I believe it’s safe to say, there is a disturbing trend in higher education surrounding the decline of African-American enrollment at law schools around the nation. Many professionals have their theory to why this is the case. Some African American political leaders like Congressman John Conyers Jr. and Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones have addressed this issue and provided some insight on what is thought to be the root of the problem. Many believe the central problem is the misuse of African American LSAT scores.

Despite, this pressing obstacle, many African American attorneys have endured this fight to become some of the most influential attorneys, judges, supreme court justices, law professors and most recently the president of the United States.

The LSAT is the national standardized test that students interested in graduate law school must take in order to be considered for law school. One African American attorney that has prevailed is Theodore M. Shaw, widely known as Ted Shaw. Shaw is the past President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; a position once held by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Shaw served as Co-Chair of President –Elect Barack Obama’s Transition Team for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Having argued several cases before the United States Supreme Court, Ted Shaw is considered by most a national leader and expert in the area of law and civil rights. While at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Shaw was involved in numerous landmark cases, including as lead counsel in a coalition that represented African-American and Latino students in the University of Michigan undergraduate affirmative action admissions case. In 2003, the United States Supreme Court heard Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, that challenged the use of affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School.

Shaw worked as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. from 1979 to 1982, litigating civil rights cases throughout the country at the trial and appellate levels and at the U.S. Supreme Court. Shaw currently serves on the Legal Advisory Network of the European Roma Rights Council, based in Budapest, Hungary.

In 1979 Shaw graduated from Columbia Law School. He graduated from Wesleyan University with honors. He has served on both Columbia Law’s Board of Visitors and the Wesleyan University Board of Trustees. He has previously taught at the University of Michigan Law School, Temple Law School, CUNY School of Law, and as a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School. Shaw is now a professor of law at Columbia University School of Law.

Despite, individuals like Shaw paving the way for younger up and coming attorneys African American students are still being turned away. Nussbaumer, Associate Dean at Thomas Cooley Law School said that there has been some alarming statistics and trends surrounding African American law students. According to Nussbaumer, 85 percent of African American applicants who scored 145 on the LSAT were turned away. The average African American students scores 142 on the LSAT.

“Nussbaumer said that the most “disturbing”? statistic is the admissions rate. According to Nussbaumer 63 percent of black applicants were denied admission into law schools and this statistic is important to the declining rate of black students because it completely stifles these students from starting a career in law.”

“Efforts during the past 10 years to diversify America’s law schools by enrolling more African-American students have failed because those responsible for law school admissions and accreditation practices have created a de facto and racially discriminatory quota system that restricts African American access to the legal profession,” he wrote in the St. Johns Law Review.”

YOU DO THE MATH…?

For census data, see http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf3chap8.pdf and http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf3chap8.pdf