Legal News

UCLA professor seeks bar exam data from state Supreme Court

By Jason Siegel

UCLA law professor Richard Sander is still trying to get state bar exam data to build on his controversial belief that affirmative action hurts minority* law students and that many of them would be better suited going to "less elite" law schools, The Recorder reported. (here)

Sander filed a writ of petition yesterday asking the California Supreme Court to direct the State Bar to give him the data, collected from over 100,000 test takers. He wants to prove his idea that affirmative action is responsible for the high failure rates by black students on bar exams around the country.

Last November, the State Bar rejected his request for bar exam data - which would include race/ethnicity, gender, law school grade point average, LSAT score, law school attended, repeater status and actual bar exam score.

In a 2004 study, he suggested that a 'mismatch effect' might be taking place - that affirmative action is hurting black law students by placing them in elite universities they are unprepared for, thus creating less black lawyers than if they were placed in worse schools.

"This issue was thoroughly vetted last year by the Committee of Bar Examiners and by the full Board of Governors," Bar President-Elect Holly Fujie said in a press release. "Prof. Sander was given ample opportunity last year to present his case before the Committee of Bar Examiners and the Board of Governors and after listening to significant public comment during a public hearing, the Board voted unanimously to protect the confidentiality of our test takers."

The Committee of Bar Examiners found that reassurances that bar scores, race and academic credentials of each student would remain confidential did not matter (a consultant who does internal work for the State Bar would handle the information for the study). The committee found that there were legitimate concerns that people taking state bar exam hadn't provided personal data for outside use.

Sander is joined in the suit by former State Bar governor Joe Hicks and the California First Amendment Coalition. (see CFAC Press Release)

*racial

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on August 08, 2008 (boomark / email).