The Illusion of Diversity and the Role of the Ethnic Interest Group

Driven by ranking methodologies that score schools based on the amount of minorities that matriculate, law schools have been working furiously to recruit students of color into their ranks. Special ‘diversity’ initiatives are crafted to publicize retention efforts and emphasize the value of diversity in a dynamically evolving, ‘global’ legal profession. Though the ‘advantages’ that come with exposure to brown, black and yellow faces in an American legal industry that is actually resistant to globalization seem dubious, schools openly tout the idea that a more diverse student body will lead to divergent viewpoints toward the law. These differences in turn will 1. enrich the degree and scope of collaboration across the student body, 2. foster more varied and nuanced approaches to the law, and 3. provide opportunities for students to build lasting connections with, and learn from, those significantly different from themselves. The admissions page of one law school, for example, describes its commitment to diversity as such:

Exposure to diverse ideas and viewpoints forces students to think critically about their own beliefs — to question and challenge them. Capital Law School creates a diverse and supportive environment where the exchange of ideas is free-flowing and valued.

However, the supposed gains to be achieved from these diversity initiatives often go unrealized in an educational model that suppresses difference, demands conformity, and prevents students from incorporating their cultural backgrounds as they engage and study the law. Students of color face additional pressures to assimilate in an institution administered primarily by upper-class whites and a student community whose norms and habits are more reflective of their white peers.

The Diversity We Get

Despite a steady influx of minorities, a cursory examination of the law school community reveals anything but a place where the ‘exchange of ideas’ is dynamic and ‘free flowing’. Formulaic methods of teaching, uniformity in subject material and a grading system that pits students competitively against each other rather than collaboratively with each other creates a homogenous learning experience, flattening the very differences that make students of color valuable in the first place. The Socratic Method, which supposedly improves ‘critical lawyering skills,’ provides minimal room for alternative viewpoints and encourages tautological argumentation that is staged, uncreative and rigidly constrained. Exams are graded according to a rubric designed not for innovative thought but for cost-effective administration. Moreover, an exhaustive 1L workload forces students to spend the majority of their time either in the law school or studying, creating an insulated learning environment that minimizes engagement and thoughtful collaboration with other students. Not surprisingly, the average law student receives a streamlined and uniform legal education conspicuously lacking in diversity. The familiar saying of “1L year they break you, 2L year they work you, 3L year they bore you” rings true for nearly everyone.

The most problematic feature about law school, though, is that it leaves no room for students to engage their own unique backgrounds as valuable referents in their study of the law. With the exception of this course, students spend most of their time reading court opinions, policy articles and fact patterns that have little relevance to them as individuals. Amidst the outlining, note-taking and preparation for exams, one’s cultural uniqueness quickly becomes irrelevant. The situation is particularly problematic for students of color as they are forced to shelve their cultural identities in an institution administered primarily by wealthy whites and a student community whose norms and behavior more closely approximate those of their white peers. Not surprisingly, many students of color speak of having to operate within two different worlds – the person they are within the comforts of a support network (assuming one exists) and the person they are outside of it.

What’s the Solution?

All of this criticism, of course, begs the essential question – how does one create a learning environment that actually makes diversity relevant in a meaningful way? While admissions programs geared towards recruiting more students of color might seem like the ideal solution, such policies will not engender greater diversity so long as students’ stories, values and interests have no relevance to their academic lives.

Also, given how entrenched the current law school model has become (as well as the political and private interests attached to it), it is not likely that the administration will make any changes to encourage students to more actively engage their cultural backgrounds. It is not clear to me, moreover, whether such a duty should even lie with the school, whose primary function is to bestow professional skills to future attorneys. One need only guess as to how effective administration-led events such as ‘Asian Heritage Week’ would be at promoting actual diversity.

A Possibility

Enter the Ethnic Student Organization. While groups such as APALSA and BLSA have been derided for balkanizing the student community and reinforcing racial divisions, they represent easily accessible support networks from which students of color can re-connect with and preserve their ‘cultural selves’. Such organizations prove immensely valuable in helping students of color resist the pressures of conformity and retain a sense of community, reinforcing the shared stories and values that make them diverse in the first place.

Moreover, such groups provide critical opportunities for minorities to make their cultural identities meaningful in a way that the study of law does not. For example, students of color often spearhead initiatives that are specific to their respective communities, thus engaging their backgrounds directly as they advance their interests within the law. Such efforts demonstrate to students that their ethnic backgrounds are both relevant and even advantageous as they evolve into future attorneys. In turn, students will likely develop alternative viewpoints and career interests as they progress through law school, a process which other students, faculty and administrators all stand to benefit from in the long run.