THE MISUSE OF THE LSAT: DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BLACKS AND OTHER MINORITIES IN LAW SCHOOL ADMISSIONS

INTRODUCTION

Each year when the U.S. News & World Report publishes its college and university rankings, law professors and deans scramble to learn if their institution's rank has risen or fallen. Law schools are engaging in disturbing practices in efforts to "raise" their rank. If a Black or Mexican applicant is denied admission to law school, there is an excellent possibility that he or she may have been discriminated against based on race.

It is not the blatant "No Blacks Allowed" kind of discrimination. It is institutional racism, which is harder to eliminate because it is so insidious. Institutional racism occurs where an institution adopts a policy, practice, or procedure that, although it appears neutral, has a disproportionately negative impact on members of a racial or ethnic minority group. In the case of law schools, the institutional racism is the use of the Law School Admissions Test ("LSAT') as the sole or determining factor in admission, and specifically, the use of an LSAT cut-off score below which few, if any, candidates are admitted.