewed the transcripts, and prepared to
publish some of our most interesting findings. From January to March 2007, we completed our
third and final meeting with participants of the focus group portion of the study.
IRB Approval. EDP staff secured IRB approval at the 11 law school sites we revisited in
winter 2007. Approval at some schools required only permission of the law school dean, while
at others there was a lengthy process involving university administration. UCLA staff (including
Dr. Walter Allen, Meera Deo, and Administrative Assistant Ophella Dano) also secured IRB
approval from UCLA while UNC staff secured approval from the UNC administration.
Recuitment and Data Collection. Once IRB approval was received and the timing was
secured, we recruited focus group participants, met the students at the appropriate times, and
conducted our focus groups. All groups were audiotaped with three to five students per group
(36 total focus groups, 108–180 total students). The student focus groups were configured by
race/ethnicity (Latino, Black, Asian, White) and, if possible, gender.4
We first met with 203 law students at 11 law schools in winter 2005. Meera Deo was
responsible for contacting each of these students again in winter 2005 to schedule meeting
times for additional discussions regarding the law school experience. We again visited the
same 11 law schools in four regions of the country: the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington,
D.C., the New York City region, and the Research Triangle (Raleigh-Durham) in North
Carolina. Students at each school were emailed as a group 2 weeks before our arrival and
were asked to respond with their available times on the day that researchers would be at their
school. Students who did not respond within a few days were contacted again by email. A third
email was sent a few days later listing specific times that groups were meeting and asking if
those students were available at those times. Finally, to maximize the chances of their ongoing
participation, two calls were made to each student who did not respond to our email contact.
This aggressive strategy of retaining participants in the study yielded participation from over
175 of the original 203 participants.
EDP staff conducted all focus groups and interviews at the 11 locations. Staff included two
UCLA researchers who coordinated the teams and facilitated sessions (Dr. Walter Allen and
Meera Deo), two EDP researchers from UNC (Dr. Abigail Panter and Project Manager Jason
4
Focus group tapes were transcribed by a contracted professional transcription firm, and the transcriptions were analyzed using
ATLAS.ti software. We coordinated analyses of focus group transcripts with data analyses of student survey data to provide the fullest and
richest examination possible of key research questions.
9
Derrick), and a total of six local researchers with whom we contracted to help facilitate
sessions in their areas. Whenever possible, focus groups were made racially/ethnically
homogenous and focus group facilitators were matched by race/ethnicity to these groups to
make the participants more comfortable conversing about potentially sensitive racial/ethnic
issues. EDP staff secured lunch, snacks, and drinks for all participants to enjoy during the
sessions. Each participant was also given a $5 Starbucks gift card as a token of appreciation
for his or her ongoing inclusion in this study. In addition, EDP held a raffle for one iPod Shuffle
and 40 $10 iTunes gift cards for each region. All initial focus groups and interviews were
conducted in February and March of 2006, during the second semester of the participants’
second year. In addition, a few follow-up focus groups were conducted in the month or two
following the original visit by local researchers, and approximately 10 students completed their
interviews over the telephone. All sessions were audiotaped using digital or cassette recorders
with participant consent.
Preparation of Focus Data for Analysis. After completing the qualitative data collection
for winter 2007, we began transcription of the recorded interviews. We contracted with an
outside professional consultant to review all audio files and convert them into Microsoft Word
documents to facilitate analysis of the data. Upon receipt of each Word document transcript,
EDP staff reviewed each file by simultaneously listening to the audio file while reading the
Word document and noting any discrepancies between the two using Word’s “track changes”
feature. We completed the process of receiving and reviewing these transcripts at the end of
summer 2007.
After reviewing all of the transcribed focus group sessions (i.e., after cleaning the data),
EDP staff began analyzing the data. Using ATLAS.ti software, we explored themes and
patterns in the data, comparing across and between racial/ethnic groups, gender lines, school
status, and region.
Research Questions
We had a number of research questions. For example, we investigated whether Black
students at historically Black law schools are more or less likely than students at predominantly
White schools to participate in racial- or ethnic-specific student organizations.
We also looked into how women serve as and draw on the resources of mentors, as
compared to their male peers. Our data showed whether students at schools in the South
(e.g., North Carolina) feel differently about diversity at their schools than those in the West
(e.g., San Francisco). We also examined whether there is any difference between how White
students and students of color characterize their interactions with faculty at their particular
schools.
EDP staff at both UCLA and UNC were involved in analyzing data for publication purposes.
We have circulated outlines of paper topics and drafts of these articles for comments and
edits. Many of these papers use ideas mentioned above as starting points for discussions. The
rich data we collected has provided virtually hundreds of possibilities for adding substance to
theoretical debates.
To date, we have prepared drafts of a few publications using EDP focus group data. One of
these articles, titled Struggles & Support: Diversity in U.S. Law Schools, has appeared in the
National Black Law Journal. We also presented multiple papers using EDP data at
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conferences such as the American Education Research Association annual meeting in April
2007, including the focus group paper titled Not Paint by Number: How the Race and Gender
of Law School Professors Affects the First-Year Curriculum. As we discuss in the fifth section
of this report, we hope to publish several other papers using EDP data in the months and
years to come. We also expect that the findings of the focus groups will comprise a large
section in the EDP planned book.
Results
General Findings, Regardless of Race/Ethnicity or Gender
The Year 3 Focus Group data revealed several findings that hold regardless of
race/ethnicity and gender. We found that:
1. Most participants were fairly certain that they would pass the Bar the first time. This
finding could be different by state or school, but the number of focus group schools and
participants do not allow for such an analysis. The next major section of this report
provides data about the national sample of law students on this topic.
2. There was an even distribution of grades across all groups with most participants in the
middle, as is the case with grading distributions in law school.
3. Students reported that they received strong support in law school from family (85%), law
school friends/classmates (70%), and other friends outside of law school (56%).
4. Over 70% of students at least agreed that their law school experience had been positive
and that their law school supports diversity.
5. At least 65% of students agreed that most law professors welcomed students who
challenged their views.
Faculty Mentors. We also found that students’ descriptions of faculty mentors differed
considerably. Even though the surveys indicated that most students received some support
from faculty, most students did not describe particularly close relationships with more than one
faculty member. Many described one person they could go to for letters of recommendation.
Many seemed to say that they don’t have a faculty mentor but would feel comfortable
approaching one or two faculty members if they had questions. Focus group participants
indicated that if students want relationships with faculty, the relationships must be student
initiated.
Law School Attributes. A student’s chosen institution matters at many levels. Selective
private law schools tend to focus on the private sector, with large law firms recruiting on their
campuses; public, racially diverse schools tend to focus more on nonprofit and government
work. By the end of the third year, some students expressed concerns about attending an
institution that challenged their intended career goals. Students who chose to go into the
private sector struggled more to find work if they attended a public interest school. Those who
11
attended the more expensive private schools tended not to be able to afford to stay in the
public sector, despite their initial interest in doing so, because they could not afford the lower
salaries in the public sector while faced with the debt accumulated in law school.
Faculty Diversity—Race/Ethnicity and Gender. Lack of faculty diversity was a significant
issue for students; many said they could count the number of faculty of color on one hand.
Karen, a White woman at a selective, private law school stated:
I don’t think the faculty is that diverse. The one thing we do have here, the only way I
would say it’s diverse, is that we have older women faculty which I think is pretty
unusual for a law school. [Our law school] started bringing on women faculty members
sooner from what I understand than other places. So that’s nice to have women in all
stages in their careers. Racially I think there’s one Black full-time academic faculty.
Actually that’s not true, I guess there’s three. Then there’s a few Black clinical and
lawyering faculty. One Asian American full-time faculty. I’m not sure about Latino, but
the numbers are really, really small. You can sort of tick them off on your fingers as far
as race. I think that’s a problem and also think that this school in its hiring patterns
they’ve brought on a few diverse people in recent years, I’m sure that the pool is not
that diverse that they’re hiring from, but it’s hard to tell how much they actually make it a
priority as compared to things like who’s going to be, I honestly think they’re looking for
faculty who’s going to be on the Supreme Court someday or something, and they’re
looking for young people and I feel like they could be a tiny bit less focused on getting
the absolute best academic superstar standouts and have a more diverse faculty that
was so amazing. They could also focus more on teaching, and that might also help. I
don’t think the faculty is that diverse.
Race/Ethnicity Differences
In this section we highlight some of the key findings related to race/ethnicity from the Year
3 Focus Group survey and discussions. In our data:
1. Black students were slightly more likely to report law school grade point averages
(GPAs) below 2.4.
2. As expected, students of color who participated were more likely to report that they
participated in racial/ethnic-specific law student groups: 80% of Blacks, 75% of APIs,
and 87% of Latinos participated compared to 78% of Whites who did not. What may be
interesting here is that 22% of White students did participate in racial/ethnic-specific
groups for underrepresented minorities. When asked about involvement in other law
school groups or school-sponsored programs, 75% of Blacks, 75% of APIs, 80% of
Latinos, and 90% of Whites reported that they participated.
3. Students indicated the level of interaction they had with different racial/ethnic groups.
Everyone reported a high level of interaction with White students; 90% of Black students
reported a high level of interaction with other Blacks (potentially an overestimate due to
the high number of historically Black colleges and universities [HBCUs] in the sample);
12
only 60% of Asians reported a high level of interaction with members of their own group;
and just 25% of Latino students reported a high level of interaction with members of
their own group. These numbers are interesting given that in interviews many students
(especially White students) reported that students of color self-segregate all the time.
Also, White students reported having a great deal of interaction with APIs (50%), which
is a higher percentage than they reported with any other group besides Whites. Very
few White students reported no interaction with API students, Latino students, and/or
Black students.
4. Seventy-five percent of Latinos reported receiving strong support from classmates
compared to 65% of Blacks, 80% of APIs, and 68% of Whites. This finding may connect
to the higher rates of Latinos and APIs participating in racial/ethnic-specific student
organizations, as reported above. Only three students in our sample (all Whites)
reported receiving no support from classmates.
5. Nearly all focus group participants received at least some support from law school
faculty, with slightly higher percentages of White (96%), Latino (94%), and Black (92%)
students harnessing support than APIs (85%). Over one quarter of Black students
(33%) reported having received strong support. Thirty percent of APIs and 28% of
Whites reported having received no support from other mentors. Again, Blacks (85%)
and Latinos (88%) reported greater support from this source.
6. Black students reported that they received the greatest support from religion: 45%
reported some support, and 41% reported strong support. In contrast, 81% of White
students, 60% of APIs, and 50% of Latinos reported no support from religion.
7. White students spent less time mentoring first-year students than did students of color.
Forty percent of White students spent no time at all and another 14% spent less than 1
hour/month compared to 25% of Black students who spent none and 20% who spent 1
hour/month mentoring first-year students. Twenty percent of Black students and 13% of
Latinos spent more than 10 hours/month mentoring first-year students (the highest
percentages of all racial/ethnic groups).
Gender Differences
Many of the differences associated with gender were very slight, with only about a 10%
variation. Many factors were more important to women than to men:
1. Women reported higher GPAs than did men.
2. There was no gender variation with regard to interaction with students from different
racial/ethnic backgrounds.
3. Female focus group participants felt more strongly about issues of justice and equality
compared to their male counterparts.
13
4. Ten percent more women reported receiving strong support from law school faculty
(24% women versus 14% men). Twenty-six percent of women compared to 10% of men
reported receiving strong support from other mentors.
5. A far greater number of women compared to men reported receiving at least some
support from religion (53% women versus 27% men).
6. Slightly more men strongly agreed that classmates were open minded and respected
different opinions (25% men versus 16% women)
7. Ideal Working Conditions. A greater number of women compared to men reported
feeling that a number of attributes were very important in a law-related job:
•
Working for something you believe in (89% women versus 66% men)
•
Working in a supportive environment (94% women versus 73% men)
•
Clear job role expectations (76% women versus 52% men)
•
Having supportive supervision (69% women versus 40% men)
•
Having a challenging workload (62% women versus 44% men)
•
Having one or more helpful mentors (69% women versus 40% men)
•
Having the opportunity to make decisions about how work should be done (74%
women versus 55% men)
•
Having job security (75% women versus 67% men)
•
Having the potential to work for justice for all (64% women versus 48% men)
•
Being a spokesperson for the powerless (women 52% versus 35% men)
•
In contrast, it was much less important to men to work with a team of people:
29% of men reported that it was either slightly or not at all important compared to
9% of women.
8. Despite women’s valuing mentoring more in law school compared to men, this belief did
not translate in terms of the amount of mentoring they did for first-year law students. Of
those who reported doing no mentoring at all, 27% were men and 26% were women.
14
Implications of Findings for the Study of Educational Diversity
Diversity emerges and is emphasized as a critical and sometimes problematic issue. In
various ways and contexts, students acknowledged the importance and challenges of diversity.
They recognized (and welcomed) the fact that the increasingly diverse worlds they will
experience—in law school, at work, in their community life—require competence and
sensitivity. However, concern was expressed over the need to improve how law schools, legal
education, and the profession incorporate and respond to racial, cultural, economic, and other
forms of diversity. Students expressed desire for a more diverse student body and faculty.
Students also desired fuller, more nuanced consideration of law in the larger societal context
that ultimately shapes—and is shaped by—law. They anticipated that positive effects on the
teaching, learning, and practice of law will flow from added diversity of voices and
perspectives.
The EDP Year 3 Web Survey
Background
The EDP baseline survey findings provided a descriptive snapshot at the start of law school
of how the attributes, expectations, and life experiences of law students vary as a function of
race. With these findings we found that observed differences in specific areas (e.g.,
international focus, past discrimination experience, choice of mentor, views about government
priorities, expectations about professional barriers in the future) were associated with
race/ethnicity, gender, and other personal characteristics, as well as with student educational
choices, behavior patterns, interpersonal experiences, and future expectations as students
navigate through their educational experience. However, our data and findings have two
limitations that were addressed in the pre-graduation Web survey.
First, the survey data captured students’ responses at a single transition time point: at the
entry point into law school. Thus, we were only able to describe the connection between race
and educational diversity in students who were selected to attend a law school and who
selected to matriculate at a specific law school to which they were admitted.5 Second, our
cross-sectional survey data did not allow us to describe the unfolding of student learning,
interpersonal and professional relationships with peers and faculty, and students’ expectations
about future performance in the legal profession after graduation as a function of race (or other
personal factors). We wanted to identify aspects of the law school experience that may be
affected by the diversity due to race that we observed at baseline. We strongly believed that
these experiential variables include and extend beyond the instrumental function of training
students for the acquisition of legal knowledge and analytical skills for a career in the legal
profession. Using only our cross-sectional data at the transition to law school, we could not
draw conclusions about the specific domains of law school (e.g., academic, interpersonal,
classroom, professional) where the context provided by race may or may not frame students’
experiences during their law school years.
5
This limitation is, in part, being addressed by two sources of longitudinal data that we currently have: FYAs in law school and Year 2
focus group data collection.ȱ
15
We expanded the existing cross-sectional baseline EDP survey by following up the
baseline respondents during their final year of law school (spring 2007) using a Web survey
focused on law school educational experiences, peer relations, and current aspirations. We
were interested in describing and analyzing the ways in which the diversity effects associated
with race observed at the start of law school may unfold during law school, as students
perform academically, negotiate peer relations, interact with faculty, conduct classroom
discussions (involving and not involving race), and study legal cases involving race.
The EDP Year 3 Web Survey was designed to provide a longitudinal perspective about the
variability due to race/ethnicity that we observed from our baseline EDP survey across our six
major domains of diversity that we evaluated (see Table 2). We surveyed the baseline EDP
respondents via a Web survey (or, if preferred by the respondent, in written survey form)
during the spring of Year 3 of law school. We selected the follow-up assessment timing (Year
3, prior to graduation) to maximize the likelihood of observing change attributable to the law
school experience and to capture respondent perspectives within the identical context (law
school) as the baseline EDP survey.
Method
Sampling and Participants
At the EDP baseline assessment in fall 2004, respondents were asked whether they would
be willing to be recontacted by the EDP research team at a later point during law school:
64.4% of the respondents in the EDP “core” sample (n = 3,928) and 67.8% of the respondents
in the “convenience” sample (n = 1,330) agreed to allow the EDP research team to contact
them again.
Of the 5,258 respondents (combined over samples), 90.1% (n = 4,738) had working email
addresses. We were aware that some email addresses were not valid at the start of the study;
for others, we learned this information as we received information during the study.
We had confirmed status from 61.3% of the baseline students who agreed to be
recontacted by our research team and who had a working email address (N = 2,906). Of these
individuals, 78.3% completed our Web survey (n = 2,274) and 21.7% were confirmed to be no
longer enrolled in that law school (n = 631). The law school registrars at the 64 law schools in
the EDP sample provided information about student enrollment status at the time of the study.
We confirmed enrollment at graduation for 100% of the students whom we intended to
recontact from the baseline EDP assessment at 64 schools.6 Students who wrote to the
research team and stated that they were no longer enrolled in law school were also considered
in this group (Figure 1).
Study participants were 57.1% women and had an average age of 25.87 years (SD = 5.48
years). The sample was 72.1% White, 8.2% Multiracial, 7.3% Black, 7.1% API, and 4.9%
6
We believe that our relative success in obtaining a study inclusion rate of 61.3% for a Web survey was due to desirable conditions
that we established over the course of the EDP funding period. We started with (a) EDP respondents who already consented to be
recontacted during law school about future studies (a pre-selected group); (b) email addresses that were in most cases confirmed by our law
school contacts; (c) excellent records on respondent contact information; (d) incentives for participation; (e) 100% participation from law
school registrars to identify student enrollment status; and (f) options for taking a mail survey or calling our EDP staff for a telephone
interview if a respondent desired (e.g., multimode approach; cf. Dillman, 2002).
16
Latino.7 More than half of the sample was never married (54.2%), and the rest were married or
cohabiting (41.3%), divorced (3.3%), or separated or widowed (1.1% and 0.1%, respectively).
About 15.5% of the sample indicated that they had children.
Instrument
Instrument development proceeded in much the same way as in the EDP baseline survey
instrument. We conducted a comprehensive review of academic, classroom, and interpersonal
behaviors that may occur during law school. Our focus group transcripts were examined for
this purpose.8 The survey was designed in Qualtrics (http://www.qualtrics.com), a commercial
Web survey software program with several desirable features including the ability to stop and
restart the survey where a participant leaves off, error checking, storage on a secure server,
and data portability. The company’s security level was verified before Web survey was
deployed.
Our Web survey design followed best practices described by Dillman (2002), including the
use of introductory letters, invitations to participate, and follow-ups; presentation of an
introductory screen; distribution of an incentive; display of completion progress; and clear
visual item formatting and response formats on each screen.
A summary of content domains that we assessed in the EDP Year 3 Web Survey is given
in Table 3, and a written version of the entire survey is provided in Appendix B. The EDP Year
3 Web Survey is available online at http://www.unc.edu/edp/3yrlink/3yrlink.htm.
7
Our definition of Multiracial includes respondents who marked two or more major racial/ethnic categories (Black, Asian/Pacific
Islander, Latino, or White). In other analyses we show that Multiracial White respondents and Multiracial of Color respondents have
differential responding, but because of the number of Multiracial respondents in the sample at Year 3 we combine the two designations into
one group here. We capitalize all racial/ethnic groups throughout this report as recommended by the American Psychological Association
Publication Manual (6th Edition, July 2009).ȱ
8
Wherever possible and feasible, we drew items from existing national surveys of higher education, including our own, to facilitate
future comparisons; in other cases, we generated our own items. In addition, we tried to draw from known, standardized item sets in cases
when we had options to use them (e.g., the National Survey of American Lives, the National Latino and Asian American Study, and the
National Comorbidity Survey Replication, now archived at www.icpsr.umich.edu/CPES).ȱ
17
FIGURE 1. Educational Diversity Project Year 3 Web Survey response rates
18
TABLE 3
Diversity domains assessed in the Educational Diversity Project Year 3 Web Survey of graduating law
students
1. Law School Employment, Activities, and Views
Work Experience
Law School Activities
Views about Law School
• Summer jobs
• Activities participated in
• Satisfaction with choice of
during law school
law school
• Jobs during academic
year
• Expected class rank in law
• Level of involvement
school
(member, leader)
• Hours worked per
week
• Number hours per week
• Comparison with
participation in chosen
classmates re: hours of
• Job satisfaction
activities
work required to keep up
with law school demands
• Details of moot court
participation
• Law school quality ratings
• Participation in race-based
• Law school descriptors
organizations
(semantic differentials)
• Participation in religious• Sense of belonging
based organizations
• Feelings and behaviors in
law school
• Experienced mental health
issues
• Experienced
discrimination
• Presence of a mentor,
gender, race, reasons for
choosing
2. Experienced Diversity in Law School
• Attitudes about
• Discussion by professors
• Interaction with
race/ethnicity in law school
about implications of race in
students of various
legal cases
races/ethnicities
• Ethnic identification,
common fate
• Proportion of students of
• Engaged in activities
same racial background
related to
• Specific discrimination
race/ethnicity and/or
experiences
• Comfort level with gender
social justice
and racial balance in law
school
3. Diversity of Perspective
Government Policies and
Social Attitudes: Rights and Values
Discrimination Against Societal
Attitudes
Groups
• Zero-sum immigration
• Federal and domestic
• Racial minorities
• Entitlements for all citizens
spending
• Low socioeconomic status
• Abortion
• Homeland security
• Women
• Gay and lesbian rights
• Military aid
• Gays/lesbians
• Glass ceiling
• Show military force
• Disabilities
• Fairness of college
• Immigration
admissions process
• Immigrants
• Monitoring the
• Older adults
citizenry
• Whites
• Religious groups
Social Attitudes: Race
• Symbolic racism
• Race relations
• Miscegenation
• Affirmative action
• Reasons for attitudes
on affirmative action
19
TABLE 3
Diversity domains assessed in the Educational Diversity Project Year 3 Web Survey of graduating law
students (continued)
4. Self-Ratings
General Health
Mental Health/Substance Abuse
Personality
• Physical health
• Life satisfaction
• Five-Factor Model of
Personality (e.g.,
• Mental health
• Depression Short Form
extraversion,
• Health comparison with
• Alcohol use in past year
agreeableness,
others
(type, frequency, quantity)
conscientiousness,
emotional stability,
openness to
experience)
• Openness to
Experience Scale
5. Diversity of Future Plans and Knowledge
Employment Plans/Bar Exam
Knowledge of Court Cases
Final Miscellaneous Items
• Grutter v. Bollinger
• Career choice
• Political affiliation
(affirmative action)
satisfaction
• Marital status
• Williams v. Walker-Thomas
• Intention to practice
• Educational debt
Furniture Co. (enforceability
law
• Ability to pay bills
of claimed unfair contracts)
• Desired type of law
• Have relative who is a
• People v. Goetz (selfpractice (in 5 years)
lawyer
defense criminal case)
• Desired work setting
• 2000 census race/ethnicity
• Batson v. Kentucky (jury
(in 5 years)
assessment
selection and race)
• Employment after law
• Number of children
school
• Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (enemy
combatant due process)
• Type of job accepted
• Korematsu v. U.S.
or looking for
(Japanese exclusion power)
• Bar exam intentions
(yes or no, where,
• Relevance of cases to race
when)
• Bar prep course
• Likelihood to pass the
Bar the first time
Procedure
IRB Approval. The EDP Year 3 Web Survey deployment process began in late 2006,
when we began requesting IRB review from each of the 64 law schools in the study. Some
schools required a full board review while others accepted our local UNC IRB approval as a
condition to proceed with survey administration. The IRB process for schools requiring formal
board approval generally entailed completing and submitting a protocol modification
application to the school’s IRB for review.9 Once all IRB approvals were obtained and the
email lists were ready, we began the survey deployment process in mid-February 2007.
9
Most schools reviewed the application and approved the modification request without question. A few schools had follow-up
questions, mostly pertaining to respondent confidentiality, and requested that additional information be included on the Web consent form.
20
Pilot Testing. We piloted the EDP Year 3 Web Survey by identifying a subset of secondand third-year law students (non-EDP participants) who were willing to complete the survey
and provide comments to the EDP research team. At that point we also piloted our introductory
letters and follow-up recruitment information. We were especially motivated to provide a short
and easy-to-complete survey that addressed as many major domains regarding law school
experiences and current sociopolitical attitudes as was feasible, according to our judgment and
pilot results. We also asked a group of eight graduate/professional students to help with our
pilot work of the survey.
Recruitment. We first sent an introductory letter to all respondents announcing that our
research team was requesting their participation in the pre-graduation Web survey and that an
invitation to participate would arrive in a few days. This note was followed up approximately 3
days later by the invitation to participate. Approximately each week following the initial email, a
follow-up invitation email was sent to all respondents who had yet to complete the survey. This
process continued for a total of nine follow-up email messages. Copies of these recruitment
materials for encouraging survey participation are available upon request.
A $10 incentive for survey completion was offered. Students could request cash, a
Starbucks gift card, or a donation to their favorite charity. In addition, we offered a raffle for all
study participants who indicated that they were interested in participating for a $200 Amazon
gift certificate.
All queries about the survey, the incentive, or technical issues concerning access to the
survey were answered by Dr. Panter or the project manager in a timely fashion. Formal data
collection concluded in October 2007. Through spring 2008, law school registrars provided
information about whether or not students were enrolled.
Results
Data Processing
We began by conducting activities such as checking for duplicate cases, coding cases for
“nonstandard” cases (graduating off-cycle), and ensuring that all changes that respondents
noted about their responses are made. We also conducted numerous psychometric analyses
on different survey item sets. We then linked these Year 3 data to the LSAC registration data,
the baseline EDP data, and the FYAs.
Summary of Findings Related to Race/Ethnicity and Gender
Appendix C presents a complete set of descriptive tables for Year 3 online survey items as
a function of race/ethnicity and gender. All descriptive statistics that are given in the Appendix
C tables and the figures shown in this section statistically take into account, using analytic
approaches, that respondents were enrolled in different law schools.
21
Because of the very large number of variables, in the following sections we present a
sampling of findings across six major categories (see Appendix C):
A. Attitudes
B. Views about the Law School Environment
C. Personal Growth, Burden, and Resources
D. Race-Related Experiences and Behaviors in Law School
E. Race- and Diversity-Related Attitudes about Law School
F. Professional Plans and Meta-Judgments about Law School
Data Displays
In this section we use figures to summarize findings by race/ethnicity and gender groups.
Each figure shows a profile of student response to items within a certain domain. For each
item shown in the figure, areas of both variance and lack of variance can be seen in law
students’ belief systems and experiences as reported at graduation.
The x-axis of each figure shows the different survey items that were asked. The y-axis
shows what percentage of respondents endorsed that item. The left side shows the findings for
men, and the right side shows the findings for women.
To read the figure, the following symbols are consistently used: B = Black, A =
Asian/Pacific Islander, L = Latino, M = Multiracial, W = White. The symbol for the White
students is shown in a purple box, and the profile of responses across different items by White
students is shown using a black line connecting across items.
The black line has a specific interpretation. A law school class with only White students
might be expected to fall along the line and show the profile of responses shown in each
figure. In all cases, we show what the expected attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and
perspectives would be if students of traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups were
not included in a law school class. We encourage the reader to consult the tables in Appendix
C for additional information about each item, its original wording, and its response format.
Part A: Attitudes
Sociopolitical attitudes. We assessed sociopolitical attitudes in a number of areas for
graduating students. We assessed respondent viewpoints on:
1. Affirmative Action
2. Discrimination in the Legal Profession
3. Individualism
22
4. The Role of Government
5. Blacks and Society
6. Rights of Gays and Lesbians
The means and standard errors for the complete set of items from the battery are given in
Appendix C. All attitudes were presented in random order for each respondent. Figure 2
highlights differences observed regarding affirmative action attitudes among those who
“Strongly agree” and “Agree” with the affirmative action items across race/ethnicity and gender.
Specifically the affirmative action items were:
1. The law should allow consideration of race in university admissions decisions.
2. Affirmative action admits too many students who have a low chance of academic
success.
3. Affirmative action is harmful to members of my ethnic group.
4. Affirmative action stigmatizes the people it’s supposed to help.
The findings show that:
1. There was wide variance in agreement levels across racial/ethnic groups for all of these
items. The variance in beliefs was especially apparent for the items “The law should
allow consideration of race in university admissions decisions” and “Affirmative action is
harmful to members of my ethnic group.”
2. Consistently, White students were least supportive of affirmative action, while students
of color endorsed affirmative action.
3. Black and Latino students tended to be the most supportive of affirmative action.
4. Women were more supportive of affirmative action than were men.
5. When asked directly about whether race should be used in admissions decisions, for
men there was more differentiation in agreement levels by race/ethnicity than for
women.
23
FIGURE 2. Affirmative action attitudes. Percentage who “Strongly Agree” or “Agree” (by race and gender).
B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only
White students might be expected to fall along the line.
Perceived discrimination against societal groups. We also asked students to indicate
their views on the following item: “How much discrimination do you think there is against these
different groups in society today?” They were provided an alphabetical list of different societal
groups that can be grouped into the following categories: underrepresented racial/ethnic
minorities (Blacks, Latinos, American Indians/Native Americans, Asians, gays/lesbians, low
socioeconomic status groups (people who are poor, immigrants), people with disabilities, older
adults, and religious groups (Muslims, fundamentalist Christians, Jews). Respondents
indicated the level of discrimination they believed each group experienced: “None at All,” “Only
a Little,” “Some,” and “A Great Deal.” They were also able to indicate that they did not know.
Of all the respondents who expressed an opinion, Figures 3–5 show the percentage of law
students who indicated that each group experienced “A Great Deal” of discrimination.
A few trends can be noted from the figures:
1. For nearly all of the assessed society groups for this item set, White law students were
least likely to report that the groups experienced “A Great Deal” of discrimination in
today’s society. These differences are especially apparent in Figure 3, which displays
different racial/ethnic groups and groups that experience economic hardships (people
who are poor, immigrants).
2. Women were more likely to report that each of these groups experiences “A Great Deal”
of discrimination in today’s society. Male and female law students differed in their
24
estimation of the amount of discrimination that women experience, with female law
students, especially those who are women of color, perceiving more discrimination.
3. There was wide variance in how men perceived Blacks, Latinos, and American
Indians/Native Americans and how women perceived Blacks, Latinos, and Asians.
4. Whites, fundamentalist Christians, and Jews were rarely perceived as experiencing “A
Great Deal” of discrimination in today’s society.
FIGURE 3. Minority groups: Perceived discrimination experienced in society today. Percentage “A Great Deal” (by
race and gender). B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class
with only White students might be expected to fall along the line.
25
FIGURE 4. Social groups: Perceived discrimination experienced in society today. Percentage “A Great Deal” (by
race and gender). B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class
with only White students might be expected to fall along the line.
FIGURE 5. Religious groups: Perceived discrimination experienced in society today. Percentage “A Great Deal”
(by race and gender). B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school
class with only White students might be expected to fall along the line.
26
Part B: Views About the Law School Environment
We asked a series of questions related to law students’ views of their specific law school.
Appendix C, Part B, presents a complete set of descriptive tables for all of the questions
related to specific qualities of the law school experience. All of the presented findings account
for the clustering of students within law schools. Students were asked about their:
•
Perceptions of law school attributes (e.g., competitive: cooperative, hierarchical: lateral)
•
Satisfaction with specific law school features (e.g., grading, support services)
•
Academic experiences (e.g., participating in study groups, conducting independent
research, having a mentor, discussing politics)
•
Perceptions of common legal cases
In the next section we report findings related to two of the above areas: satisfaction with
out-of-classroom experiences and the evaluation of legal cases that are common to all law
students.
Satisfaction with out-of-classroom law school experiences. Law students have rich
experiences during law school that include both academic/course-related experiences and outof-classroom experiences. Both are integral to the educational setting and are an important
part of the legal training of future law professionals. To assess the aspects of the law school
environment that exist outside the classroom, students were asked to indicate the quality (from
“Poor” to “Excellent”) of the following characteristics:
•
The friendships you developed
•
Extracurricular options (i.e., student groups)
•
Invited lectures at the law school
•
Respect for the expression of diverse beliefs
•
Out-of-class interactions with professors
•
Opportunities for respectful exchange of political views
•
Available assistance for academic support
•
Available assistance for job searches
Figure 6 (Appendix C, Table C-B2) shows the percentage of law students by race/ethnicity
and gender who indicated that each law school quality was “Excellent” or “Good.” The figure
shows the following general patterns:
27
1. Asian men rated these out-of-classroom qualities of their law school less positively than
their peers.
2. Women rated all dimensions more positively than men.
3. For men there was relatively little variability in satisfaction ratings for the development of
friendships. Most students were very satisfied with their friendships in law school.
4. Women across race/ethnicity tended to have similar ratings of their friendships, invited
lectures, and the availability of job search assistance.
5. Black men, relative to the other students in the sample, had relatively high ratings for
the different extracurricular options, academic support services, and assistance with job
searches.
6. Latina students had lower satisfaction ratings for the expression of diverse beliefs at
their law school and opportunities for respectful exchange of political views, compared
to the other students in the sample.
FIGURE 6. Satisfaction ratings of outside-the-classroom law school qualities. Percentage “Excellent” or
“Good” (by race and gender). B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W =
White. A law school class with only White students might be expected to fall along the line.
Evaluation of legal cases. Respondents were asked to evaluate to what extent six legal
cases were relevant to race. They responded on a five-point scale ranging from “not at all
relevant to race” to “extremely relevant to race.” The following are cases that were generally
discussed during law school:
28
•
People v. Goetz (a man charged with shooting youth who approached him for money on
a New York subway)
•
Grutter v. Bollinger (a case involving law school diversity)
•
Batson v. Kentucky (a case involving peremptory strikes and the right to serve on juries)
•
Korematsu v. U.S. (a case involving wartime powers)
•
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (a case about the right of the United States to detain citizens during
wartime)
•
Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co. (unconscionability in a contracts case is
grounds to invalidate the contract)
Students had the option of indicating that they did not recall the case or did not analyze the
case during law school. However, only a very small percentage of students did not recall
analyzing these cases in law school. Figure 7 (Table C-B4 of Appendix C) shows the
percentage of students who on the basis of their knowledge of the cases, felt that the cases
were either “extremely” or “very” relevant to race. The data are presented by race/ethnicity and
gender, accounting for law school clustering.
Examination of this figure shows several main points:
1. Some cases, such as Grutter v. Bollinger, Batson v. Kentucky, and Korematsu v. U.S.,
showed a high percentage of students who perceived that these cases were “extremely”
or “very” relevant to race. These cases have high agreement, and all of the racial/ethnic
groups were generally clustered around each other. Other cases, such as Hamdi v.
Rumsfeld and Williams v. Walter-Thomas Furniture Co., were more ambiguous or
variable in students’ perceptions of their race relevance. For these cases, there was
substantial variance (spread across groups) in how relevant to race students perceived
these cases to be.
2. In some cases a lower percentage of Asian students reported that the cases were
relevant to race compared to other students (People v. Goetz, Batson v. Kentucky,
Williams v. Walker Thomas Furniture Co.).
3. In most cases Black students and Latino students perceived the cases to be more
relevant to race than did White students.
4. Across the cases, men and women ordered the cases similarly in terms of race
relevance, but a higher percentage of women saw the cases as race relevant.
5. If law school classes only included White students, the full range of voices and
perspectives about the nature of common legal cases would not be present.
29
FIGURE 7. Model legal cases: Percentage “Extremely” or “Very” relevant to race (by race and gender). B =
Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only White
students might be expected to fall along the line.
Part C: Personal Growth and Burden
Law school presents both personal and professional growth experiences as well as
challenges. In this section we examine a sampling of survey sections related to personal
growth, burden, and resources. We explore the concept of law school–person fit, students’
mental health status, and alcohol use. Appendix C, Part C, presents the complete set of
descriptive tables for variables. As with all of the findings presented in this section, descriptive
statistics are shown, but it is taken into account that respondents were enrolled in different law
schools.
Growth and struggles in law school. To understand how respondents felt during law
school—their successes and their struggles—we asked a series of questions probing whether
or not respondents experienced positive growth during law school, enjoyed “thinking like a
lawyer,” and found their “niche” in law. We also asked law students about their struggles:
academic struggles, the pull to leave law school, and regrets about making the decision to
attend law school. The percentage of students who indicated that they experienced each of
these items (by race/ethnicity and gender) is given in Figure 8 (also Table C-C1 in Appendix
C).
30
A subset of questions tapping this area is given below and is also included in the figure:
•
Enjoy learning how to “think like a lawyer”?
•
Seriously regret your decision to attend law school?
•
Experience positive personal growth?
•
Consider leaving law school?
•
Find your “niche” in law?
•
Struggle academically?
The findings showed that:
1. Most students, regardless of race/ethnicity and gender, reported that they experienced
positive personal growth during law school. Students differed in how much they enjoyed
“thinking like a lawyer,” but most students indicated that they generally enjoyed this
aspect of law school. Racial/ethnic groups differed in how much they reported “thinking
like a lawyer.”
2. A more targeted item about whether students found their “niche” in law was endorsed
by over half of the sample, with some race/ethnicity and gender variance.
3. In terms of difficulties in working toward the law degree, about one quarter of the
sample indicated that they struggled academically, and about one fifth of the sample
indicated that they seriously regretted their decision to pursue a law degree and
considered leaving law school. In these cases, White students (especially White
women) consistently had lower endorsements of these items regarding struggles in law
school.
4. Growth experiences in law school are experienced by all students, yet graduating law
students reported periods of uncertainty and doubt that occurred during law school.
While male and female students of color indicated that they experienced academic
struggles during law school, only the women of color indicated that they seriously
considered leaving law school.
31
FIGURE 8. Law school–person fit: Areas of growth and struggles in law school. Percentage “Yes” (by
race and gender). B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law
school class with only White students might be expected to fall along the line.
Mental health experiences in law school. To assess law students’ emotional state during
law school, we asked a series of questions to assess whether or not they had involvement with
mental health professionals during law school and whether or not they experienced clinical
depression, periods where they did not enjoy life or care about anything, social anxiety, panic
attacks, or mania. Several items were drawn from the Collaborative Psychiatric
Epidemiological Surveys (www.icpsr.umich.edu/CPES/index.html) so that we could use a
standardized item set for later comparisons with national samples.
Respondents were asked: During law school, did you…?
•
See a mental health counselor
•
Have clinical depression
•
Have at least 6 months when you felt very tense, nervous, or worried most of the time
•
Have a strong fear or avoidance of any social situation because you were afraid of
being embarrassed by what you might say or do around other people
•
Have a panic attack when all of a sudden you felt frightened, overwhelmed, or nervous,
almost as if you were in great danger but really weren’t
32
•
Have at least 1 week when you felt so extremely excited, elated, or hyper that other
people were concerned about you
•
Have at least 2 weeks when you didn’t care about the things you usually care about and
you didn’t enjoy the things you usually enjoyed
Figure 9 (Table C-C2 in Appendix C) summarizes the endorsement rates of these mental
health experiences. We found that:
1. Women reported more symptoms and experiences than did men.
2. About half of the sample of law students said yes when asked, “During law school, did
you have at least 6 months when you felt very tense, nervous, or worried most of the
time?” A slightly lower percentage said yes when asked, “During law school, did you
have at least 2 weeks when you didn’t care about the things you usually care about and
you didn’t enjoy the things you usually enjoyed?”
3. Multiracial students, Black students, and Asian males had lower endorsement rates for
seeing a mental health counselor and reporting clinical depression, consistent with
existing research (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001).
FIGURE 9. Mental health experiences in law school. Percentage “Yes” (by race and gender). B = Black; A =
Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only White students
might be expected to fall along the line.
33
Alchohol use in law school. We examined law students’ reported alcohol use during law
school as a way to determine the role of alcohol as a function of race/ethnicity and gender. We
asked a series of questions to assess whether or not they drank alcohol frequently and
whether or not they drank significant amounts of alcohol at each sitting. We asked: In the past
year, did you…?
•
Drink wine/beer and hard liquor (e.g., vodka, gin, whiskey)
•
Usually have four or more drinks of wine or beer at one sitting
•
Drink wine or beer more than three times a week
•
Usually have four or more drinks of hard liquor (e.g., gin, vodka, whiskey) at one sitting
•
Drink hard liquor (e.g., gin, vodka, whiskey) more than three times a week
Figure 10 (Appendix C, Table C-C3), which presents students’ responses to these alcoholrelated items, can be summarized as follows:
1. A high proportion of law students reported drinking alcohol, defined in this item as
drinking beer or wine and hard liquor in the past year. White students had the highest
drinking rates for men and women.
2. Men were more likely to report higher frequency rates and higher rates of drinking four
or more drinks at one sitting (i.e., binge drinking). The ability to drink multiple drinks at
one time can be partially accounted for by differences in alcohol tolerance due to body
weight.
3. White and Latino men reported the highest binge drinking rates (more than four drinks
at one sitting) of all the men in the sample. Asian students and Black students reported
the lowest drinking rates for frequency of drinking and amount consumed at one sitting.
34
FIGURE 10. Alcohol use in law school. Percentage “Yes” (by race and gender). B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific
Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only White students might be
expected to fall along the line.
Part D: Race-Related Experiences and Behaviors during Law School
Tables C-C1 through C-D4 in Appendix C are descriptive tables for survey items that
concern social and academic intergroup interactions, race-related academic experiences,
intergroup contact, and “educational everyday discrimination” (i.e., “microaggressions” that
occur by students and professors). In this section we focus on social and academic
interactions (Figures 11–12) and educational everyday discrimination (Figures 13–14). All
reported statistics take into account that respondents were enrolled in different law schools.
Social and academic intergroup interactions. We asked students to indicate whether
they had experienced a number of different opportunities for (a) intergroup interaction during
law school; and (b) academic experiences involving race. They were asked: During law school,
did you…?
•
Study regularly with someone of a different racial/ethnic background than you
•
Have a mentor of a different racial/ethnic background than you
•
Have one or more roommates who were a different racial/ethnic background than you
35
•
Work for social justice via a law school organization
•
Engage in serious discussions about race with law students of your same race
•
Engage in serious discussions about race with law students of a different racial
background than you
•
Broaden or expand some of your views about racial issues as a result of your
experiences in law school
•
Attend an invited presentation or lecture by legal scholars in which race was the central
topic
•
Take an elective that dealt with social justice and/or disenfranchised individuals in our
society?
•
Apply for a full-time job that was focused on serving a particular community or social
group (e.g., gender, religious, racial/ethnic group, national origin)
•
Present legal arguments of cases involving ethnicity or race (in oral or written form)
The percentage of students who indicated that they experienced each of these items (by
race/ethnicity and gender showed that:
1. White students are much less likely than all other students to have social and academic
intergroup contact whether it involves study groups, having a mentor, living situations,
and work for social justice. In a traditionally White law school, White students might
have less opportunity to work with a diverse population of students. However, for
students of color these experiences are the norm. There is substantial variance as a
function of race/ethnicity.
2. Women are more likely than men to work for social justice in a law school organization
and to have a mentor of a different racial/ethnic background.
3. For all of these race-related academic variables, there is wide variability as a function of
race/ethnicity. Among the men, Asian students often were least likely to report having a
race-related experience; among women, White students were less likely to report
having a race-related experience compared to women of color.
4. There was variability by race in discussions about race with others of the same race and
in the likelihood of attending special lectures on race. Asian students were least likely to
have reported discussing racial issues with others of the same race; Black students
were the most likely to do so.
36
FIGURE 11. Social and academic intergroup interactions. Percentage “Yes” (by race and gender). B =
Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only
White students might be expected to fall along the line.
FIGURE 12. Race-related academic experiences in law school. Percentage “Yes” (by race and gender).
B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only
White students might be expected to fall along the line.
37
Educational everyday discrimination. We modified and expanded an existing scale that
was administered at baseline to capture educational everyday discrimination experiences that
may have occurred during the context of students’ law school tenure (for information on the
baseline administration, see Panter, Daye, Allen, Wightman, & Deo, 2008). Respondents rated
on a four-point scale with the following response points: “Never,” “A Couple of Times” (1–2
times), “Sometimes” (3–5 times), and “Many Times” (5+ times). Students responded to the
following potential areas of educational everyday discrimination:
•
Students treat you with less courtesy than they do other students.
•
Students treat you with less respect than they do other students.
•
You receive poorer service than other students at libraries, student stores, or cafeterias.
•
Students act as if they think you are not smart.
•
Students act as if they are afraid of you.
•
Students act as if they think you are dishonest.
•
Students act as if they’re better than you are.
•
You are called names or insulted.
•
You are threatened or harassed.
•
You are followed around in stores.
•
Students act uncomfortable around you.
•
Your professors treat you with less respect than they do other students.
•
Your professors act as if they think you are not smart.
•
Your professors act as if they are afraid of you.
38
Figures 13–14 present these individual items, although in future analyses, these items will
be scored as composites of similar items (subscales) as in the EDP baseline assessment.
FIGURE 13. Part 1. Educational everyday discrimination. Percentage “Yes” (by race and gender). B =
Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only White
students might be expected to fall along the line.
FIGURE 14. Part 2. Educational everyday discrimination. Percentage “Yes” (by race and gender). B =
Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only White
students might be expected to fall along the line.
39
The percentage of students who indicated that the action occurred is shown (by
race/ethnicity and gender). The findings showed that:
1. For nearly all educational everyday discrimination items, White students (Figures 13–
14) were least likely to report that they experienced microaggression.
2. There is no consistent pattern across students of color for each item. Sometimes Black
students and Multiracial students clustered with similar endorsement rates, while at
other times Black students and Latino students clustered. Asian student responses
tended to mirror White student responses, but not in all cases.
3. There is particular variability in the items related to other students not acting
respectfully, other students acting as if respondents were not smart, other students
acting afraid of respondents, respondents receiving poorer service on campus, other
students acting uncomfortably in front of the respondents, and especially, respondents
being followed around in stores.
Part E: Race- and Diversity-Related Attitudes about Law School
To understand student viewpoints on the potential effects of racial/ethnic student body
diversity on their educational experience, we asked a series of questions. A subset of items
related to specific educational diversity benefits were:
•
Student diversity at my law school had an overall positive effect on my educational
experience here.
•
Other members of my racial/ethnic group have experienced discrimination at my law
school.
•
A more racially diverse student body in law school can challenge all students to think
about different viewpoints.
•
Racial diversity in law school improves students’ abilities to work and get along with
others after graduation in an increasingly diverse society.
Appendix C, Table C-E1, presents a complete set of descriptive tables for the set of items
about race- and diversity-related attitudes. Figure 15 shows the percentage of respondents
who indicated that that they either “Strongly Agree” or “Agree” with each of these statements
about the potential benefits of racial diversity. The descriptive statistics in this table are shown,
but it is taken into account that respondents were enrolled in different law schools.
40
The pattern of agreement by race/ethnicity and gender in Figure 15 shows that:
1. More than half of the students in the sample strongly agreed or agreed with the items
tapping the benefits of racial/ethnic student diversity during their law school experience.
2. Among the men, Black and Latino students were most likely to endorse the belief that
student diversity at their law school made them better prepared to deal with a diverse
workforce and that student diversity positively affected their experiences in law school.
White males were least likely to endorse these attitudes.
3. Asian men and women of color were least likely to endorse the item that a racially
diverse student body in law school challenges all students to think about different
viewpoints. White women endorsed this item the most.
4. Over half of the sample, and in many cases much more half of the sample, strongly
agreed or agreed that discrimination in law school was experienced by someone in their
racial/ethnic group. Black and Latino students were more likely to report that
discrimination was experienced by others in their racial/ethnic group during law school.
Women tended to agree that discrimination occurred, but this result did not vary as a
function of race/ethnicity.
FIGURE 15. Judgments about the effects of student body racial diversity in law school. Percentage “Strongly
Agree” or “Agree” (by race and gender). B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W
= White. A law school class with only White students might be expected to fall along the line.
41
Part F: Professional Plans and Law School Meta-Judgments
As the law students prepared to move on in their professional lives after graduation, we
wanted to learn about their plans and their global assessments of the experience they had
during law school. The next two sections reflect students’ post-J.D. plans for practicing law and
serving clients. The tables for these findings, accounting for law school clustering in the
sample, are given in Appendix C, Tables C-F1 and C-F2.
Professional Plans
Plans for taking the Bar. We surveyed law students during spring 2007 in the months
before law school graduation. Nearly all of our respondents (98.1%) said they would take the
Bar, and a large percentage (87.6%) indicated that they would take the Bar in July 2007 right
after law school. About 5.0% said they would take the Bar in February 2008 (4.6%) or in July
2008 (6.4%). The remainder (1.3%) indicated that they were planning take it after July 2008.
Of the 98.0% of the students who knew where they would be taking the Bar, the following
states accounted for most of the Bar-testing locations in our law student sample, ordered from
highest percentage to lowest: 12.1% New York, 11.7% California, 6.6% Pennsylvania, 6.6%
Washington State, 5.8% Massachusetts, 5.6% Texas, 5.7% Florida, 5.2% Illinois, and 5.1%
North Carolina. When asked in what state EDP respondents intended to take the Bar exam,
students provided the full range of U.S. states offering the Bar exam.
For Bar preparation, 90.0% of the students reported that they will take BARBRI, 5.3% said
they already took a course, and 2.8% said they had not yet decided how they would prepare
for the Bar. Less than 2% of the student sample (1.9%) said they would not take a prep
course.
Employment. About half of the sample (51.3%) was still looking for a job when we surveyed
them prior to graduation. For those who had a job, 73.4% had a full-time job in a law-related
field (not a judicial clerkship), 18.7% had a full-time judicial clerkship, 2.1% had a full-time
fellowship, 1.3% had a part-time job in a law-related field, and 4.5% had other plans.
Law-School Meta-Judgments
Students were asked to reflect on their paths as lawyers, their performance in law school,
and on their overall law school experience. They were asked to give global assessments of
their law school, their class rank, their workload relative to others, and their likelihood to pass
the Bar:
•
Given everything you know about your law school experience, if you were doing it all
again, would you choose this particular law school?
•
Realistically, I estimate that my class rank will be in the: ___________.
•
During law school, I worked many more hours than my classmates to keep up with the
demands of law school.
42
•
How likely do you think it is that you will pass the Bar the first time you take it? Assume
that you will study for it.
They were also asked to answer questions about their paths as lawyers:
•
When you entered law school, did you intend to practice law?
•
Do you intend to be a practicing lawyer in your primary job?
•
As of today, have you accepted a job for after graduation?
•
Will there be a community or social group (e.g., gender, religious, racial/ethnic group,
national origin) that you represent more often than others?
Figures 16–17 show the following general trends:
1. There was wide variability by race/ethnicity in students’ estimates of whether their final
class rank would be in the top 10% and whether they believed they would “definitely”
pass the Bar the first time they took it. Black students were least likely to report that they
would be in the top 10% of their class, yet they were more likely than the other students
in the sample to think they would pass the Bar the first time they took it. This
discrepancy between class rank and perceptions about Bar passage are worth further
study.
2. Women were less certain of their ability to pass the Bar the first time they took it.
3. Latino students reported working harder than the rest of their classmates to keep up
with the workload.
4. Most students entered law school hoping to practice law, independent of race/ethnicity
and gender. Among the men, there was some change to these initial goals, especially
for Asian students (more likely) and Multiracial students (less likely). Among the women,
an equal or slightly higher percentage of students were intending to practice law at
graduation.
5. Men were more likely to have accepted a job after graduation than women. Black men
and women were divergent on this item: Black men were the most likely out of the men
to have accepted a job after graduation, while Black women were least likely to have
accepted a job after graduation.
6. White students were least likely to be planning to represent a specific community or
social group in their primary job.
43
FIGURE 16. Law school meta-judgments. Percentage “Yes” unless otherwise noted (by race and gender). B
= Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L = Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only White
students might be expected to fall along the line.
FIGURE 17. Law profession intentions. “Yes” (by race and gender). B = Black; A = Asian/Pacific Islander; L =
Latino; M = Multiracial; W = White. A law school class with only White students might be expected to fall along
the line.
44
The Effects of Educational Diversity on Law Students’ Attitudes at Graduation
A critical aspect of the EDP has been to study the effects of the law school environment
itself on the development of attitudes and ideas related to race/ethnicity. In this section, we
briefly review the main findings from a recently published study that assesses law students’
attitudes over time (Gottfredson et al., 2009). Specifically, this study examined the longitudinal
effects of the racial diversity of one’s law school, student background characteristics, and
student intergroup contact during law school on attitudes about student diversity and prejudice
at graduation. A prior study looked at the effects of undergraduate experience on diversity
attitudes at the start of law school, but the study we review in this section accounts for the
longitudinal nature of the project.
Relying on social psychological theory about the effects of intergroup contact on prejudice
(e.g., Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), we hypothesized that controlling for student
background characteristics and initial attitudes, the racial diversity of a student’s law school,
combined with a student’s intergroup contact during law school, would increase their law
school’s diversity of ideas and decrease law students’ endorsement of racially prejudicial
attitudes.
Gottfredson et al. (2009) used four major domains of indicators:
1. Institutional Characteristics
•
Racial Diversity Index (how homogeneous or heterogeneous the law school is in
terms of student body racial/ethnic diversity)
•
School Enrollment
•
Law School Selectivity
•
Sector (Private, Public)
2. Background Characteristics
•
Age
•
Race/Ethnicity
•
Gender
•
LSAT Score
•
Political Orientation
•
Family Household Income During Childhood
45
3. Intergroup Contact
•
This measure relies on judgments about the relative level of contact with students of
different racial/ethnic backgrounds during law school.
•
Students judged their level of interaction with other law students who were Black,
API, Latino, Native American, and White.
4. Student Attitudes
•
Perceived Diversity of Ideas was assessed by an agreement scale for these four
items:
o The quality of class discussions at their school
o How much their school was characterized by respectful exchange of political
views
o How much their school was characterized by respect for expression of
diverse beliefs
o How open their school was to new ideas
•
Prejudice Factor assessed by agreement scale for these three items:
o In America today, every person has an equal opportunity to achieve success
(individualism).
o Because Irish, Italians, Jews, and many other ethnic minorities overcame
prejudice and worked their way up, Blacks should do the same without any
special favors (symbolic racism).
o People at the bottom of the economic scale are probably lazier than those at
the top (individualism).
Using multilevel structural equation modeling as implemented in Mplus (Muthén & Muthén,
2006), we found that, under conditions of (a) greater law school racial diversity and (b) high
intergroup contact with different ethnic racial groups during law school, graduating law
students perceived their law school as being more open and respectful of diverse ideas
(Diversity of Ideas) and were less likely to endorse items that reflect the concept that
everyone—regardless of background—has equal opportunity and can get ahead by working
hard (e.g., individualism). These effects occurred regardless of race/ethnicity. All students
were affected by racial diversity of the law school and high intergroup contact.
Figure 18 shows the model that was tested, which includes the individual control variables,
the institutional characteristics, intergroup contact during law school, and outcomes related to
students’ attitudes about the link between individual effort and success and perceptions of the
46
receptiveness of diverse ideas in the law school setting (inside and outside of the classroom).
Higher intergroup contact during law school was statistically significantly associated with
perceived diversity of ideas (coefficient = .21) and lower prejudiced attitudes (coefficient =
−.12). In addition, the more heterogeneous a law school’s student body in terms of
race/ethnicity, the higher students scored on perceived diversity of ideas (coefficient = .25) and
the lower students scored on prejudiced attitudes (coefficient = −.54).
Figure 19 shows the practical significance of the finding related to law school racial
diversity, as related to the main outcomes in this study. The racial diversity that we observed in
our sample of 64 law schools ranged from relatively homogeneous (RDI = .17) to relatively
heterogeneous (RDI = .71). As racial diversity of a law school increases, there are strong
increases in endorsements of perceived diversity of ideas and strong decreases in prejudiced
attitudes.
FIGURE 18. Final model from Gottfredson et al. (2009) showing the mediational relationship of law school
intergroup contact on the relationship between attitudes at the start of law school and attitudes at law school
graduation
47
FIGURE 19. The practical significance of racial diversity as related to the main study outcomes from
Gottfredson et al. (2009)
Implications of Findings for the Study of Educational Diversity
In this study, which followed law students from arrival at law school orientation through their
last months of their law school career, we found that:
1. Consistent with the findings from the EDP baseline survey, we saw many areas where
the diversity of perspective and experiences in law school were related to race/ethnicity
and gender (and sometimes the interaction between them). It was easy to track the
profiles of attitudes, experiences, understanding of legal cases, judgments of the law
school educational environment, and meta-views about law school if the perspectives of
students of color were not considered. In our figures we highlighted these expected
profiles. But we also saw very clearly the heterogeneity of race/ethnicity, such that
patterns of difference were most appropriately interpreted by survey domain and
sometimes at the microlevel of the survey item.
48
2. Race-related behaviors, expectations, and attitudes show very large variance in most
areas assessed in the EDP Year 3 Web Survey, emphasizing the different trajectories
of experience that different groups of students may have during law school. While there
were many areas that showed large variance in responses by race/ethnicity, several
other variables showed little or no difference (e.g., binge drinking of hard liquor,
perceptions about experienced discrimination by fundamentalist Christians and Jews).
3. To the extent that a classroom of differing sociopolitical attitudes, experiences,
discrimination histories, behaviors during law school, and professional aspirations
influence discussions in the classrooms and hallways of law school, we have identified
race/ethnicity as a significant factor associated with these differences.
4. A law school’s racial diversity of the student body and a student’s experience with
different racial/ethnic backgrounds during law school affects global perceptions about
how open and respectful the law school was in the exchange of diverse ideas and
students’ endorsement of beliefs that recognize the social history of different groups in
society. These longitudinal analyses control for prior attitudes and background
characteristics of the students.
5. We continue with data analyses of this very full and rich data set, especially to explore
further predictive relationships from the EDP baseline assessment, the application data,
and many of the outcome domains discussed in this report.
The EDP Law Faculty Interview Study
Background
We felt that it was critical to broaden the EDP to include information that captured faculty
perspectives. Our prior data collection for this project was limited by the use of single
reporters, students who may have had different perspectives on the role of student diversity in
educational settings as compared to professors. Law students and their confirmed admissions
records were the best sources of information about students’ perspectives upon entering law
school. However, law faculty members also have perspectives about whether diversity among
students, especially racial diversity, enters into their pedagogy in the classroom and their
interactions with students in extracurricular settings.
As part of the EDP Law Faculty Interview Study (LFIS), which is currently in the last stages
of data collection, we spoke with a national sample of law faculty.10 We hoped to learn about
their perspectives about teaching to a diverse (or nondiverse) student body and how
race/ethnicity relates or does not relate to the courses they teach.
Extending the work of White (2000), we wanted to understand faculty attitudes about
diversity in law school. White found that law faculty strongly supported and valued diversity as
10
This chapter describes preliminary findings from the interviews that we have obtained thus far. The bulk of the qualitative coding of
the open-ended responses to the interview questions must occur when the data set is complete.
49
a priority in their law school, but only about one quarter of those sampled reported that
diversity affected how they taught or the content of what they taught.
Specifically, we were interested in exploring whether faculty views on diversity in law school
influenced their teaching philosophy, pedagogy, materials, methods, or subject matter
discussed. This aspect of our study is motivated by three considerations:
1. We wanted to capture the perspectives of a second reporting source—faculty
members—in addressing our research questions concerning educational diversity in the
law school environment.
2. From the EDP Year 1 Focus Group data, we learned that faculty members differ
considerably in the way they approach issues of race (as well as gender and other
personal attributes) in their treatment of basic first-year cases, in the way they conduct
classroom discussions generally, and in their interactions with students outside of the
classroom.
3. Informal faculty reactions and interest in the EDP national baseline study suggested that
there were differences in the way faculty approached race when interacting with law
students. White’s (2000) study supports this third point with data showing several
different perspectives in diversity attitudes and pedagogy due to race and gender of
faculty members.
We were especially interested in understanding the specific ways that faculty members
involve race in their pedagogy when teaching about cases with and without racial dimensions.
We also wanted to understand the extent to which their style and approach in the classroom, in
student meetings, and in other law school settings encourages (or discourages) the expression
of diverse viewpoints on race and other issues. Thus, our goals were to identify concrete
examples of how pedagogical approaches and views on diversity may interrelate with each
other.
Method
Sampling and Participants
Sampling Law Schools and Law Faculty Members. Our two-stage sampling process
started with the random EDP sample of 50 ABA-accredited law schools used in the EDP
baseline survey. Because of our established history with these schools through other EDP
study components, an added benefit was that we had a level of buy-in, and good will would
have been ignored had we used other sampling strategies.
Potential law faculty members were identified from the 2007 Directory of Law Teachers of
the Association of American Law School.11 We sampled 200 faculty members; our sampling
11
We originally proposed to speak with 60 faculty members. But after review, we hoped to at least double our final sample size
(desired final sample size = 130 faculty members or more). Our sampling strategy, based on work with Dr. Kalsbeek from the Survey
Research Unit, was as follows: We built from our already-sampled schools employed for the baseline survey (our 50 “core” sample), with our
very high response rates from the high-minority-representation schools (100%) and the other randomly selected schools (approximately 85%).ȱ
50
was based on one factor: minority status. Minority status of faculty members was obtained
from the Directory.12 We narrowed our sampling list to remove faculty who did not teach, such
as emeriti, deans, administrators, and librarians. Our final list was sorted by minority status
then last name, and each faculty was assigned a random number derived from Research
Randomizer Web site http://www.randomizer.org. The list was then sorted by random number,
and the first two minority faculty members and the first two White faculty members from each
of the 50 law schools were chosen for inclusion in the sample. Thus, we drew four faculty
members from each of the 50 law schools.
Of the 200 sampled faculty members, 114 faculty members agreed to participate (56.7%).
Of these 114, 102 interviews have been conducted and 12 gave affirmative responses but
have not yet been interviewed. Our target response rate is 65%, requiring at least 16 more
interviews before we formally close the study (desired final I = 130 or more). Thus far, only
6.5% of the faculty members (n = 13) formally declined to participate.
All audio files for the already conducted interviews have been transcribed into Word files
and await qualitative coding when the target response rate is met.
Participants. Participants thus far are 104 law faculty members from 48 of the 49 different
law schools included in the sample; 50.0% of the faculty members are faculty of color, and
45.2% are women. Overall, 64.4% are professors, 23.1% are associate professors, and 6.7%
are assistant professors. The rest were retired or deans. Their average age was 50.16 years
(SD = 10.33, range = 31–79 years).
Instrument Development
The interview instrument, summarized in Table 4 and presented in its entirety in Appendix
D, was carefully designed to assess the different ways that the topic of race/ethnicity could
enter into the learning environment (inside and outside the classroom). We considered design
issues, appropriate sampling strategies, and the length of the interview study.13
Procedure
IRB applications and approvals. We applied for IRB approval for each of the 50 EDPsampled schools in September 2007. We obtained approval from 49 of the 50 schools. The
EDP LFIS was treated as a modification to the overall EDP protocol.
12
We also had considered sampling on the basis of faculty member gender, but given the relatively balanced percentage of male and
female law faculty members, we opted to “allow the random process take care of itself” prioritize our stratification by minority status. We
were also not able to stratify by academic rank due to the numbers of faculty members of color at each rank per sampled law school.ȱ
13
We also devoted major consideration to the study design to evaluate whether telephone interviews would be an optimally appropriate
mode of contact. We confirmed that the telephone interviews will provide the needed nuance that we sought in discussing how
race/ethnicity enters into the classroom discussion, legal analysis, and pedagogical philosophy.
51
TABLE 4
Summary of content and items for the Educational Diversity Project Law Faculty Interview Study
Open-Ended Questions
1. Briefly describe your general teaching style. What are you trying to accomplish, and how do you
accomplish it?
2. What types of student diversity do you encounter in your courses? Do you perceive your courses to
be a diverse learning environment for students? Why or why not?
3. Does your course material (i.e., case analysis, legal writing, and/or class discussion) concern how
the law affects racial/ethnic minorities? Why or why not? Please give a specific example about how
race is either relevant or irrelevant to the course material that you generally teach.
4. Has student racial diversity affected class discussions in your courses? Please give a specific
example.
5. Sometimes differing perspectives and experiences lead to so-called “difficult dialogues”—tensions
that emerge in the classroom among students or between the professor and students. These
exchanges sometimes involve issues around race/ethnicity. If you have one, please give a specific
example when a difficult dialogue occurred. Your example could be anything ranging from a very
overt tension or a very mild tension. What were the circumstances, what happened, and how was it
resolved?
6. Has student racial diversity in your courses affected how you present legal cases or other course
material? Does racial composition of your courses matter when you teach? Please give a specific
example.
a. If it does affect how cases are presented, ask: Please give an example.
b. If it doesn’t affect how cases are presented, ask: Please tell me why student racial diversity
doesn’t affect how you present cases or course material.
7. Has student racial diversity led to any larger-scale institutional and/or attitude change at your law
school? Please give a specific example.
8. Has student diversity in general (racial as well as gender, class, political, other) affected how
students interact with and learn from each other? Please give a specific example.
9. Has student diversity affected how students interact with you outside of the classroom? Please give
a specific example.
52
TABLE 4
Summary of content and items for the Educational Diversity Project Law Faculty Interview Study (continued)
Attitude Items
• Use of class time
• Effects of student
• Climate for minority students
racial/ethnic diversity
at own law school
• Agreement items
(curriculum, class
about student
• Climate for minority faculty
discussion, teaching,
racial/ethnic diversity
at own law school
student evaluation)
• Views on student
• Teaching preparation for a
• Faculty diversity at law
diversity affected by
diverse student body
school
the classroom
• Mission of law school with
• Interaction of diversity and
respect to diverse student
research
body and faculty
Background Characteristics
• When started teaching
• Professional degree
• Academic rank
• Age
• Gender
• Race/ethnicity
• Law teaching specialty
• Courses taught recently
• Involvement with students outside the classroom
• Legal training sessions for law students and professionals on race/ethnicity, gender
• Professional experiences around race
• Visibility of political orientation in class
• Political orientation: social, economic
• Largest percentage of racial minorities in class
• Extent of contribution to student racial diversity at own law school, examples
• Extent of contribution to faculty racial diversity at own law school, examples
• Affirmative action
Pilot interviews. We conducted pilot interviews with six faculty members from the School
of Law at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (a nonsampled school) in February 2008.
Based on their comments, we made two substantive changes:
1. We rearranged some closed-ended (quantitative) questions by interspersing them
throughout the interview rather than asking them all at once, and we adjusted the
interview length.
2. To ensure that the telephone interview was within a desired timeframe, the background
questions about the faculty member were removed from telephone protocol and placed
in a Web-based questionnaire format. We asked participants to complete this
background questionnaire prior to the telephone interview.
Recruitment
Each sampled faculty member received an email from our research team providing
information about our study and requesting participation. They were told that the EDP
researchers would like to discuss the way race is considered (or not considered) in their review
53
and analysis of cases and in their overall approach to teaching students. School-specific
editing was conducted on the study invitation email for three schools as a requirement from
their respective IRBs.
We followed up nonresponse to our email attempts with additional emails. Invitation emails
began in spring 2008 and are ongoing. Emails were sent so that it appeared that the sender
was Professor Daye. Faculty members were instructed to contact EDP project staff by email or
telephone if interested in arranging an interview with the EDP-trained staff.
Data Collection
Once a faculty member agreed to participate and an interview time was scheduled, a
background Web questionnaire was sent with a request that they complete it prior to the
interview. If the respondent did not complete the background Web questionnaire prior to
interview, the interviewer obtained the background information as the first part of the telephone
interview.
Interviewers were the project manager, trained advanced doctoral students, and a
professional social worker. All were trained in the study procedures and general interviewing
techniques. We attempted to balance the number of interviews conducted per interviewer. The
interview was designed to take 45 minutes, and that is approximately how long each one took.
We offered a $10 Starbucks gift card for each participating faculty member who completed an
interview. Audio files were immediately transferred to a password-protected computer, and
then transcriptions were made for all completed interviews.
The qualitative aspects of the interview (demographics, small number of attitude items) will
be analyzed formally as soon as the total number of targeted interviews is complete. All of our
coding will involve de-identifying responses and then training at least two independent judges
to code according to our identified themes.
Results
Data collection for the EDP LFIS is still underway with a goal to secure 16 more interviews.
This section reports our findings thus far given the interviews we have already completed (N =
102). The open-ended responses will not be coded from transcripts until the entire data set is
available, so in this section we focus on the attitudinal items from the Background Form
(generally self-administered online).
Student Focus Groups
Classroom. A preliminary view of the closed-ended attitudes provided by the faculty
members during the interviews shows that generally speaking, faculty members believe that
student racial diversity enhances the quality of the discourse in the classroom setting in law
school. As seen in Table 5, the faculty members are most strongly in agreement that their own
views have been changed as a result of this diversity.
54
TABLE 5
Means and standard deviations for attitudes about classroom diversity by race/ethnicity and gender
Minority Faculty
White Faculty
Women
Men
Women
Men
My own views about student racial
diversity have been affected by my
experiences with diversity in my
classroom.
Mean
4.07
4.31
4.50
4.32
SD
.83
.85
.66
.90
Classroom diversity allows a broader
variety of experiences to be shared.
Mean
4.50
4.57
4.78
4.79
SD
.76
1.09
.43
.42
Classroom diversity has students
confront stereotypes on social and
political issues as well as racial and
ethnic issues.
Mean
4.11
4.14
4.44
4.46
SD
.86
1.23
.78
.69
Minority students raise issues and
perspectives not raised by others.
Mean
4.13
4.00
4.50
4.39
SD
.79
1.30
.51
.83
A critical mass of students of a
particular racial/ethnic group is
important to their participation in the
classroom.
Mean
3.89
4.07
4.39
4.32
SD
1.12
1.14
.61
1.06
Note. The scale was a five-point agreement scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” (1) to “Strongly Agree”
(5).
Institutional Commitment to Student and Faculty Racial/Ethnic Diversity. Overall, the
faculty members we interviewed have strong agreement that their law school values student
body diversity and faculty diversity. They generally feel that the climate for minority law
students is positive.
Changing Behavior Due to Racial/Ethnic Diversity of Students. Faculty members were
asked to identify specific ways that the student racial/ethnic diversity that they observe in their
classes may have affected their pedagogy by affecting how they conduct classes, how they
choose classes to offer, how they choose to present the material, and how they evaluate
students. As seen in Tables 6–7, the mean ratings showed that faculty members did not
endorse items related to their teaching approach changing based on student body diversity at
their law school.
55
TABLE 6
Means and standard deviations for institutional commitment to racial and ethnic diversity of students and
faculty members by race/ethnicity and gender
Minority Faculty
White Faculty
Women
Men
Women
Men
A diverse student body is important to
the mission of my law school.
Mean
4.66
4.71
4.72
4.61
SD
.60
.61
.96
.69
A diverse faculty population is important
to the mission of my law school.
Mean
4.55
4.79
4.83
4.36
SD
.61
.43
.38
.91
How high a priority do you believe it is in
your law school to create a diverse
learning environment?
Mean
4.00
3.65
4.00
3.88
SD
.79
1.21
1.25
1.01
The climate for minority law students at
my law school is positive.
Mean
3.69
4.19
3.78
3.79
SD
.78
.95
1.17
.83
Note. The scale was a five-point agreement scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” (1) to “Strongly Agree”
(5).
TABLE 7
Means and standard deviations for how student racial and ethnic diversity has personally changed behavior
for law faculty by race/ethnicity and gender
Minority Faculty
White Faculty
Women
Men
Women
Men
Student racial and ethnic diversity
has prompted me to…
Change my pedagogy to encourage
discussion among students of different
racial/ethnic backgrounds
Mean
2.42
2.29
2.35
2.67
SD
1.31
1.33
1.10
1.59
Raise racial/ethnic issues in my classes
Mean
2.64
2.18
2.58
2.54
SD
1.37
1.35
1.52
1.40
Develop new course offerings
Mean
1.53
1.23
2.42
2.39
SD
1.14
.83
1.63
1.64
Reexamine criteria for evaluation of
students.
Mean
1.45
1.50
1.61
2.04
SD
.85
1.16
1.20
1.50
Adjust my courses to include
racial/ethnic issues
Mean
2.00
2.21
2.41
1.96
SD
1.25
1.42
1.42
1.32
Note. The scale was a five-point agreement scale ranging from “Not At All” (1) to “Extensively” (5) with the
midpoint being “Moderately” (3).
56
Attitudes About the Effects of Student Diversity at the Law School. Table 8 presents
the means and standard deviations for professors’ views on the effects of racial/ethnic diversity
at their law school. Faculty members strongly agreed that student racial/ethnic diversity has
positive effects in general. They believed that racial/ethnic diversity encourages students to
confront stereotypes and that it substantially benefits all students. They did not agree that
racial/ethnic diversity creates tensions, affects their teaching (as also seen in Table 8), or
lowers the quality of the admitted students or the academic level of the law school.
TABLE 8
Means and standard deviations for attitudes about effects of student and ethnic diversity at one’s own law
school by race/ethnicity and gender
Minority Faculty
White Faculty
Student racial and ethnic diversity…
Women
Men
Women
Men
Encourages students to confront
stereotypes tied to substantive issues
Mean
4.38
4.71
4.83
4.79
SD
.75
.83
.38
.42
Substantially benefits all students.
Mean
4.50
4.86
5.00
4.79
SD
.57
.36
.00
.42
Creates tension and arguments along
racial/ethnic lines
Mean
2.31
2.08
2.47
2.43
SD
1.18
1.19
1.12
1.07
Has had little effect on my teaching
Mean
2.56
2.71
2.00
1.64
SD
1.19
1.54
1.27
.91
Impedes the discussion of substantive
issues in the classroom
Mean
1.28
1.31
1.22
1.46
SD
.52
.85
.55
1.00
Lowers the quality of students admitted
to the law school
Mean
1.61
1.57
1.22
1.25
SD
.84
1.02
.43
.65
Lowers the academic integrity of the law
school
Mean
1.47
1.00
1.06
1.14
SD
.72
.00
.24
.36
Note. The scale was a five-point agreement scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” (1) to “Strongly Agree”
(5).
Changing Behavior Due to Racial/Ethnic Diversity of the Faculty. Similar to the
findings from Table 8, Table 9 shows that faculty members did not acknowledge that any part
of their teaching was affected by the diversity of their law school’s faculty.
57
TABLE 9
Means and standard deviations for attitudes about effects of faculty diversity at one’s own law school by
race/ethnicity and gender
Minority Faculty
White Faculty
The faculty diversity at my law school
has…
Women
Men
Women
Men
Affected how I address race-related
course material in class
Mean
2.26
2.43
2.33
2.67
SD
1.29
1.28
1.24
1.59
Affected my own research
Mean
2.00
1.46
2.53
2.61
SD
1.31
1.20
1.42
1.59
Made me change my pedagogy to
encourage discussion among diverse
students
Mean
1.97
2.08
1.89
2.37
SD
1.25
1.26
1.18
1.52
Encouraged me to adjust my courses to
include racial/ethnic issues
Mean
1.87
1.50
2.11
2.21
SD
1.18
.94
1.41
1.50
Encouraged me to develop new course
offerings
Mean
1.60
1.09
2.12
1.89
SD
1.13
.30
1.62
1.40
Encouraged me to examine my criteria
for evaluation of students
Mean
1.45
1.38
1.56
1.82
SD
.77
1.12
.78
1.42
Note. The scale was a five-point agreement scale ranging from “Not At All” (1) to “Extensively” (5) with the
midpoint being “Moderately” (3).
Faculty Members’ Roles in Recruiting and Retaining a Racially/Ethnically Diverse
Student Body at Law School. Faculty members contribute to student racial/ethnic diversity in
many ways. Table 10 provides some of the ways that faculty members mentioned including:
Admissions, Recruitment, Formal Policy, Informal Policy, Student-Involved Policy, LSAT
Preparation, Student Retention/Mentoring, Classroom Curriculum, Student Diversity Day,
Faculty Diversity, and No Participation due to HBCU Institution or Other. Note that until the
final interviews are conducted, this list is incomplete and may be regrouped slightly.
58
TABLE 10
Different ways that faculty members increase student diversity at their law schools
Admissions
• “Service on admissions committee.” (8)
• “I have worked on the Admissions Committee for the past 13 years. I have traveled to other
schools to help with our admissions efforts.”
• “Encouraging applications and promoting admissions as member of admissions committee.”
• “Recruited students, urged changes in recruitment and admissions policies so as not to
discriminate against students of color.”
• “Working with Admissions Office, attending open houses for admitted students, participating
in outreach programs to high school and college students.”
• “Member of admissions committee. Originator and director of a foreign lawyer LL.M.
program.”
• “Promoted diversity programs.”
• “Through normal participation as a faculty member in admissions recruiting.”
• “I am chair of the admissions committee—though admission to the school is largely based
on ‘numbers,’ (this is an administrative decision in which I have no say) I have taken into
consideration race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender diversity in making decisions
and encourage other members of the admissions committee to do so too.”
• “Member of the admissions committee.”
• “In reviewing admissions files, I consider membership in an ethnic group that has suffered
discrimination in the U.S. in the past as one factor among others.”
• “Beyond that, on the admissions committee, I am very keenly interested in trying to, in let’s
say, voting to accept students of racial and ethnic minorities.” (2)
• “Weekly meetings with Admissions team.” (2)
• “As a role model, in admissions policy.”
• “Reviewed applications.” (2)
• “Read admissions files as part of the law school’s holistic process and admitted applicants.
Your question 4a talks about diversity—this question only asks about racial diversity.”
• “Racial diversity is not the only consideration for diversity at this law school [HBCU].” (2)
• “I have advocated for affirmative action in admissions.” (3)
Recruitment
• “As the former dean, I have withdrawn from academic politics. As dean, I recruited and
admitted diverse students and recruited diverse faculty.”
• “I actively participate in recruiting students of color. This includes community outreach as
well as making personal contact with students of color who have been admitted to the law
school but have not made their decisions yet. Once students arrive at the law school, I work
hard to give them assistance and advice in hopes of helping them graduate.”
• “I recruit students, especially non-traditional students, by doing one on one counseling about
the law school admission process and the challenges such students face in completing law
school.”
• “Recruitment.”
• “Student recruitment; advocating diversity.”
• “Helping with minority recruitment by the career services office.”
• “Participate in recruiting events targeted at bringing in more diverse students.”
• “Lecturing at intercity secondary schools, recruiting for law schools involving speaking with
minorities.”
• “I have participated in recruiting events and law school ‘open houses’ to speak to
prospective students. I have served as a speaker at minority outreach events at the law
school for minority high school students in our local community.”
59
TABLE 10
Different ways that faculty members increase student diversity at their law schools (continued)
Recruitment (Continued)
• “I recruit and work with the pipeline program. I do follow-up phone calls based on assignments
from the admissions office.”
• “Recruiting and advising undergraduate students and potential applicants.”
• “I participate as much as I can in outreach to students of diverse backgrounds, including
participating in events to inform interested students about our law school and assisting as I can
during Open House events. I also try to support our diverse students who are already here,
including as a faculty advisor for HLSA.”
• “By showing up at recruitment seminars and welcoming events for Latino students. By working
with the admissions office to follow-up on promising Latino students for example.”
• “Encouraged undergraduate students of color to attend law school.”
• “I have hosted small groups of ‘at risk’ teenage girls on ‘law days’—they come to class, prepare
the class work, and engage in class discussion.”
• “Attended admissions fairs o/b/o Admissions office in highly diverse regions, e.g., Atlanta.”
• “Availability for recruitment and student org events.”
• “Worked with the recruiting offices.”
• “My first year class is open to prospective students. I meet with them after the class and I attend
programs offered for prospective students when visiting our law school.”
• “I have spoken to groups of students of minority groups who are thinking about going to law
school; the deans have invited me to speak to these groups as they come to look at the law
school. To that extent I encourage those people to come.”
• “Network with professors who teach undergraduate courses in my specialty areas to identify and
encourage minority applicants to apply to law school.”
• “Speak to prospective students.”
• “Engaging in recruitment activities specifically geared toward students of color.”
• “Help with minority student recruitment.” (2)
• “Speaking at high schools in minority communities about legal education.”
• “Encouraging admitted students to enroll.”
• “I participate in every diversity recruitment effort.”
• “Work with BLSA recruiting efforts.” (3)
• “Consider diversity in terms of recruitment.” (2)
• “Represented schools at recruiting events.”
• “Talking to candidates at admissions events, making phone calls to admitted students.”
• “I participate in recruitment activities.” (2)
Formal Policy
• “I was a strong voice on the faculty committee reviewing and revising the admissions policy to reinclude race as one factor in our admissions criteria.”
• “Participation in admissions policy development, participation in admissions committee work.”
• “Involved in ad-hoc committee formed by faculty and administrators of color to focus on this issue
as well as retention of students of color.”
• “In some years I have been involved in student admissions and scholarship policies, and in these
determinations I did consider racial diversity as an issue in making individual decisions.”
• “Our student relations committee, on which I serve as chair, has discussed strategies for
recruiting a more diverse student body.”
• “I was one of the professors who created a minority admission program in which I taught and
vigorously supported as dean. Also as dean I encouraged the dean of admissions to recruit
women and minorities, worked with minority and women Bar associations and committees from
general Bar associations whose focus was on the practice of minorities and women.”
60
TABLE 10
Different ways that faculty members increase student diversity at their law schools (continued)
Formal Policy (Continued)
• “I was Dean when the Hopwood decision of the 5th Circuit was handed down, and we had to
change our admissions procedures so that race would not be a factor. We adopted procedures
that the admissions committee could use to consider factors—economic background, etc.—that
correlated with race, and were able to continue to admit minority students that way. We also
worked hard to find private sources for scholarship funding. I have not continued to work on this
since I left the Dean’s office.”
• “I started the international and graduate programs which bring 50–60 internationally diverse
students to the law school each year. A large number of these are Asian/Pacific [Islander] and we
have had some Latin Americans and Africans as well. I think this also makes our school a more
congenial place for racial minority students from the U.S.”
• “Served on the admissions committee during year when committee brought forth proposal to
change admissions policy.”
• “Advocated for admissions and academic policies that contribute to racial diversity.” (2)
• “When I was Associate Dean for External Affairs I was instrumental in hiring a Black admissions
director and in establishing priorities for diversifying the applicant pool and finding ways to convert
minority admissions into matriculates. These efforts included hosting a minority law day, stepping
up outreach efforts, being more involved in CLEO, enlisting the support of our Multicultural Law
Students Assn in contacting admits, and reworking scholarship policy to make more money
available for diversity.”
• “I have chaired or was a member of our Committee on Institutional Racism for several years.”
• “As a professor at University of Michigan in 1965, I was an advocate for our special admissions
program.”
• “In 1948, as a freshman at the University of Texas, I was a founding member of the NAACP
chapter and circulated a petition asking the Regents to admit Heman Sweatt to our law school.”
• “Participated in establishing the approach used by the School.”
• “Served as member of Committee and Admissions Committee multiple times.” (2)
• “Served as Director of ‘Pre-Admission Program.’” (3)
• “Participated in establishing LLM program for foreign students.” (4)
• “Diversity Committee.”
Informal Policy
• “Brainstormed ways to get more Blacks—particularly males—to matriculate at my school.”
• “Faculty discussions about admissions.”
• “Spoken to colleagues about diversity.” (4)
• “Tried to educate colleagues on diversity issues.” (3)
Student-Involved Policy
• “My students researched and wrote a Parents’ Guide to Higher Education and conducted
presentations in the Latina/o community.”
• “My students wrote and filed an amicus brief in the Grutter Sup. Ct. case.”
• “I work with students planning for conferences and speaking invitations to ensure racial diversity.”
• “I make suggestions and phone calls to assist students’ choice of diverse speakers.”
LSAT Preparation
• “I counsel prospective students and teach LSAT preparation. Our school is an HBC, so Black
students are attracted to this institution.”
• “Supported and helped find funds for LSAT-preparation classes for Native Hawaiian students
seeking to attend law school.”
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TABLE 10
Different ways that faculty members increase student diversity at their law schools (continued)
Student Retention/Mentoring
• “I conduct sessions (this year a regularly meeting workshop) on legal skills to help students of
color improve their academic performance.”
• “Worked with students of color at risk for dismissal due to poor academic performance to help
them improve their performance and remain in school.”
• “Provide academic support and mentoring for current students to increase the likelihood that they
will remain enrolled.” (2)
• “Encouraged and recommended a top student to apply for a Minority Scholarship who was
selected for $10,000 awards for his second and third year of law school and encouraged and
recommended a top student to apply for special patent Bar review course who was selected for
an award of $1,000.” (2)
• “I am very involved in mentoring students of color before and after admission. My university
awarded me an award of outstanding mentor for [students of color].”
• “Supporting enrolled students of color.” (2)
• “Supporting Black Law Students Association as Advisor.” (2)
• “Coaching the BLSA Moot Court team.” (3)
• “By supporting minority students as faculty advisor.” (2)
• “I serve as the faculty liaison for minority students.” (2)
• “Worked with minority applicants.” (1)
• “I also advised law students in establishing the first university’s first Black Law Students
Association.” (2)
• “I served as a faculty advisor to our Law, Culture and Difference program for 8 years.” (2)
• “I used affirmative action in hiring teaching assistants.” (5)
• “I spearheaded an effort to create an Academic Success Program for non-traditional students
including students of color.” (3)
• “Met with students to discuss diversity issues in the community.” (3)
Classroom/Curriculum
• “I introduce cultural and racial literacy into my classes in order to give all students a vocabulary,
the knowledge and skills to talk about such issues as race and conflict. I don’t think it’s enough to
advocate for diversity in admissions; we must change all aspects of the academy to account for
diverse students.”
• “Integrated issues of race and affirmative action into Con Law II curriculum; good discussions of
Grutter v. Bollinger and importance of diverse student body.”
• “I’ve only been there for two years so I have no idea what my contribution is nor do I know from a
social science perspective how you evaluate the contribution of a faculty member so in other
words if someone looks at our course offerings they might say ‘I want to go here because this
school has someone who teaches about race and slavery so I would like to go there because
there’s obviously somebody whose class I want to take’ but I have no idea how you can quantify
that.”
• “Try to increase courses that may interest minority students.” (2)
• “I would also emphasize that I promoted gender neutrality in my teaching approach.” (2)
• “Incorporate diversity issues as part of course curriculum.” (3)
• “Facilitated workshop on racial diversity.” (1)
• “I have tried to address issues of racial justice in my teaching.” (4)
• “Developed questionnaire for faculty to use to assess inclusivity in the classroom.” (2)
• “Chose to raise and discuss issues regarding racial diversity in courses.” (4)
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TABLE 10
Different ways that faculty members increase student diversity at their law schools (continued)
Student Diversity Day
• “I am an active participant in the student diversity day.”
Scholarships
• “As faculty director of a research center, I make a strong effort to hire a diverse staff of student
interns and research assistants.”
• “Participating in financial-aid decisions.”
Faculty Diversity
• “I lobbied for the conception of a group called to bring awareness to recruitment, retention, and
promotion issues affecting African Descent Faculty throughout our University’s campus system.”
No Participation—From a Historically Black Law School (HBLS)
• “To the extent we are contributing racial diversity would be encouraging for more White students
to come and no I haven’t participated in that. We obviously have lots of minorities [HBLS].”
No Participation—Other
• “Never been involved in the admissions committee or admissions process.”
• “I am generally opposed to diversity programs but have tried to create a welcoming atmosphere
for all my students.”
• “As a member of the AALS Governing Board, I opposed quotas.”
Note. Numbers in parentheses indicated the number of respondents in the sample who mentioned that
concept.
Planned Analyses for Complete Data Set
After we conduct our last 16 interviews (or more) by the end of fall 2009, we will describe
the coded open-ended responses to the items in Table 4. Four independent judges will code
the open-ended responses (blind to the race/ethnicity of the respondent), and we will ensure
that reliability is met for the codes we use. We will also formally model the presence or
absence of certain themes in the open-ended data as a function of faculty race/ethnicity (two
groups: minority/nonminority) and gender. We will examine rank if the distribution allows, but
our sampling design did not include this as a sampling factor.
We will use these codes as outcome variables in a series of generalized linear regressions.
We will predict the presence or absence of certain examples (logistic regression models) or the
general theme describing the response (multinomial regression models) based on the
race/ethnicity and gender of the faculty member, as well as any attitudes that we would also
like to include.
All quantitative findings from the EDP LFIS will be supplemented with quotes and
exemplars from the identified categories.
63
Data Analyses and Dissemination
General Approach
During the project period, we have taken our data analyses in a number of directions
focusing on: (a) analyzing EDP baseline item sets, LSAC registration data, and FYAs; (b)
preparing analyses for EDP manuscripts by the research team; (c) cleaning, preparing, and
analyzing the database for the Year 3 Web Survey using approaches that are identical to the
psychometric work employed with the baseline EDP survey; (d) transcribing and analyzing the
Year 2 and 3 Focus Group data; and (e) outlining, analyzing, and writing about theoretically
interesting models based on predicting Year 3 Web Survey responses from application and
baseline data using multivariate approaches, especially multilevel structural equation
modeling.
Our ongoing analyses often involved multiple-sample structural equation modeling for
ordered categorical data and item response theory models to identify and describe
dimensionality of item sets. Our general approach has been to use the convenience sample
from the baseline survey as an “exploratory” sample to establish basic relationships among
variables and evaluate preliminary data structures. Conversely, our “core” sample has been
used in a more confirmatory mode: to test models and cross-validate relations suggested by
the exploratory sample. Our data analytic strategy for the baseline survey data involved
conducting basic psychometric development work on student responses using the
Convenience Sample (n = 1,963) and conducting hypothesis testing on the EDP Core Sample
(n = 6,100).
We modeled these over-time relations in a multilevel SEM framework (accounting for law
school characteristics). With the longitudinal data we will also be able to begin to model the
relations expressed among diversity domains in a way that more accurately describes our
conceptual model (than with cross-sectional data alone).
For each of the six diversity domains and for the topics covered in the Year 1 Focus
Groups, we have obtained strong evidence that race/ethnicity is associated with variability in
student responses. For example, students of color and White students differed in their
international focus, family structure, parental background, racial socialization, experienced
discrimination (both everyday and lifetime), perceptions of discrimination against other societal
groups, intended choices for extracurricular activities, expectations about future professional
barriers due to race, and perceptions of racial climate at law school. Our findings from the
baseline assessment showed that in each of our six studied diversity domains, a student’s
race/ethnicity (and sometimes gender, LSAT scores, and other information) are associated
with several major student characteristics and attitudes (e.g., family structure, experience with
discrimination, perceptions of discrimination of different societal groups, perceived professional
barriers for the future).
Dissemination
We have been committed to participating in the dialogue about race and educational
diversity through our research and have been working on ensuring that our research is
disseminated to different audiences.
64
Preliminary Implications From the Findings of the EDP
In this report we provide findings from three major studies that all address our overarching
questions:
1. Does a law student’s race/ethnicity (and other personal factors) relate to educational
diversity, as defined by individual differences in student background and history,
sociopolitical attitudes, academic experiences, perceptions of one’s educational
experience, and professional aspirations in the legal profession?
2. Does a student’s racial/ethnic diversity provide a context for learning, interacting, and
changing future academic and professional expectations during law school?
In the second section of this report we addressed the third session of focus groups that the
EDP held with a subset of law students in the spring of their third year of law school, right
before graduation. The themes this year involved planning for the future, assessing the law
school experience, and identifying areas of support during law school.
The third section documented the EDP Year 3 Web Survey that tracked a subset of law
students who participated in the EDP baseline assessment during orientation during the first
weeks of law school. The Web survey was administered in the spring of the students’ third
year and addressed several areas, including sociopolitical attitudes, perceptions of the law
school experience, areas of personal growth and burden, race-related experiences and
behaviors during law school, race- and diversity-related attitudes about law school, and
professional plans and meta-judgments about law school.
We wanted to know:
1. Is an incoming law student’s race/ethnicity associated with a diverse set of personal
characteristics, experiences, attitudes, and expectations about law school and his or her
professional future in law?
2. Do these factors, present upon entry to law school, interact with either student
experiences inside and outside of the classroom during law school or diversity attitudes
that students hold at graduation?
The fourth section addressed an ongoing study in which law professors gave their
perspectives about the interaction between teaching and racial/ethnic student diversity. These
viewpoints were gathered via a structured telephone interview format.
Focus Groups
Our efforts to understand and translate findings into implications for action that law schools
can, should, or might undertake are incomplete. Preliminarily, we notice that students are
rightly confident of Bar passage. This presents a dilemma for law schools: On the one hand
students need to have a measure of confidence to inspire motivation; yet students must not be
overconfident in ways that will undercut the need for rigorous and continued preparation (see
Figures 15–16).
65
With ABA accreditation changes allowing credit for Bar preparation courses and new
accountability measures for the pass rate in the state in which a school’s graduates
predominate, clear opportunities exist that will require law schools to tread a thin line between
encouraging confidence and stressing preparation. This implication is doubly true for the
proportion of Blacks who have law school GPAs of 2.4 and below.
Law schools can take comfort in our findings that a majority of students believe their law
schools support diversity and that most law professors welcome students who challenge their
views. These findings tend to refute the concern that diversity of students is a major divisive
educational factor. Conversely, there is much work law schools can still do, however, since
nearly one third of students do not share the belief that their law school supports diversity or
that their professors welcome students who challenge their views. These findings do not relate
to particular law schools, so we are not able to speak to whether these views reflect generally
as across-school phenomena or may be clustered in particular law schools. However, to the
extent that our schools are a representative sample, law schools might be well advised to
examine these factors within their own schools.
To the extent that there are gender differences, they tend to manifest in women finding
higher desirability and need for mentoring, having a supportive environment, ability to work in
teams, and working for social justice. These findings implicate law school teaching
methodologies and engagement efforts, offering opportunities for collaborative work as well as
opportunities to work for social justice (e.g., through substantial pro bono programs).
Given that over three fourths of the students reported involvement with other law school
groups or school-sponsored programs, law schools can contribute much to educational
diversity by offering, supporting, and encouraging such groups and interactions. Members of
all groups reported interacting with White students, even while different groups reporting
interacting at varied levels with members of their own ethnic group. Given that students get
substantial support from members of their own group, for smaller cohorts of minority students it
appears that law schools would do well to seek to achieve a “critical mass” of each group so
that no individuals are isolated or overloaded.
EDP Year 3 Web Survey
Some general observations based on our surveys, focus groups, analyses of data, findings,
and conclusions can be made. Yet we caution that our analyses are not complete. One lesson
we have learned, however, is that overly broad generalizations about the effects of affirmative
action—whether for or against it—in many aspects of law school education can be easy to
make and difficult to refute. When making statements about race, affirmative action, and
educational diversity, as well as their effects legally and jurisprudentially, all of us should be
careful to stay within the supportable range of relevant empirical information and rationally
documentable implications.
66
Overall Implications
Law and Jurisprudence. As for matters of jurisprudential theory, the Grutter decision may
be seen as accepting the following decisional syllogism:
Major premise: An educational institution has a compelling interest in achieving the benefits
of educational diversity.
Minor premise: Racial diversity contributes to educational diversity.
Conclusion: Therefore, race may be considered as a plus factor in selecting students for
admission (so long as race is used in a narrowly tailored, time-limited system).
The major premise focuses on questions of constitutional law and jurisprudential reckoning,
which are informed by our “Nation’s struggle with racial inequality.”14 Educational diversity is
needed to further our highest national interests to educate workers for an increasingly diverse
domestic workforce, to prepare qualified professionals for that increasingly diverse domestic
society, to compete effectively in a global business world, to enable our military to carry out its
mission of national security, to sustain our political and cultural heritage and thereby maintain
our society, and to work toward achieving our highest aspiration—our “dream of one Nation,
indivisible.”15
Empirical Data and Analysis
In a syllogism, the logic of the conclusion depends on the truth of the minor premise. The
major implication of our study is confirmation that the minor premise in the Grutter syllogism is
true. The truth of the minor premise can be addressed by answering two questions:
1. Do students entering law school differ by race and other personal factors? Yes. Our
findings are that race matters. Students differ according to race, ethnicity, and other
personal factors. Entering students present differences in personal background, family
background, experiences, perspectives, educational expectations, and career
aspirations. Race is associated with variances along many dimensions in which race
predicts, in a reasonable scientific analysis, aspects of every domain we studied.
2. If students are found to manifest differences, are those differences educationally
relevant? Yes. A second overall implication of our study is that we can assess the
likelihood of relevant difference that will contribute something to learning. Our hypothesis
is that students’ personal and family background will influence the students’ experiences.
Students’ experiences, in turn, will influence their perspectives. Perspectives influence
expectations for the educational setting, and combined with other factors, differing
perspectives in the educational setting influence career aspirations.
14
15
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 338 (2003). [Emphasis added.] ȱ
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 332 (2003).ȱ
67
After Grutter, therefore, research tasks remain, including deriving a more articulated and
quantifiable conceptualization of educational diversity, empirically examining whether race
contributes to that diversity, and if it does, explicating how any contribution of race is
manifested. A clearer understanding of these issues is essential to explaining how considering
an applicant’s race supports permissible educational objectives that an institution may pursue
consistently with constitutional limitations.
Our finding is that Black students show variance along many dimensions from White
students, as do many groups of students of color. Yet, Black students show variance from
other students of color along several dimensions. The implication for law schools is that law
schools that do not have students of color would not have the same breadth or intensity of
different perspectives as would a school with a significant cohort of students of color. But
because Black students do not always share the same perspectives as either White students
or other students of color, a law school that sees a student-of-color cohort as presenting a
satisfactory diversity of perspective is very likely to miss significant variability of perspectives if
Black students are not represented in the cohort or are insignificantly represented.
Our findings are that students do interact and learn from each other. These findings have
several implications:
1. Race continues to matter. Law schools should continue to support and seek to
achieve substantial diversity and should foster and support substantial opportunities for
students to interact. Student perspectives on cases differ according to their race and
ethnicity. Our data show that if Blacks are not in the discussion, useful expressions of
different perspectives may be unavailable with consequent loss of insight and richness.
2. Schools need a critical mass of members of diverse student groups. While in the
aggregate there is variability between groups of Black students and groups of other
students (groups of White students in particular), an insufficiently large cohort of Black
students (and other students of color as well) presents two important concerns. The first
concern, addressed in other social science literature, is that to derive the maximum
benefits of diversity from diverse students, those students must be supported with a
sufficiently large group so that individuals will not be isolated or seen as
“representatives” of the entire group. (This is the “critical mass” requirement.) The
second concern is that a law school needs an adequate cohort of diverse students, for
example Black students, because there exists “within-group” variability for all of the
groups we identified in our survey.
3. All Blacks do not have to think alike for differences to exist between Blacks and
Whites. The claim that there are no differences, for example, between Blacks and
Whites, because “all Blacks do not think alike” is refuted by the variability we found.
Even with variability at a level in which 80% or 90% of Black students differ in
perspective from 80% or 90% of White students, one still needs an adequate cohort of
Black students to manifest the within-group variance in a particular instance (such as in
a class or some other context in which students interact). Precisely because all Blacks
do not think alike, one needs an adequate cohort of Black students so that the outlier
Black students do not seem to reflect the norm, but are seen as outliers even within the
group of Black students.
68
Law schools, therefore, must work to create and maintain a reasonable level of diversity.
How a school may perform at achieving diversity will reflect its applicant pool, which will reflect
the efforts it makes to recruit diverse students, the criteria it uses to admit students, and the
efforts it makes to get the students to attend. Ultimately, the enrollment outcomes will reflect a
school’s good faith and its active efforts to create a diverse student body. The range of a
school’s practical options to achieve a diverse student cohort will certainly be determined, for
better or worse, by the number of diverse students applying to a law school, the number
qualified for admission at that school, the number admitted, and the number of admitted
students who choose to enroll at that school.
References
Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. New York: Addison-Wesley.
Dillman, D. A. (2002). Mail and internet surveys: The tailored design method (2nd Ed.). New
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Gottfredson, N., Panter, A. T., Daye, C. E., Allen, W. R., Wightman, L. F., & Deo, M. E. (2009).
The effects of educational diversity in a national sample of law students: Fitting multilevel
latent variable models in national data with categorical indicators. Multivariate Behavioral
Research, 44, 1–27.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2006). Mplus User’s Guide. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén &
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Panter, A. T., Daye, C. E., Allen, W. R., & Wightman, L. F. (2006). An empirical study of the
relationship between race and educational diversity in U.S. law schools: Sampling,
methodology, and procedures for the baseline EDP assessment of incoming students
(Research Report: 06-03). Chapel Hill, NC: The Educational Diversity Project.
Panter, A. T., Daye, C. E., Allen, W. R., Wightman, L. F., & Deo, M. E. (2008). Everyday
discrimination in a national sample of incoming law students. Journal of Diversity in Higher
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Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 751–783.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2001). Mental health: Culture, race, and
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Acknowledgments
The Educational Diversity Project (EDP) is a national longitudinal study of how
race/ethnicity affects the educational experiences of U.S. law students. It has been a
collaborative effort, dependent on a diverse set of data sources and human resources. We
could not have assembled this rich data set without the good will and efforts of many
individuals and institutions.
We relied on law students from around the nation, deans, admission officers, and law
school faculty. They continually supported and provided assistance to this project when we
called upon them. Thank you to all of the participants of the EDP baseline survey, to the
students who came for 3 years of focus groups, to the students who completed the Year 3
Survey during their busy spring semester, and to the many faculty to whom we have spoken.
We could not have conducted this study without the students who completed the baseline EDP
survey in fall 2004 and the focus group participants.
Meera Deo and Michael Peterman provided constant and outstanding support to the EDP.
We are thankful for their thoughtful and scholarly contributions to the project.
At the L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory, we thank Jason Derrick for his excellent
work as project manager. Nisha Gottfredson and Rachel Upton contributed by conducting data
analyses, reviewing the study components, and helping in the overall functioning of the project.
We thank our Web designer, Elizabeth Lansing, and we thank Anna Cruz for her four
undergraduate years of assistance on this project. Ophella Dano provided valuable assistance
with many aspects of the project, especially the focus group component.
Our undergraduate EDP team helped with all aspects of the projects, and we are grateful to
the following: Timara Barker, Donna Barton, Jon Cochran, Evan Coffman, Ashley Cross, Emily
Cupito, Laura Findlan, Jeff Foarde, Adam Hoffman, Marianne Jaconis, Sol Kwon, Tom Lycan,
Megan McRell, Joe Ngan, Liz Noelcke, Teresa Nowlin, Scott Pion, Kristin Uicker, Margaret
Viera, Matt Ward, Bill Wiswesser, and Rachel Ziemba.
We thank the UNC School of Law for scholarship support that included Mirya Holman, who
provided data analysis, and the following law student research assistants, who provided
research on legal arguments and helped with data analysis: Ken Achenbach, Lana P. Beverly,
Ryan Bliss, Kimalee Cottrell, Henry Jay, Emily Liu, Nefertari S. Rigsby, Shailika Kirit Shah, and
Christina “Christie” L. Trice. We also thank Professor Daye’s law faculty colleagues, who
participated in pilot testing of survey items and interview protocols.
We thank our interviewers for the EDP Faculty Interview Study: Beth Lansing, Shiahna
Dye, Alex Morris, and especially Deborah Hall, Taya Cohen, and Tanya Vacharkulksemsuk.
The UCLA CHOICES research team worked hard and effectively on all aspects of the EDP
Law School Focus Group Study—organization, scheduling, interviewing, coding, analyses, and
write-up. Special thanks to Meera Deo, Grace Carroll, Maria Woodruff, Rican Vue, Kimberly
Griffin, Erin Kimura, Ophella Dano, Diana Rehfeldt, Evellyn Elizondo, Uma Jayakumar,
Reginald Clark, and Malana Jones.
Dr. William Kalsbeek, Director of the Survey Research Unit at the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, provided outstanding sampling guidance. We also benefited from the
excellent advice and help of Andrea Thornton Sweeney, Senior Research Associate at the
Law School Admission Council (LSAC).
70
This research project would not have been possible without the support of LSAC through its
competitive Research Grants Program for Empirical Research. The opinions and conclusions
contained in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or
policy of LSAC.
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Appendix A
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