Methodology
The purpose of this report is to provide a way to measure to what extent non-minorities (whites) are over-represented in law schools, to provide a way of measuring changes and progress in equitable representation of minorities and to provide a mechanism of comparing law schools training of a racially representative group of lawyers as we move toward becoming a "nation of minorities".
The objectives of this report are to:
measure the percentage of "whites" in each law school measure the difference between the percentage of whites in the law school compared to the percentage of:
regional and state population 21-39 (whites) regional and state LSAC Applications (whites).
compare the schools on each of these measures.
The information sources for this report are:
the 2004 ABA-LSAC official guide. This is information reported to the ABA as a requirement of accreditation. The information in the guide is based on the 2002 application/admission cycle. (American Bar Association - Law School Admission Council).
the LSAC National Statistical Report - 1998-99 through 2003-03. The 2002-03 tables ere used in this report.
U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder, Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data and Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data, http://factfinder.census.gov/home/ (Last Visited: March 21, 2003).
The definitions used in this report are:
Whiteness is defined as caucasian plus unknown. Questions have been raised about the methodology of counting unknowns as whites. Unknown presented a problem. If we did not include them as white, then schools with large number of whites who failed to report their race would look less white than they actually were. I decided to count unknown as white for several reasons.
First, to not penalize schools who have most of the applicants to their school reporting race. Second, to not provide incentives for schools to move the reporting of large number of students into unknown. Third, to have a consistent methodology. Fourth, this approach has been used by other diversity ranking system; see US News & World Report; See generally, Michael Chang, Quantitative approaches to measuring student body diversity: Some examples and thoughts (Draft Paper: 2003); (pdf) (added: 04/17/04)
Law School-Age Population is age 21 to 39:
U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder, Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data and Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data, http://factfinder.census.gov/home/ (Last Visited: March 21, 2003).
State LSAC application pool is the total number of LSAC applications from persons who list a particular state as their home state.
For example, of 99504 LSAC applications, 6797 were from Texas applicants.
Historically White Law Schools" (HWLS) (n=179). are schools who have historically been de facto white with no significant history of proportionately serving minorities.
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Tier designation was based on the 2004 US News & World Report Rankings.
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Public/Private designation was based on the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar listing.
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Regions are defined according to the ABA/LSAC Official Guide. There are 10 regions:
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Percent Total Whiteness for each law school was calculated by adding total whiteness to total unknown. Whiteness does not include Foreign natitonsl.
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Percent of Total Whiteness in LSAC Applications was calculated by adding percent of total whites (64.4%) to unreported race (3.7%)
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Percent of State Whiteness in LSAC Applications was calculated by dividing the number of applications from whites from a particular state by the number of total applications from the state. (Table)
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Percent of Regional Whiteness in LSAC Application was calculated by dividing the number of applications from whites from a region by the number of total applications from the region.
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Descriptive Statistics include mean, median, minimum, maximum. The purpose of these statistics is to give the reader a 'picture' of the data collected and used.
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Correlation Statistics used was the Spearman Coefficient.
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