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CHICANO-LATINO
LAW REVIEW
ARTICLES
ENVIRONMENTAL EQUITY: THE NEXT
GENERATION OF FACILITY
SITING PROGRAMS • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rodolfo Mara
DETERMINING THE LEGITIMACY OF
SPANISH LAND GRANTS IN COLORADO:
CoNFLICTING VALUES, LEGAL
PLURALISM, AND DEMYSTlFICATION OF
THE SANGRE DE CRISToiRAEL CAsE . ………. Richard D. Garcia
and Todd Howland
COMMENTS
Is PosTSECONDARY EDUCATION A FuNDAMENTAL
RIGHT? APPLYING SERRANO v. PR/ESTTO
LET/CIA “A ” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lucila Rosas
~CE, CLASS, AND UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW
ADMISSIONS, 1967-1994 …………………. AlbertY. Muratsuchi
THE TIERRA AMARILLA GRANT, REIES TIJERINA,
AND THE COURTHOUSE RAID ………………… Robert V. Urias
Volume Sixteen Winter 1995
UCLA School of Law
TO OUR READERS:
The Latino community has changed dramatically in the
twenty-one years since the first issue of the Chicano-Latino Law
Review was published in 1972. While conscious that the Review
arose out of the Chicano movement of the late 1960s and early
1970s, the scope of the Review has expanded since then to address
issues affecting the broader Latino community, including
an examination of the cultural, political and economic interaction
of the United States and Latin America.
The primary goal of the Chicana-Latino Law Review is to
provide scholarly and critical analysis of various legal questions
and topics as they might or do affect our growing and changing
community. Thus, a diverse pool of perspectives and insights as
presented by professors of law, students of law, judges, scholars
of nonlegal subjects, and attorneys are variably selected for publication.
In this way, the Review attempts to fulfill an obligation
of service to the national community while maintaining high standards
of scholarly integrity and objectivity.
RACE, CLASS, AND UCLA SCHOOL OF
LAW ADMISSIONS, 1967-1994
I. INTRODUCilON
In 1967, the UCLA School of Law (UCLA) was one of a
small group of law schools that implemented an affirmative action
program designed to give socioeconomically disadvantaged
studentS of color a state-subsidized legal education. Since the
late 1960s, affirmative action has become increasingly controversial,
and UCLA has continued to be one of the leading law
schools in promoting racial diversity in the legal profession.
However, the school’s affirmative action program, subject to institutional
politics as well as legal and political developments at
large, has significantly compromised its early efforts to recruit
and admit more students from low-income backgrounds. ·
This comment argues that the UCLA School of Law admissions
program reflects a fundamental tension between the institution’s
aspiration to join the ranks of the nation’s elite law schools
and its obligation as a public institution to educate and serve
socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. While UCLA
strives to achieve recognition as a top-flight school by attracting
the brightest students, the pursuit of elite status tends to result in
an overwhelmingly white student body from middle to upper-income
families. On the other hand, progressive students and
professors have argued for many years that UCLA, as a taxpayer-
supported institution and the only public law school in
Southern California, has a heightened obligation to educate and
serve people whose diversity reflects that of the state.
This tension in UCLA’s mission is most often revealed in the
debate over its admissions standards: whether to allocate highly
coveted admissions slots strictly on the basis of college grades
and LSAT scores, or on considerations of academic performance
along with factors such as race, class, and the ability and likelihood
to serve low-income minority communities. This comment
argues that values other than academic performance should be
more explicitly recognized as independently important – particularly
in public law school admissions – rather than as mere
aberrations to prevailing notions of academic merit.
The first section of this comment presents a historical account
of UCLA law school’s affirmative action program. The
90
I’ ‘-~ · ~ .
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 91
second section is devoted to a critical discussion of current
UCLA admissions standards and procedures, with proposed
strategies for change. While this comment focuses on UCLA,
the author hopes that this case study will provide insight and guidance
to all advocates of affirmative action.
II. A HisTORICAL AccoUNT OF UCLA SCHooL OF LAw’s
AFFIRMATIVE AcnoN PRoGRAM
A. The Creation of the Legal Educational Opportunity
Program (LEOP), 1966-1967
UCLA law school’s affirmative action program, like similar
programs across the country, began in response to the political
and social climate created by the civil rights movement of the
1960s. In 1965, when the nation’s law schools began to recruit
more minorities, there were no more than 700 black students
among the 65,000 studying law across the country.1 Of the 700
black students, more than 300 were enrolled at the predominantly
black Howard Law School.2 Statistics for Latinos, Asian
Pacific Americans, Native Americans, and other students of
color were not available in 1965, but the enrollment figures for
these groups were likely to have been even lower.
At UCLA, the Watts riots in the summer of 1965 created a
heightened sense of urgency over concerns of race and social inequity.
UCLA was the only public law school in Los Angeles, a
major metropolitan area with one of the most racially diverse
populations in the country. UCLA faculty members – who
have the power to establish the school’s admissions policies –
were heavily influenced by the sense of social pressure and moral
responsibility created by the civil rights movement. 3 As one observer
wrote, “The adoption of preferential admissions programs
by colleges and professional schools seemed a sensible response
to mounting racial tensions caused by the failure of the civil
rights movement to effect more substantive improvement in …
[minority] opportunities and status. “4
Responding to an emerging national trend created by the
civil rights movement, UCLA took initial steps toward an affirmative
action program. At the time, no other California law
school had such a program. UCLA’s initiative was largely due to
1. Louis A. Toepfer, Harvard’s Special Summer School Program, 18 J. LEGAL
Eouc. 443 (1966).
2. ld.
3. Sam Magavern, From Reform to Institution: The History of UCLA Law
School’s Affirmative Action Admissions Procedure 5 (Dec. 19, 1988) (unpublished
student paper, on file with the UCLA Law Library).
4. DERRICK A. BELL JR., RACE, RACISM, AND AMERICAN LAw 658 (3rd ed.,
1992).
92 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
. the efforts of Professor Leon Letwin, the principal architect of
the school’s Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP).s
During the late 1960s, according to Letwin, UCLA and several
other law schools became more willing to accept institutional
responsibility for diversifying their student bodies, rather than
simply bemoaning the profound social inequalities that, in effect,
were barring minorities from legal education.6 Also, the presence
of minority students in law schools became increasingly recognized
as improving the quality of education for the entire
student body because they contributed perspectives unfamiliar to
the existing predominantly white, middle to upper-class student
body.7
The first step that Letwin took was to participate in Harvard
Law School’s special summer school program for black law students
in 1966. Juniors and seniors from southern black colleges
were recruited to attend a program designed to introduce them
to the possibilities of a legal career and to encourage applications
not only to Harvard Law School, but to other law schools as well.
Harvard had already established an affirmative action admissions
program in 1963, admitting 3 black students in 1963, 12 in 1964,
15 in 1965, and 21 in 1966.8
When he returned to UCLA that fall, Letwin, as a member
of the Admissions and Standards Committee (Admissions Committee),
prepared a report to the faculty recommending “adoption
of a program designed to increase law school enrollment of
persons disadvantaged by reason of poverty and ethnic discrimination.
“9 Specifically, the report proposed that the school accept
10 to 15 disadvantaged students for the 1967-1968 year under a
separate admissions process, develop a recruitment program for
such students, operate a summer orientation program similar to
Harvard’s, create a counseling-tutorial program, establish a
scholarship fund, and create ·a faculty committee to supervise the
program as a whole.to
The report presented three primary objectives. First, the
program would help “counteract the effects of poverty and discrimination.
“11 Second, the report highlighted the law school’s
responsibility in molding student attitudes about the “appropri-
5. See generally Leon Letwin, Some Perspectives on Minority Access to Legal
Education, 2 EXPERIMENT AND INNOVATION (1969).
6. /d. at 2.
7. /d.
8. Memorandum from the Admissions and Standards Committee to the
Faculty app. A at 1 (Oct. 18, 1966) (on file with the UCLA School of Law La Raza
Law Students Association [hereinafter LRLSA]).
9. /d. at 1.
10. /d. at 3-4.
11. /d. at 4.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 93
ate concerns for lawyers. “12 Third, the new program would help
meet the accelerating demand for minority professionals, encourage
other minorities to pursue professional careers, and
“contribute at least modestly to the opportunities available to the
disadvantaged to improve the circumstances of their lives in order
to break the self-perpetuating generation-to-generation cycle
of disadvantage. “13
The report particularly emphasized that UCLA, as a public
institution, be sensitive to problems of poverty and discrimination
and be committed to countering their effects. This obligation
was deemed to be important not only for the “moral
leadership” it offered but also for the immediate tangible results
of admitting disadvantaged students.14
At this time, the existing admissions system relied almost
solely on the applicant’s college grades and LSAT scores.15 In
the 1960s, this system resulted in an almost exclusively white student
body. According to Michael Rappaport, Assistant Dean of
Student Admissions:
[There were] serious questions about the proper use and validity
of traditional objective law school admission measurements
such as the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and grade
point average when applied to minority applicants. Having
virtually no experience in applying these factors to non-white
applicants as other than a barrier which kept minority applicants
out of school, the law schools were really not certain to
what extent they could be used in choosing among minority
applicants whom the school did wish to admit. There were
questions shared by some if not all law school faculty and administration
about whether the LSAT had any validity at all
among minority applicants, and, if it was valid, to what extent
was it valid. The same thought, though to a lesser degree, applied
to undergraduate grades.16
To replace a system that relied solely on college grades and
the LSAT, the Admissions Committee proposed the following
admissions criteria as indicators of an applicant’s probable law
school performance: {1) LSAT and college grades, (2) evidence
of grade improvement over time or special competence in relevant
areas, (3) personal interview, ( 4) interviews with the applicant’s
college teachers and advisors, and (5) evidence of relevan~
interests and motivation.17 Additional factors to be considered
12. /d.
13. /d. at 5.
14. /d.
15. /d. at 6.
16. Michael D. Rappaport, The Legal Educational Opportunity Program at
UCLA: Eight Years of Experience, 4 BLACK LJ. 5C17 (1975).
17. Memorandum, supra note 8, at 7-8.
94 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
would be: (1) history of discrimination and poverty, (2) quality of
pre-law educational opportunities, (3) lack of other relevant opportunities,
and ( 4) assessment of the applicant’s motivation and
interests.18
The report was careful to emphasize that the Admissions
Committee was not advocating the admission of unqualified people,
rather “the admission only of those who in the school’s judgment
have the ability to successfully complete law school careers
but who do not qualify under our present extremely high (and
rising) standards . . . . “19
At the same time, it is important to stress that the Letwin
proposal explicitly emphasized the twin goals of remedying discrimination
and poverty.20 That is, Letwin and the other original
supporters of LEOP intended to recruit and admit not only racial
minorities, but students from economically and educationally disadvantaged
backgrounds. 21
The Letwin report was carefully packaged and presented to
the faculty for approval. The proposal was relatively modest –
only 10 to 15 LEOP students were to be admitted. The Admissions
Committee discussed the report widely among the faculty
to incorporate their concerns before submitting it to a vote. The
faculty approved the LEOP proposal by a wide margin.22
To place UCLA’s adoption of LEOP in proper context, several
factors should be considered. As discussed earlier, the civil
rights movement provided the general social and political climate
for the change. During these times of heightened sens~tivity to
issues of racism and poverty, Letwin’s leadership and dedication
to the establishment of LEOP was critical. His efforts were particularly
remarkable given the fact that, at the time, he was not
yet a tenured professor.23 ·
Several other institutional characteristics were relevant to
the adoption of LEOP. There was a core group of liberal faculty
members who solidly supported the proposal. Moreover, according
to one observer, LEOP provided UCLA with an opportunity
to define itself as a leader and unique among the nation’s law
schools. As The Docket (formerly the UCLA Docket), the law
school’s newspaper, declared in an editorial, “UCLA Law School
is in the limelight of U.S. legal education for its initiative and
18. Id. at 8-9.
19. Id. at 6-7.
20. ld. at 1.
21. Id. at 4-5.
22. Magavern, supra note 3, at 4.
23. Interview with Kenneth Graham, Professor of Law at the UCLA School of
Law, in Los Angeles, Cal. (May 16, 1994).
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 95
foresight. “24 Also, the school may have been particularly amenable
to change because it was relatively young – the law school
was founded only 15 years earlier, in 1951.25
It is also noteworthy that LEOP was adopted with little or
no student pressure, either for or against the proposal. For example,
when the UCLA Docket published an open student forum
on What’s Wrong With the Law School in 1966, there was no reference
to the LEOP proposal or to the near absence of minority
students. 26
In the fall of 1967, the first LEOP students enrolled. In a
class of 210, 13 black students and 4 Latino students enrolled. Of
these 17 students, 14 entered through LEOP and 3 through regular
admissions. 21
B. The Initial LEOP Years, 1967-1971
After establishing LEOP’s general framework, one of the
first tasks addressed was recruitment. Letwin organized a summer
orientation program similar to the one he had attended at
Harvard. In the summer of 1968, UCLA, University of Southern
California, and Loyola law schools jointly sponsored a summer
program for about 40 black and Latino pre-law students.28 The
program was sponsored by the Council on Legal Opportunity
(CLEO), an organization established in January 1968 by the Association
of American Law Schools, the American Bar Association,
the National Bar Association, and the Law School
Admission Test Council.29 Students could apply to all three
schools by applying to the Los Angeles CLEO program. 30
While the Harvard summer program recruited black students
from the South to apply to law schools across the country,
the Los Angeles CLEO program recruited minorities within the
Los Angeles area and tried to concentrate the students in the
local law schools. 31 Letwin, as the Los Angeles CLEO Director,
argued that this concentration would help UCLA fulfill its duty
as a “corporate citizen” of Los Angeles.32 Furthermore, it would
provide students with a more familiar and hospitable environ-
24. Non-white Profs Are Needed at Law School, UCLA DoCKET, Nov. 25, 1968,
at 2.
25. Magavern, supra note 3, at 5.
26. Forum: What’s Wrong with the Law School, UCLA DoCKET, Sept. 30, 1966,
at 3.
27. Magavern, supra note 3, at 7.
28. Letwin, supra note 5, at 3.
29. /d. at 3.
30. ld. at 8.
31. Memorandum, supra note 8, at 12-13.
32. Letwin, supra note 5, at 7-8.
96 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
ment and enable them “to develop a more effective voice within
the school on issues of vital concern to them.”33
After. two years of CLEO, however, UCLA decided that its
benefit as a recruitment tool and tutorial device was limited and
short lived.34 By that time, UCLA was able to look to their own
LEOP students to help recruit and interview applicants. The students
were receptive and eager to expand the program and gain
influence in the decision-making process.Js
While developing the school’s recruitment efforts, the
faculty also focused on revising the admissions process. Some
faculty members questioned the validity of existing admissions
procedures. Letwin, for example, felt that it was “indefensible
that the decisions should reflect solely the values of white academics”
and argued that “[a]ppropriate participation should be
guaranteed through minority faculty members (where they exist),
administrators, students, or lawyers.”36 Thus, in the fall of 1968,
the faculty added voting student members to most of its committees,
including the Admissions Committee. 37 Moreover, the
faculty decided to allow the newly formed Black American Law
Students Association (BALSA) and the Mexican American and
Indian Law Students Association (MAILSA) to conduct
mandatory interviews with each minority applicant to determine
whether to recommend the candidate for admission. 38
With the groundwork for LEOP established, proponents of
the program pushed for its expansion. Letwin advocated for
UCLA’s minority enrollment to approximate the minority population
in California, which was then 20 to 25 percent.39 Under
Letwin ‘s leadership as Chair of the Admissions Committee,
UCLA enrolled 47 LEOP students (26 black, .19 Chicano, and 2
Native American students) in the fall of 1969.40 The faculty also
adopted the expansion of admissions quotas to 32 black, 32 Chicano,
and 2 Native American students for each entering class.41
This expansion gave UCLA the largest affirmative action
program of any law school in the country.42 Some of the faculty,
including the new Dean, Murray Schwartz, thought the expansion
was a rash decision, feeling that many of the students filling
33. Id. at 7-8.
34. Rappaport, supra note 16, at 512.
35. Id. at 511.
36. Letwin, supra note 5, at 16.
37. Magavem, supra note 3, at 10.
38. Id. at 9.
39. Jim Birmingham, Prof. Letwin Calls for 25% Minority Student Enrollment,
UCLA DOCKET, Nov. 25,1968, at 1.
40. Magavem, supra note 3, at 10.
41. ld.
42. ld.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS
the slots would not have the academic qualifications to graduate
and pass the bar.43 Others were concerned that UCLA was becoming
a school for the “less-qualified. “44 One professor recalls:
The most tense faculty meeting I ever attended took place
during the 1969-70 academic year, when we considered the
question of whether to increase the number of minority admissions.
The debate was couched in terms of whether we should
show our commitment by increasing the then current numbers.
No one discussed what everyone was thinking: “If we increase
to X now, must we show good faith next year by increasing X
and good faith the next year by improving on that figure, etc.
– and at what point will the character of the law school, as we
know it, change.”45
Despite these apprehensions, LEOP continued to expand.
In 1969, two Asian American students who had entered the
school under regular admissions proposed the creation of two
LEOP slots for Asian American students. The faculty initially
rejected extending the program, arguing that Asian Americans
had suffered less socioeconomic and educational disadvantages
than blacks, Chicanos, and Native Americans. However, as a
demonstration of political solidarity, BALSA and MAILSA supported
the Asian American students’ proposal with each organization
giving up one of the quota slots reserved for blacks and
Chicanos in order to admit two Asian American LEOP students
in 1970.46 This demonstration of interracial support began a
longstanding tradition at UCLA: Students of color working collaboratively
to support affirmative action.
In 1971, the school responded to continued pressure by setting
aside six LEOP slots for Asian Americans:
With the addition of the Asian adrnissions slots, the LEOP
program assumed the size that it would maintain until the
landmark Bakke decision of 1978. In 1971, the law school enrolled
31 black, 31 Chicano, 6 Asian, and 2 Native American
students to attain 22 [percent] minority enrollment.47
While most schools at the time did not consider Asian Americans
for affirmative action programs, UCLA recognized the sizeable
Asian American community in Los Angeles and in the state, as
well as their significant proportional underrepresentation in the
43. Id.
44. Id. at 11.
45. Memorandum from Reginald Alleyne, Professor of Law at the UCLA
School of Law, to the Faculty 3 (June 1, 1978) (on file with LRLSA}.
46. Interview with Mike Yamamoto, in Los Angeles, Cal. (Feb. 23, 1992}, cited
in Doris Ng, A History of APILSA’s Struggle With UCLAW’s Admissions Program
8 (March 11, 1992) (unpublished student paper, on file with LRLSA).
47. Magavem, supra note 3, at 12-13.
98 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
legal profession.48 The faculty also recognized the history of
anti-Asian racism such as the World War n Japanese internment
camps and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Several factors are relevant in analyzing the institutional dynamics
that led to LEOP’s expansion in its early years. One factor
was the infiuence of minority students. BALSA and
MAILSA provided students of color with an organizational base
to participate in the admissions process and to push for LEOP’s
expansion. Another factor was the hiring of young, liberal
faculty members at the law school.49 For example, in 1969, a
quarter of the faculty had been hired within the previous three
years.50 Of the six who started in 1969, Reginald Alleyne and
Henry McGee were black, Gary Schwartz was the co-founder of
the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and
Michael Tigar was a Berkeley student activist. 51 In fact, it was
Tigar who had proposed the LEOP expansion in 1969.52 Finally,
the faculty assessed LEOP’s first year and determined that larger
numbers of minority students were needed to avoid creating a
sense of isolation and tokenism among them. 53
C. Debates Over LEOP Standards and Procedures, 1972-1977
The admissions debate at UCLA during most of the 1970s
focused less ·on the number of LEOP admission slots and more
on admission standards and decision-making procedures. While
minority enrollment nationwide rose from 5.9 percent in 1971-72
to a peak of 8.1 percent in 1976-77, UCLA remained far ahead of
most schools and felt less social pressure to expand LEOP .54 The
faculty generally felt that the law school was accepting roughly as
many applicants as had the minimum qualifications to make it
through law school and the bar examination.55 Moreover, black,
Chicano, and Native American applications to the school remained
consistent. Applications from Asian American students
were rising steadily, but the school felt less of a need to admit
Asian American students through affirmative action as they began
to enter universities in larger numbers under regular
admissions.56
48. Magavem, supra note 3, at 12.
49. ld. at 11.
SO. Cruger Briant, New Profs Show Chtmges, UCLA DoCKET, Sept. 24, 1969, at
1, 8.
51. Magavem, supra note 3, at 12.
52. ld.
53. ld. at 11-12.
54. Id. at 15.
55. ld.
56. ld.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 99
On the issue of admissions standards, minority activists argued
that the LEOP program should focus on admitting disadvantaged
students of color who were likely to serve their
communities. 57 They argued that race, economic and educational
disadvantage, and prior commitment to community service
should be the primary basis of LEOP admissions decisions.
These factors, they argued, were better indicators than grades .
and the LSAT to determine an applicant’s likelihood to serve
their community as a lawyer. Grades and the LSAT, on the
other hand, should be considered only to demonstrate that an
applicant possessed the minimum academic skills necessary to
successfully complete law school and pass the bar. Moreover, the
students of color argued that they were better qualified than the
mostly white and socioeconomically privileged professors and
administrators to determine which applicants identified most
closely with low-income and minority communities and would be
the most able and likely to serve these communities.
The faculty, on the other hand, disagreed among themselves
as to the importance of nonacademic criteria and minority student
input in admissions decision-making. Under Letwin’s leadership,
UCLA had de-emphasized its traditional reliance on
college grades and LSAT scores as admissions criteria. The
traditional criteria returned into favor, however, when LEOP
students demonstrated difficulties in law school and on bar exam.
inations and when professors, other than the original LEOP proponents,
became more assertive in the admissions debate.
The conflict between the positions of the minority student
groups and many of the faculty was evident in the LEOP admissions
decision-making process. For example, the 1971 Admissions
Committee consisted of six professors and three students.
The three minority student organizations interviewed all applicants
over a two-month period, either in person or by phone.
They emphasized factors such as community service and ethnic
affiliation. The student groups then compiled preference lists
based on the interviews. Meanwhile, faculty members compiled
a preference list based solely on grades and LSAT scores. From
that point, faculty and student members of the Admissions Committee
negotiated over applicants on the basis of their respective
rank orderings.58
57. ld.
58. Chicano LEOP Admissions Process, HoSTILE WITNESS (UCLA Chapter of
the Nat’l Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles, Cal.), Sept. 20, tm, at 3, 4.
100 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
1. LEOP Standards: A Renewed Emphasis on Academic
Criteria, 1973
In 1971, the faculty formed a LEOP task force to address
their concerns over the academic qualifications of LEOP students.
59 The faculty now had five years of experience with over
three hundred LEOP students and three years of their barresults.
Only two of the ten students from the class of 1970 who
made it to the bar passed it. 6o Only 35 percent of the class of
1971 who took the bar passed it on their first try, and only 15
percent of the class of 1972 who took the bar passed it on their
.first try.61 The statistics were quite discouraging for LEOP students
at the time the task force was convened.
The task force recommended to the faculty the adoption of a
new admissions system which, while continuing to utilize subjective
criteria, placed greater emphasis on LSAT scores and college
grades. This recommendation was based on the task force’s findings
of apparently significant correlations between academic criteria
and law school and bar exam performance for LEOP
students. 62 According to Rappaport, their findings seemed to indicate
that while the LSAT and grades could not be used when
measuring minority students against white students without taking
into account their disadvantaged backgrounds, the same data
could be used when measuring minority applicants against each
other in order to select those applicants most likely to successfully
complete law school and become members of the bar.63
There were also signs of both internal and external political
influences on the task force. For example, Rappaport and many
faculty members interpreted the data to indicate that “below a
certain minimum, measurable level of competence, motivation,
desire and special help are simply not enough to get minorities
into the legal system in an acceptably large number of cases to
justify a special admissions progran) to its would-be critics and
outside observers. “64 Some members of the task force were
more candid about the political heat that LEOP opponents were
directing at the law school. Affirmative action was becoming increasingly
controversial in the country. Also, some faculty members
were unhappy about how the LEOP bar results, in their
opinion, were undermining UCLA’s national prestige.65
59. Magavem, supra note 3, at 16.
60. Rappaport, supra note 16, at 526.
61. Id.
62. Id. at 508-511.
63. Id. at 507.
64. Id. at 511.
65. LEOP Curtailed, HosTILE WITNEss (UCLA Chapter of the Nat’l Lawyers
Guild, Los Angeles, Cal.), Mar. 26, 1973, at 1, 11.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 101
On March 5, 1973, the faculty approved the task force’s new
statement of purpose for the LEOP program.66 The newlyadopted
statement of purpose did not differ significantly from
the general LEOP goals already in place. However, one significant
policy change was that the law school would only consider
applicants with a predictive index (PI) over a minimum threshold.
The predictive index represents a figure calculated from a
standard formula using an applicant’s grades and LSAT score.
The student interviews would continue, but with the primary goal
of shedding additional light on an applicant’s academic ability
and probability of completing law school and entering the legal
profession. 67
The faculty also adopted the task force’s recommendation
that applicants should not be evaluated on the basis of their
stated commitment to community service.68 While the task force
did not disagree with the program’s goal of increasing community
service, there were several concerns. One was that the concept
of “community service” was too vague.69 For example, the
admissions criteria was not clear as to whether one who works in
a corporate law firm could be considered to be serving her community.
70 Second, there was the fear that applicants would uniformly
declare community service as a goal regardless of their
actual intentions. 71 Third, some professors felt that the law
school should not be attempting to mold the career choices of
individuals.72 Finally, some professors believed that a “substantial
portion of graduates in the program will in fact devote a significant
part of their professional endeavors to such service. “73
Therefore,. the faculty decided that an admissions criterion to encourage
service was not necessary.
The minority student groups criticized the renewed emphasis
on traditional academic criteria by arguing that the faculty
had gutted one of the original goals of LEOP – to train lawyers
from disadvantaged backgrounds to serve the underserved –
and replaced it with a program for the “cream of the Chicano,
black, and Asian crop. “74 This criticism would be repeated many
times in subsequent years as UCLA’s admissions standards
placed increasing emphasis on grades and the LSAT.
66. Minutes of Faculty Meeting, March 5, 1973, at 209 (on file with the Office of
the Dean, UCLA School of Law).
67. Id. at 210.
68. /d. at 212.
69. ld.
70. Id. at 212-13.
71. Id. at 213.
72. ld.
73. Id.
74. LEOP CurtaUed, supra note 65, at 1.
102 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
2. The Denial of Student Voting Power on Admissions Matters,
1975
In 1975, the administration took further steps to weaken student
input in the admissions process. Students had voted along
with faculty members on individual admissions cases since the
initial appointment of students to the Admissions Committee.
However, in the fall of 1972, Dean Murray Schwartz claimed that
the law school’s by-law provisions allowing students and other
non-faculty members to vote confiicted with the Standing Orders
of the Regents of the University of California, which delegates
the power to make admissions decisions to the faculty of each
campus department. 1s Thus, according to Schwartz, university
policy did not allow students to vote on individual admissions
cases. Despite student protests that the administration was misinterpreting
the university regulations, the Admissions Committee
stripped student members of their voting power in the spring
of 1975.76
Despite the loss of voting privileges, students continued to
play an influential role in the admissions decision-making process.
As the faculty meeting minutes of January 26, 1976
indicated:
The fact is that student influence on the decisions of the Admissions
Committee is substantial, even in the absence of the
students’ right to vote. On the basis of last year’s experience,
it appears that disagreement between student and faculty
members of the Admissions Committee on selection of LEOP
applicants occurs in relatively few cases.n
3. Students Reassert Nontraditional Admissions Criteria, 1975
On April 23, 1975, the Admissions Committee met to discuss
two proposed admissions policy changes. One was a proposal
to further formalize the emphasis on grades and the LSAT by
ranking applicants by their predictive index with the presumption
that this ranking would be followed. The second was to completely
eliminate any student and faculty consideration of an applicant’s
likelihood of community service.
Notified in advance of the Committee’s meeting, students
mobilized. Over a hundred students packed the faculty conference
room as the Third World Coalition (Coalition)- the Asian
American Law Students Association (AALSA), the renamed
75. Murray the Marshmallow, HoSTILE WITNESs (UCLA Chapter of the Nat’l
Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles, Cal.), Nov. 6, 1972, at 1, 7.
76. LEOP Students Seek Greater Control, HoSTILE WITNESS (UCLA Chapter
of the Nat’l Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles, Cal.), Nov. 24, 1975, at 6.
77. Minutes of Faculty Meeting, Jan. 26, 1976, at 173 (on file with the Office of
the Dean, UCLA School of Law).
1995) UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 103
Chicano Law Students Association (CLSA), and BALSA
presented a list of demands:
1. That the Predictability Index be discarded;
2. That Third World students exercise an equal vote on the
LEOP Admissions Policy Committee;
3. That the vehicle employed for evaluation and selection of
the Third World applicant be the interview process established
by the respective group, in compliance with the following
considerations:
a. The candidate’s knowledge of and sensitivity to the social,
political, educational, and economic problems faced
by his or her community;
b. The candidate’s previous community involvement;
c. Bi-lingual ability, where applicable;
d. The socio-economic composition of the candidate’s
family;
e. The candidate’s educational experience;
f. The candidate’s work experience.78
As in the 1973 debate, the Coalition and faculty members once
again confronted each other over whether to emphasize the predictive
index or the list of criteria designed to favor disadvantaged
minorities committed to community service. For example,
CLSA argued that the predictive index measures how far removed
the Third World applicants are from their own racial and
cultural group and how well the candidate has adopted the standards
and values of the white majority culture. 79
To evaluate the proposals of both the faculty and the Coalition,
the new Dean, William Warren, formed an LEOP task force
in the fall of 1975, with six professors and four students.80 The
task force held hearings, received written comments, and prepared
a report that the faculty adopted without major changes on
January 26, 1976.st
The report was a mixed bag for students. On the one hand,
the task force stated that “the evaluation and selection of LEOP
applicants … should take into account not only all of the conventional
criteria but also all six of the criteria listed by the Third
World Coalition …. “82 However, the faculty’s deep skepticism
of the ability to predict and adequately define “community service”
led them to decide that “the future intention of an applicant
to seek employment in or to serve his or her minority
78. Crucial LEOP Confrontation, HoSTILE WITNESS (UCLA Chapter of the
Nat’l Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles, Cal.), Apr. 23, 1975, at 1; Minutes of Faculty
Meeting, supra note n, at 163-164.
79. Position of the Chicano lAw Students Association, HoSTILE WITNESS
(UCLA Chapter of the Nat’l Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles, Cal.), Apr. 23, 1975, at 3.
80. LEOP Students Seek Greater Control, supra note 76, at 6.
81. Minutes of Faculty Meeting, supra note 77, at 157.
82. ld. at 172.
104 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
community should not be considered a criterion for admission. “83
At the same time, they recognized the importance of admitting
students who would be well qualified to serve if they chose to do
so. As the report summarized, “[N]o one supposes that pledges
by applicants to ‘return to the community’ are reliable predictions
of future conduct; but the six criteria listed will help to determine
which applicants have the minimum skills necessary for
effective work in the minority community.”84
The report also focused on the mandatory student
interviews:
Perhaps no aspect of the LEOP admissions program has received
as much critical attention as the [minority student
group] interview process. Concern has been expressed from
time to time that the compulsory interview may be “threatening/’
“humiliating,” and “insulting”; that there may not be sufficient
safeguards against favoritism in the selection process;
and that applicants who are political activists and advocates of
“radical social change” may be given preference over those
who are believed to accept “establishment values.”85
Nevertheless, the task force rejected challenges to the mandatory
interviewing process by concluding, “[w]hatever irrelevant and
invidious influences may have been brought to bear in the interview
process in the early stages of the LEOP admissions program,
we have found no significant evidence that they exist
today.”86 The task force decided that making the LEOP interviews
optional would create a double standard – some applicants
being admitted primarily on their paper records and others
on the basis of the Coalition’s criteria, which the task force considered
“both relevant and significant. “87
The faculty was also concerned with the Coalition’s proposed
consideration of “the candidate’s knowledge of and sensitivity
to, the social, political, educational and economic problems
faced by his or her community. “88 They feared that this standard
carried too much potential for abuse as an ideological litmus test.
The task force investigated these concerns and concluded, “We
have found no evidence to support the charge that LEOP applicants
are selected primarily on the basis of economic, social, or
political ideology.s9 Indeed, it appears that those admitted in recent
years reflect a broad range of views on those matters. “90
83. Id.
84. ld. at 172-73.
85. Id. at 169.
86. ld.
87. Id. at 170.
88. ld. at 157.
89. ld.
90. Id. at 170.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 105
Nonetheless, to allay any persistent concerns, the faculty voted to
add to the report, “No political test shall be used in the admissions
process. “91
Perhaps most significant for students, the faculty adopted
the task force’s proposal that the applicants be considered in the
?r~er r~ed by the students and that “[i]n the ordinary course,
tt IS anttctpated that the student groups’ ranking will be accepted
by the Admissions Committee. “92 This presumption in favor of
the student rankings of applicants seemed to be a clear victory
for the Coalition.
The student presumption was debated at length. Professor
Kenneth Karst, an influential member of the faculty, urged adoption
of the student presumption, arguing that it was crucial to
show that the faculty sincerely believed that the student interview
process was important, and that adopting the student presumption
was a symbol of the faculty’s faith in the interview
process.93 Professor Letwin also supported it, arguing that since
there was no student vote on the Admissions Committee, the
presumption was a relatively mild vote of confidence for the legitimacy
of the student interview process.94 However, other
faculty members argued against the presumption, objecting to
the presumptive power that it gave to the students’ recommendations.
Dean Warren cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the
students, on the condition that the specific wording of the policy
be changed to emphasize the “predictive” and not “imperative”
nature of the student recommendations.9s
While the adoption of the student presumption was an important
symbolic victory for the Coalition, the actual implementation
of the presumption was often questionable. According to
one professor, different Admissions Committee faculty members
accorded different weight to the student recommendations ranging
from none, in clear violation of the presumption, to some
weight in close cases. 96 ·
Nonetheless, it is important to understand why the faculty
acceded to many of the student demands for nontraditional admissions
criteria and student input. It is likely that the persistence,
vehemence and well-organized nature of the Coalition’s
protests was a significant factor. Student voting power was a
compelling cause to rally around, and the Coalition, along with
91. ld. at 157.
92. /d. at 161.
93. LEOP Admissions, HosTILE WITNESS (UCLA Chapter of the Nat’l Lawyers
Guild, Los Angeles, Cal.), Feb. 19, 1976, at 4, 6.
94. /d.
95. ld.
96. Alleyne, supra note 45, at 3.
106 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
the leftist National Lawyers Guild, provided an excellent or-.
ganizing base.97 But the ultimate decision-making power still resided
with th~ faculty. The student protests were effective
primarily because many faculty members were already sensitive
to the students’ arguments, accusations, and anger. For example,
Professor Karst argued that the adoption of the student presumption
would help build a feeling of community between
faculty and students.9S
D. The Impact of Bakke: UCLA’s Adoption of “Diversity”
Admissions, 1978
During the first ten years of LEOP, the debate over admissions
standards and procedures was driven largely by the law
school’s internal politics. However, the Supreme Court’s
landmark Bakke99 decision had a greater impact on UCLA’s affirmative
action program than any development since the civil
rights movement. Bakke held that the University of California,
Davis Medical School’s racial admissions quota system was unconstitutional.
100 Most of the UCLA faculty interpreted Bakke
to mean that the LEOP program was also likely to be found unconstitutional.
The law school was particularly concerned because
at least one organization, the Anti-Defamation League of
B’Nai B’Rith, had intimated that they were considering a lawsuit
to challenge LEOP.tot
In the fall of 1978, Dean Warren appointed a new task force
to revise the school’s admissions policy. The chairman of the
task force, constitutional law professor Kenneth Karst, informally
consulted with faculty members while preparing the task
force report. There seemed to be a broad consensus that the
faculty wanted to preserve the school’s minority enrollment at
current levels while protecting., their affirmative action efforts
from litigation. Under Karst’s leadership, the task force decided
that the best way to achieve these objectives was to follow what
Karst calls the “how-to-do-it manual” of Justice Powell’s opinion
in Bakke, which approved Harvard College’s “diversity” ap-
. proach.1°2 Powell rejected the traditional affirmative action focus
on remedying past discrimination, and instead treated race as
97. Rogelio Flores, The Stru$gle for Minority Admissions: the UCLA Experience,
5 CHICANO L. REv. 1, 4-5 (1982).
98. Steve Shuman, LEOP Report Adapted, THE DoCKET, Feb. 26, 1976, at 1, 8.
99. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
100. /d.
101. Magavem, supra note 3, at 23.
102. Memorandum from the Admissions Task Force to the Faculty 2-4 (Nov. 21,
1978) (on file with the UCLA Law Library) [hereinafter Karst Report]; Bakke, 438
U.S. at 316-19.
(
i
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 107
one of a broad range of “diversity” factors that university admissions
officers could appropriately consider in seeking diverse student
bodies.103 Using Powell’s opinion as a guide, the task force
set out to design a diversity admissions program that would continue
to be race-conscious, at least in part.104 The Karst Report,
as the task force’s proposal became known, was adopted by the
faculty.105
The Karst Report gave two official goals for the newly
adopted admissions program:
(a) Academic Promise. No student shall be admitted to the
law school unless it is probable that he or she will be able to
complete law school successfully and to be admitted to the bar
by passing [the] bar examination.
(b) Diversity in the Student Body. The Law School seeks
to produce a student body that is diverse in its members’
backgrounds, perspectives and career goals, in order to
achieve the educational benefits of such diversity and to promote
the objective of providing legal representation for the
underrepresented.t06
The Report’s diversity criteria included:
1. racial/ethnic background;
2. ability in languages other than English;
3. work experience or career achievement;
4. previous positions of leadership or other special
achievements;
5. prior community or public service;
6. unusual life experiences;
7. physical handicap or other disadvantage;
8. career goals;
9. economic disadvantage.t07
One of the most important features of the diversity program
was its size – up to 40 percent of each entering class. An interesting
issue is how this 40 percent figure was arrived at, given the
20 to 25 percent enrollment quotas that were in place under the
LEOP program. The Karst Report implied that the numerical
level of minority enrollment would remain basically constant.
For example, the report stated, “[o]ur recent levels of minority
representation have enabled us to reap the rewards of … ‘educational
pluralism.’ “tos The report also cited the need to maintain
a “critical mass” of students from each minority group “to avoid
103. Bakke, 438 U.S. at 316-319.
104. Karst Report, supra note 102, at 2-3.
105. Flores, supra note 97, at 11; Howard Posner, Faculty Adopts Diversity Admissions
as Minority Students go on Hunger Strike, THE DoCKET, Dec. 7, 1978, at 1.
106. Karst Report, supra note 102, at 17.
107. Id. at 18.
108. Id. at 6.
108 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
the sense of isolation and to make such students feel comfortable
in speaking in the classroom and otherwise participating actively
. . .. “109 These statements suggested the desire of the task force
to maintain the existing levels of minority enrollment. Thus, in
order to maintain the 20 to 25 percent minority enrollment
levels, any new affirmative action program would have to be expanded
to admit students under diversity criteria other than race.
Moreover, according to Karst, the 40 percent figure was primarily
a result of litigation strategy. According to one observer,
The [t)ask [f]orce, being cautious litigators and liberal policymakers,
felt that the diversity enrollment would have to be 35-
40 percent to fend off any claims that it was simply the LEOP
system in disguise. In other words, 10-20 percent non-minority
students would be enrolled as a kind of litigation
buffer. “110
However, the .report was careful to emphasize that every applicant
is eligible for consideration for every place in the entering
class, regardless of race.1tt
The Coalition vehemently opposed the new diversity admissions
system on several grounds. One of the main points of contention
was the extent to which an applicant’s disadvantaged
background would be considered under the new diversity system.
The Karst Report focused on disadvantage only to the extent
that it sheds light on the likelihood of an applicant’s success in
law school and the bar examination.u2 For example, an applicant’s
full academic potential may not be indicated in her grades
and LSAT score if she had to work full-time while attending college
or could not afford a private LSAT preparatory course.
According to the Coalition, the faculty’s emphasis on grades
and the LSAT for diversity students meant that, in general, minorities
who have suffered the least amount of economic and educational
disadvantages would be the most likely to be admitted.
As an alternative, the Coalition emphasized disadvantage as the
primary criterion for affirmative action admissions.113 An emphasis
on disadvantage was likely to result in admitting diversity
students with lower grades and LSAT scores at the expense of
more well-to-do minorities with higher academic records. Proponents
of the disadvantaged approach argued that wealthier appli-
109. ld.
110. Magavem, supra note 3, at 23.
111. Karst Report, supra note 102, at 7.
112. Id. at 7-8.
113. See, e.g., Chicano Law Students Association, A Proposal for a Legal Educational
Opportunity Program for Disadvantaged Students, Oct. 13, 1978 (on file with
LRLSA); Esteban Lizardo, Historical Background, Speech at the UCLA School of
Law (Mar. 30, 1988), in 9 CHICANO L. REv. 75, 77 (1988).
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 109
cants can always go to private schools, while disadvantaged
students can only afford public schools.tt4
Moreover, the students charged that taking the focus away
from disadvantage would lead to the admission of minorities on
the basis of superficial characteristics such as an applicant’s skin
color or an ethnic surname, rather than .on the applicant’s life
experience as a disadvantaged minority. The diversity program,
they argued, smacked of tokenism.
Combined with the charge of tokenism, the Coalition attacked
what they saw as UCLA’s shift in focus from providing
legal representation to underserved minority communities to
providing a diverse educational environment for the benefit of
students. They felt that the diversity approach had taken away
the heart of LEOP: To train lawyers to serve disadvantaged
communities.11s Despite the fact that one of the new system’s
stated goals was to provide legal representation for the underrepresented,
many students and faculty supporters saw the primary
thrust of the diversity program to be the provision of a
diverse learning atmosphere. Professor Kenneth Graham, who
was an outspoken supporter of the Coalition’s position, opposed
the diversity program for being designed to create an “ethnic zoo
for the edification of wealthy white students. “116
Finally, students opposed the new admissions decision-making
procedure. Under the new procedure, the Admissions Committee
would be divided into three reading teams, each with two
professors and one student. Each team would select admittees
from a random third of the applicants whom the Assistant Dean
had selected as possessing one or more of the recognized diversity
characteristics. The minority student groups could submit a
written recommendation to accompany an applicant’s file, but
there was no presumption that it would be followed. Furthermore,
applicants would now have the option of personal interviews,
rather than being required to interview as they were under
LEOP.117
There were several reasons for eliminating mandatory student
interviews. Most of them were fully debated in past years,
including concerns over an applicant’s privacy, the faculty’s fear
of student groups engaging in ideological screening, and faculty
skepticism over the student groups’ ability to predict future community
service. According to the faculty, there were also some
reports of applicants who complained of offensive interviews, as
114. Howard Posner, Faculty Headed for ‘Diversity’ Admissions, THE DoCKET,
Nov. 1, 1978, at 1, 5.
115. Posner, supra note 105, at 1, 5.
116. Interview with Kenneth Graham, supra note 23.
117. Karst Report, supra note 102, at 1.
110 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 16:90
well as local pre-law advisors commenting that interviews were
deterring some potential applicants.us Fmally, many faculty
members felt that the mandatory interviews were simply a great
time burden on faculty and student participants that unjustifiably
delayed the admissions process.u9
Students protested the proposed diversity program bitterly.
The Coalition held several rallies, gathering the media’s attention
by featuring prominent supporters like civil rights leader Cesar
Chavez.120 Their attempts to reason with the faculty had failed,
and the new system was scheduled for adoption only days before
finals. Left to desperate measures, they occupied a wing of the
school, and more than forty students went on a hunger strike.
Many of the students feared that the faculty was going to use
Bakke to eliminate or significantly cut back on minority admissions,
and felt powerless to stop such changes except through
dramatic means. However, despite the students’ valiant efforts,
the faculty voted to adopt the diversity program.
The admissions policy changes indicated that the majority of
the faculty wanted to cut back on student influence in admissions
affairs. Even professors who had advocated for greater student
input as members of the 1975 LEOP task force felt that student
input had gone too far in the last three years.121 In particular,
many professors may have been reacting at least in part to events
in the previous school year, when students protested over
UCLA’s failure to fill the 32-student quota for Chicanos. That
year, students occupied the law library and went on strike for
eight days, effectively cancelling many classes with demonstrations,
picket lines, and a class boycott.122
Despite the fears of many students, minority enrollment ultimately
did not decrease under the diversity program. In the
years following the adoption of the new system, black and Latino
enrollment varied from year to year, while Asian American enrollment
increased most significantly.123
E. The Proposal to Cut Asian Americans from Diversity
Admissions, 1981-1982
There were several reasons for the rise in Asian American
enrollment. First, there was a dramatic increase in Asian Ameri-
118. /d. at 12-13.
119. Lizardo, supra note 113, at 76.
120. Cesar Chavez, A Worker’s Perspective, Speech at the UCLA School of Law
(Mar. 30, 1988), in 9 CHICANo L. REv. 75, 87 (1988).
121. Magavem, supra note 3, at 28.
122. Flores, supra note 97, at 6-7; Diane Shennan, Admissions to be Revised, THE
DoCKET, Aug. 31, 1978, at 1, 31.
123. Magavem, supra note 3 app. at 45-47.
I
(
I
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 111
can applicants, from 121 in 1979 to 319 in 1983. Also, more
Asian American applicants were being admitted strictly on the
basis of their grades and LSAT scores, rather than on diversity
considerations. Moreover, as one observer points out, ·Asian
American enrollment benefited from the admissions system
change. LEOP had 6 slots set aside for Asian Americans, while
diversity admissions had no such limit. While LEOP by design
set aside larger numbers of admission slots for blacks and Latinos,
the goals of the diversity program seemed to apply with
equal force to Asian Americans as to the other groups. This was
particularly true in light of the rapidly growing Asian American
community in Los Angeles and the state. Furthermore, the Admissions
Committee’s use of three reading teams – with one
student member from each of the Asian, black, and Latino stu- .
dent groups – may have boosted Asian American student influence
as well as created symbolic parity with blacks and
Latinos.124
Affirmative action for Asian Americans, particularly Chinese
and Japanese Americans, continued to be controversial
among the faculty, and the admissions reading teams were widely
inconsistent in their evaluation of Asian American applicants.
According to Michael Rappaport, Assistant Dean of Admissions,
in one year, one of the teams decided not to admit any Asian
American students.t25
In the fall of 1981, Professor Jonathan Varat, the Admissions
Committee chair for the 1981-82 school year, addressed the issue
of affirmative action for Asian Americans. Professor Varat
wanted to codify the prevailing practice of not admitting wealthier
Japanese and Chinese Americans under diversity admissions
unless they possessed some other diversity characteristic.126
Some faculty members felt that while Japanese and Chinese
Americans have certainly suffered historical discrimination they
should not receive special treatment. They cited the fact that
Chinese and Japanese Americans were already being admitted in
proportion to their statewide population representation through
the regular (i.e., non-diversity) admissions process.
While Varat claimed it was only a pro forma change, the
Asian Pacific Law Students Association (APLSA) and other supportive
students feared the proposal would result in a drop or
elimination of all Asian Americans from diversity admissions.
124. Id. at 30.
125. Id. at 31.
126. ld. at 31-32.
112 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW (Vol.16:90
According to one observer, at least some professors, . including
Dean Warren, intended a significant change.t27
Students mobilized to protest the proposed change. On
Aprill2, 1982, about 25 students occupied the law school records
office while over a hundred other students chanted in the adjacent
hallway. After a heated negotiation with the occupying students,
Dean Warren and then Assistant Dean, Susan Prager
signed an informal agreement that Asian Americans would not
be dropped from diversity admissions and that student interviews
would not be further denied, at least for the remainder of the
semester and over the summer.128 Prominent members of the local
Asian American community and bar association also lodged
protests with Dean Warren. Warren and Varat ultimately decided
to table the issue indefinitely.t29
F. Further Erosion of Student Input
· Students seemed to have succeeded in achieving at least a
symbolic victory in preventing the law school from cutting Asian
Americans from diversity admissions. However, the trend was
clearly toward further erosion of student input in admissions affairs.
Some faculty members, along with the new Dean, Susan
Prager, were discontent with the admissions reading teams. Each
year, the Admissions Committee reviewed several hundred to a
thousand applications from applicants who did not qualify
through regular admissions ( 60 percent of every entering class)
but may have qualified for further consideration because of elements
of diversity in their background. The procedure was as
follows. First, the Assistant Dean of Admissions read all files
and designated those appropriate for consideration under diversity
admissions. Second, if the applicant desired, a minority student
group interviewed the applicant and wrote comments on
her file before forwarding the file to two faculty members for a
vote.130
During his term as Chair of the Admissions Committee,
Varat proposed to do away with both reading teams and optional
interviews for several reasons. Frrst, Varat felt that the process
was burdensome to faculty and student participants.131 Second,
the reading teams were inconsistent in applying the official list of
criteria. The diversity criteria were numerous and somewhat
127. Id. at 32.
128. Picketers Invade Records Office, THE DoCKET, Apr. 19, 1982, at 1.
129. Magavern, supra note 3, at 32.
130. Memorandum from Jonathan Varat, Professor of Law at the UCLA School
of Law, to the Faculty (Dec. 1, 1981) (on file with LRLSA).
131. Barbara Riegelhaupt, Admissions: The Controversy, THE DoCKET, Feb. 16,
1982, at 1, 6.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 113
vague, creating a lot of room for interpretation. Each year
brought new professors and students into the process with different
ideas about what made an applicant attractive.132 Third, the
interviews and the lengthy decision-making process made the
system slow, resulting in UCLA lagging a month or more behind
other schools in sending out acceptance letters and recruiting top
students.133 Fmally, Varat asserted that the experience of past
committee members has been that the process yields very little
useful information that is not already available in the written
application.134
Instead, Varat suggested a system in which the Committee
Chair would make decisions subject to a veto by at least three
members of the Committee, including at least two faculty members.
The file would then be sent to the full Committee for consideration.
135 As expected, minority students protested the
proposal as yet another step toward denying students meaningful
input in the admissions process. In response, Varat compromised
and asked that his proposal be implemented only for “clearly admissible”
students – those whose college grades and LSAT
score are higher than some predetermined level. The Coalition
argued that given the 40 percent diversity goal, students with
good grades and LSAT scores would be displacing, without committee
review, the more disadvantaged students and students
who aspired to work in the community.136 Despite the students’
arguments, the faculty approved Varat’s proposal in January
1982.137 This change not only eliminated student input as to the
“clearly admissible” diversity students, but it also reflected the
desire of a growing number of professors to place greater emphasis
on academic criteria rather than on considerations of disadvantage
or community service.
G. Diversity Admissions and the Bar Passage Problem, 1982-
1987
Since Dean Prager’s appointment in 1982, UCLA has taken
several steps to improve the academic performance and bar passage
rates of diversity students. In January of 1983, the law
school hired Kristine Knaplund to design and teach what has ~ecome
one of the largest academic support programs among the
nation’s law schools. In the spring of 1985, the school also added
a special voluntary section of Legal Research and Writing which
132. ld.
133. Id.
134. ld. at 1.
135. ld.
136. Lizardo, supra note 113, at 78.
137. Riegelhaupt, supra note 131, at 1, 6.
114 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
was designed primarily for diversity students to improve their
studying and test-taking skills. In 1986, Dean Prager initiated a
two-week summer orientation program for incoming diversity
students.138
But many faculty members remained concerned about the
academic qualifications of the diversity students. Their concern
focused on UCLA’s California bar passage rate, which fell from
69.7 percent in 1982 to 61.4 percent in 1986. The 1986 figure
ranked UCLA behind Stanford, Boalt, Davis, and Hastings, and
equal to USC.139 It should be noted that during these years, California’s
bar passage rates were dropping at all schools, and
UCLA had ranked fifth among California’s law schools in 1982
as well. Nonetheless, the faculty focused on the low bar passage
rates, which had been a problem since the beginning of UCLA’s
affirmative action efforts.
Moreover, the number of affirmative action students at
UCLA had almost doubled with the adoption of the diversity admissions
program. While this doubling was due in part to the
admission of white “affirmative action” students, these students
were doing about as poorly as the minority diversity students on
the California bar examination.140 Thus, the adoption of the diversity
approach had doubled the number of students with relatively
low bar passage rates, which lowered the overall school
rate correspondingly.
UCLA’s low bar passage rates created a potential drop in
the law school’s prestige. Dean Prager feared that the widely
publicized bar passage rates might reduce the quality of the entire
student body.t4t She cited student fears that UCLA was not
preparing students well enough for the bar examination.142
Moreover, UCLA alumni were calling Dean Prager to complain
about the poor bar statistics. They apparently questioned why
UCLA, generally considered to be among the top 20 law schools
in the country, was doing so poorly on the California bar exam.
Given the fact that potential employers and faculty members
across the country may have been asking similar questions, it is .
likely that the UCLA faculty was becoming increasingly apprehensive
about the school’s reputation.
138. Magavem, supra note 3, at 33.
139. Memorandum from Kristine Knaplund, Professor of Law at the UCLA
School of Law, to Susan Prager, Dean of the UCLA School of Law, and Carole
Goldberg-Ambrose, Associate Dean of the UCLA School of Law attachment A
(Apr. 2, 1987) (on file with LRLSA).
140. Jd.
141. Letter from Susan Prager, Dean of the UCLA School of Law, to the Faculty
(Mar. 4, 1987) (on file with LRLSA).
142. Jd.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 115
Meanwhile, there were several legal challenges to the California
bar exam for its consistent disparate impact against racial
minorities. Several law schools, including UCLA, also began to
publicly criticize the State Bar for setting the bar passage requirement
too high, which resulted in otherwise qualified applicants
. – particularly minority applicants – who were passing in
most other jurisdictions but were being denied the opportunity to
practice in California.143
In 1987, UCLA decided to make significant changes in their
admissions, retention, and academic support policies to address
the bar passage issue. On March 4, 1987, Dean Prager issued a
letter to the faculty to initiate discussion on these issues.144 She
wrote, “I believe, as I think the large majority of the faculty believes,
that we should continue to take risks in our admissions in
order to further our priority of bringing more minority lawyers
into the profession. “145 However, she expressed grave concern
that “we are graduating a significant number of people who do
not have a meaningful chance” of passing the California. bar.146
For the years 1982 to 1984, the first-time California bar passage
rate ranged from 26 to 41 percent for diversity students,147 while
non-diversity students, for the years 1982-86, maintained strong
rates that ranged between 86 to 90 percent.148
The Coalition charged that the administration and faculty
were scapegoating minorities for their failure to properly prepare
students to pass the bar. They called for more effective tutorials
and support programs designed to increase the bar passage rate
of minority students.149 To support their arguments, they compared
the bar passage rates of diversity students with those of
minority students at the University of San Francisco and Southwestern
University, who had similar median college grades and
LSAT scores in 1985.
143. Monica Bay, Educators: Bar Exam Too Tough, THE REcoRDER, Apr. 8,
1986, at 1.
144. Prager, supra note 141.
145. Id.
146. Id.
147. Memorandum from Carole Goldberg-Ambrose, Associate Dean of the
UCLA School of Law, and Susan Prager, Dean of the UCLA School of Law, to the
Faculty (Apr. 2, 1987) (on file with LRLSA).
148. Letter from Susan Prager, Dean of the UCLA School of Law, to UCLA law
students (Apr. 13, 1987) (on file with LRLSA).
149. See, e.g., Letter from LRLSA, to Susan Prager, Dean of the UCLA School
of Law (Feb. 2, 1988) (on file with LRLSA).
116 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW (Vol.16:90
1985 MEDIAN UNDERGRADUATE GRADE PoiNT AVERAGE
(UGPA) AND LSAT FOR UCLA DIVERSITY STUDENTS,
UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO STUDENTS, AND
SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.1so
UCLA Diversity
Univ. -of San Francisco
Southwestern
Median UGPA
3.0
3.1
3.0
Median LSAT
34
34
33
FIRST-TIME JuLY BAR PASSAGE RATES FOR UCLA DIVERSITY
STUDENTS, UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO STUDENTS, AND
SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.1s1
UCLA, All students
UCLA Diversity
Univ. of S.F.
Southwestern
1982
78%
41%
61%
47o/o
1983 1984 1985
72% 63% 68%
32% 26o/o 37%
71% 54 o/o 49%
45% 43o/o 52%
1986
72%
30%
54%
57o/o
These statistics suggest that diversity students with relatively low
grades and LSAT scores should, with adequate preparation, be
passing the California bar at higher rates. However, some faculty
members saw little value in academic support and other pedagogical
reforms.
The faculty, after considering a range of options, focused on
two alternative proposals on admissions. The first was for the
faculty to make no changes to admissions policies until the law
school initiated new support programs and evaluated their effectiveness.
152 The second – which was adopted and remains in
effect to date- was for diversity students to be admitted by the
Assistant Dean of Admissions in consultation with the Chair of
the Admissions Committee, pursuant to policies prescribed by
the faculty and Admissions Committee as set forth in the Karst
Report.153
Student activists vehemently opposed this move to centralize
decision-making power in the Assistant Dean, which would dramatically
reduce student input in admissions. For example, the
La Raza Law Students Association protested:
As Latinos, we are in the best position to define our own ethnic
community and to gauge each applicant’s potential for future
community involvement. We do not believe that the
150. Knaplund, supra note 139.
151. Id.
152. Memorandum from the Short-Tenn Committee to Faculty and Students 6
(Apr. 16, 1987) (on file with LRLSA).
153. Id.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 117
current Assistant Dean of Admissions, or any single individual,
is capable of making these determinations for us.154
Although students had no voting power on admissions matters,
their representatives on the reading teams allowed them to serve
as checks on faculty discretion, and in many cases, to persuade
faculty committee members to change their votes.tss
A minority of professors supported the students. Professor
Letwin argued:
The 40 percent admissions standards are phrased very broadly;
and there is no fixed number to be admitted, only a ceiling. In
short, the process seems highly discretionary, and the values of
those who apply the standards may have a broad effect on the
admissions pattern. I would rather those values be those of a
cross-section of the faculty, as now, than those of the assistant
dean.”156
However, many professors opposed any significant student
input in the admissions process because they felt that students
neither had any special insights into the applicants and their
backgrounds, nor could they better predict which students would
serve underserved communities. Such sentiments were shared
among many members of the faculty, despite their own ethnic
and racial backgrounds. For example, one African American
professor felt that “the range of possible minority community
contributions a lawyer can make is so great, that it is impossible
to make valid long-range assessments on the basis of a short interview
by anyone.” In particular, he dismissed a student’s ability
to determine how a lawyer can contribute to the community
by stating, “Most students do not learn what lawyers really do
until they get out of law school. “157
Mutual distrust among student protesters and the faculty
had reached a peak. Many faculty members anticipated student
protests against anything that they were going to do, no matter
how reasonable. Many students feared that the faculty was using
the bar passage problem as an excuse to undermine UCLA’s
commitment to minority admissions.tss
Students had several reasons to question the administration
and faculty’s commitment to addressing student concerns about
admissions. Frrst, many students felt betrayed by Dean Prager,
who had told students earlier in the year that she had no plans to
154. Letter from LRLSA, supra note 149, at 4.
155. Memorandum from the Diversity Coalition to the Faculty 13 (Apr. 22,
1987).
156. Memorandum from Leon Letwin to the Short-Thrm Committee (Apr. 13,
1987) (on file with LRlSA). .
157. Alleyne, supra note 32, at 2.
158. Kenneth Kimmell, On Diversity, Student Input and Due Process, UCLA
DAILY BRUIN, Apr. 20, 1987, at 7.
118 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vo1.16:90
call for admissions policy changes that school year.Is9 Second,
students also protested that the proposed changes were being reviewed
in such a short time, without adequate opportunities for
student input. Finally, the students charged that scheduling the
final faculty vote three days before the semester’s end, with final
exams imminent, indicated the administration and faculty’s bad
faith in working with students.I6o
Despite the fact that final exams were only a week away, the
Third World Coalition, working with the National Lawyers
Guild, the Lesbian and Gay Law Students Association, and the
Public Interest Law Foundation, devoted long hours to protest
the proposed change. They prepared position papers, held ralM
lies, and received support from elected officials, judges, and
other prominent members of the local community. They sought
to postpone any major admissions policy changes until a more
thorough evaluation of the bar passage problem could be made.
When it looked like the faculty’s decision was imminent, the
minority student groups debated a more dramatic and desperate
move. APILSA voted to occupy the Records Office; BLSA
voted not to; and La Raza was deadlocked.161 On April 28, 14
APILSA and 6 La Raza students occupied the Records Office
and barricaded themselves inside, while a large crowd of students
gathered outside in support. After occupying the office for about
three hours, the campus police came in riot gear and arrested
fifteen of the student protesters.t62
In spite of the students’ desperate move, on May 1, 1987, the
faculty vested the centralization of admissions decisionMmaking
power in the Assistant Dean of Admissions. At the same time,
159. See Letter from Susan Prager, Dean of the UCLA School of Law, to UCLA
law students 2 (Apr. 13, 1987). In her letter, Dean Prager states:
While I did not envision changes being adopted in the admissions system
this year and I indicated to some student representatives in February and
early March that I did not intend to press for admissions changes this year,
the only commitment that I made was that no changes would be made in
the admissions of the 1987 entering class.
Id.; Jane Newman, The Diversity Struggle: Brief Chronology of Events, THE
DoCKET, Oct. 1987, at 11.
160. See, e.g., Reid Honjiyo, Law School Must Not Give Up Fairness Towards
Minorities, UCLA DAILY BRUIN, Apr. 13, 1987, at 5.
161. Interview with Reid Honjiyo, in Los Angeles, Cal (Feb. 3, 1992), cited in Ng,
supra note 46, at 25. According to Tammy Chung, one of the protestors who occupied
the Records Office, BLSA members did not participate because of their fear of
police brutality stemming from the history of police brutality against African Americans.
Id.
162. Henry Tovmassian, Fifteen Law Students A”ested in Records Office Sit-in,
THE DOCKET, Aug. 1987, at 5.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 119
they also voted to increase the funding of academic support programs
and raised academic probation and retention standards.163
H. Recent Developments, 1988-1994
Once again, despite student fears to the contrary, UCLA’s
minority enrollment did not drop after the 1987 policy changes.
However, the role of the minority student groups in the admissions
process had been significantly reduced, with Assistant
Dean Rappaport and the Admissions Committee Chair essentially
holding all decision-making power on diversity admissions.
To protest the new admissions system, La Raza withdt:ew from
all recruiting, interviewing, and admissions activities in 1988, and
BLSA followed suit in 1989, leaving only APILSA participating
in the process.164 However, both La Raza and BLSA resumed
participation shortly thereafter, resigned to the belief that some
input in the process was better than none.t6s
While the size of diversity admissions has not changed significantly,
the underlying philosophy has changed. There is now
more focus on producing competent lawyers and less concern
about what they will do as lawjrers. Also, there is a general sense
that law school should do little to compensate for the educational,
economic, and other socioeconomic disadvantages that
students have faced prior to attending law school.166
I. The Current State of Diversity Admissions, 1994
Today, Assistant Dean Rappaport, in consultation with the
Chair of the Admissions Committee, essentially makes all decisions
as to who is admitted under the diversity program, a group
which now comprises about forty percent of every entering class.
Rappaport describes himself as an administrator who only implements
the faculty’s admissions policies, particularly those set
forth in the Karst Report. However, students who have worked
with Assistant Dean Rappaport insist that he has broad discretion
to decide which diversity factors listed in the Karst Report
will receive more weight than others.t67
163. Letter from Susan Prager, Dean of the UCLA School of Law, to UCLA law
students 1-2 (May 4, 1987). .
164. Adriene Rodriguez, Introduction, Speech at the UCLA School of Law
(Mar. 30, 1988), in 9 CHICANO L. REv. 73 {1988).
165. Memorandum from LRLSA Admissions Chair to the La Raza Admissions
Subcommittee 1 (Feb. 27, 1992) (on file with LRLSA); Vincent Sarmiento, Raza
Admissions at the UCLA School of Law: An Update on Cu”ent Policies and Recent
Developments, 14 CHICANO-LATINO L. REv. 161, 166 (1994).
166. Magavern, supra note 3, .at 42.
167. Interview with Michael Balaoing, APILSA Admissions Representative,
1992-93, in Los Angeles, Cal. (May 1, 1994).
120 CHICANO-LA·TINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
Rappaport does refer some cases for consideration to the
full Admissions Committee, but he continues to feel that there
are relatively few cases where faculty and student input is helpful.
According to Rappaport, La Raza gives him guidance on
ethnic identity issues, while APILSA helps him choose among
Asian American applicants with similar scores and backgrounds.
For African American applicants, according to Rappaport, identity
is less of an issue and the pool of qualified candidates is relatively
small, so he needs less assistance in choosing among
them.168
While the Karst Report lists economic disadvantage as one
of its diversity admissions criteria, Rappaport does not seem to
give much weight to it. Rather, he places overriding emphasis on
grades and LSAT scores for both regular and diversity admissions.
Rappaport considers disadvantage primarily to discern
whether the applicant’s grades and LSAT may not fully reveal
the applicant’s academic potential.t69
Rappaport claims that no significant policy change is foreseeable
for Asian American diversity applicants, despite the continuing
ambivalence of a significant number of faculty members.
His method is to require diversity factors other than race to justify
diversity admissions consideration for each Asian American
ethnic group. Thus, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean applicants –
more of whom are being admitted under regular admissions –
need diversity characteristics other than their ethnicity, such as
an immigrant background and language skills, whereas Filipinos,
Vietnamese, and other underrepresented Asian ethnic groups
need less consideration of other diversity factors.170
In making admissions determinations, Rappaport consults
with the Admissions Committee Chair and the Dean, while talking
informally with other faculty members. For example, Dean
Prager feels that diversity white students should have qualifications
very close to those of the regular admittees. The admission
of white diversity students is less an important end in itself than a
way to preserve minority enrollment after Bakke.111 In response
to this philosophy, Rappaport states that he is decreasing the
numbers and increasing the academic qualifications of white diversity
students. For example, he states that a low-income back-
168. See also Sarmiento, supra note 165. According to Sarmiento, who served as
La Raza admissions representative during 1991-92, La Raza’s net impact on the admissions
process during 1991-92 was “negligible at best.” Jd.
169. Interview with Michael Balaoing, supra note 167.
170. Magavem, supra note 3, at 40.
171. ld
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 121
ground will add little to a white applicant’s chances of acceptance
unless the poverty was fairly extreme.tn
Thus, after debating admissions policies with students for
over 25 years, most faculty members have withdrawn from the
process, seemingly satisfied with the current process of delegating
admissions duties almost exclusively to the Assistant Dean of
Admissions. The history of affirmative action struggles at UCLA
clearly indicates a trend toward emphasizing prevailing measures
of academic ability, reducing concerns related to socioeconomic
disadvantage, and maintaining skepticism over attempts to predict
which applicants are likely to serve disadvantaged communities.
This history also has shown the faculty’s increasing
apprehension over giving students the power to influence admissions
policy decision-making. Every year, a small group of students
advocates for an admissions program for disadvantaged
and service-oriented students. However, the experiences of the
last 25 years seems to have left the majority of the faculty resigned
to the current compromise between attracting the “best
and the brightest” and continuing the institution’s commitment
to promote racial diversity in the legal profession.
III. A CRITIQUE OF UCLA LAW SCHOOL’S CURRENT
ADMISSIONS POLICY
A. An Overview of the Current Admissions Policy
UCLA Law School’s current admissions policy allows for
about forty percent of every entering class to be admitted under
the diversity program. Diversity admits are applicants with competitive
college grades and LSAT scores who also possess one or
more characteristics (e.g., race, disability) or experiences (e.g.,
work experience, living abroad) that are considered to bring diversity
to the student body and thereby enhance the law school
learning atmosphere. Among candidates for diversity admissions
with similar backgrounds, those with the highest grades and
LSAT scores are admitted. The remaining 60 percent of every
class is admitted strictly on the basis of the predictive index. Applicants
with the highest predictive indices (basically, the highest
college grades and LSAT scores) are automatically offered admission
to the law school. This 60/40 breakdown between regular
and diversity admits is the admissions office’s general goal,
with the actual breakdown varying from year to year.
172. Id.
122 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
B. Critique of UCLA Law Admissions as Public Policy
Decisions
UCLA Law School’s primary reliance on college grades and
LSAT scores to allocate limited admission slots can be critiqued
as a normative choice.173 In these times of highly competitive law
school admissions, law schools are rejecting thousands of applicants
who would otherwise be able to successfully complete law
school. As former American Bar Association (ABA) President
Chesterfield Smith once observed, “Law school admission officers,
rather than bar examiners, are in large measure picking
our future lawyers. “174 Most American lawyers and judges practicing
today would never have been admitted to law school if
they had been competing under the inflated standards which now
govern admissions.175 This also holds true for UCLA Law
School, where the number of applications for admission has
skyrocketed in recent years.t76
As a public institution, UCLA’s admissions policy should reflect
public policy decisions on how to allocate taxpayer-subsidized
educational opportunities. As UCLA Professor Kenneth
Graham states:
In exercising its delegated power to decide who to admit to the
Law School, the faculty is making a choice of public policy.
The decision of who to admit to a public law school should be
related to the reasons that justify the existence of publiclyfunded
legal education in a state that already has an abundance
of non-public law schools and no shortage of lawyers.
Given the fact that anyone who can pay for it can obtain a
legal education in California, our admissions decisions are less
a question of who can be a lawyer in California and more a
question of which lawyers shall have their legal education subsidized
by California taxpayers.t77
The UCLA law administration and faculty deserves recognition
for its commitment to promote racial diversity among its stu-
173. See, e.g., David E. VanZandt, Merit at the Right TaiL· Education and Elite
Law School Admission, 64 TEx. L. REv. 1493 (1986) (reviewing RoBERT KurGAARD,
CHOOSING ELITES (1985)).
174. LAw SCHooL ADMISSIONS CoUNCIL, 1973 ANNUAL CouNCIL REPORT, at 70
(1974).
175. Barbara Lerner, Equal Protection and External Screening: Davis, DeFunis,
and Bakke, 1977 PR.oc. ETS INVITATIONAL CoNF. 3, 6.
176. For example, the enrolling class of 1961 had an average LSAT percentile
ranking of 70 percent, while the enrolling class of 1967 had a mean LSAT percentile
ranking of 86 percent. Assistant Dean, Memorandum to Faculty Re: Class of 1969
Statistics, Feb. 23, 1967. In comparison, regular admittees of the enrolling class of
1993 had an average LSAT percentile ranking of 96 percent. Source: UCLA School
of Law Admissions Office.
177. Interview with Kenneth Graham, ·supra note 23. In 1993, there were 16
ADA-approved California law schools, of which 4 are public, and 19 California law
schools not approved by the ABA.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 123
dents and in the legal profession. UCLA was one of the first law
schools in the country to establish an affirmative action program,
and the school has maintained its commitment to racial diversity
over the last 25 years, despite the growing public disfavor with
affirmative action. In recent years, UCLA’s minority enrollment
level follows only the historically black universities and the University
of Hawaii.11s
However, over the same 25 years, UCLA has significantly
diminished its earlier efforts to promote economic diversity
among its students, and to admit more students who wish to
serve disadvantaged communities. This lack of commitment to
class diversity and service to disadvantaged communities is related
to the law school’s admissions standards and its increasing
emphasis on college grades and the LSAT. This emphasis is applied
not only to the school’s regular admittees, but also to their
affirmative action students.
C. The Validity of Grades and the LSAT as Measures of
Academic Merit
There has been much debate since the early 1970s as to the
validity of college grades and LSAT scores as objective measures
of academic merit. The most common justification for using
these measures is that LSAT scores and college grades have been
useful in predicting first year law school grades.179 UCLA has
conducted several studies which have been used to support the
validity of these predictors. tao
However, other studies criticize the poor to moderate predictive
ability of grades and the LSAT.181 The more common
178. Stephen D. Simon, UCLAW Receives Diversity Award, THE DOCKET, Feb,
1993, at 1.
179. Law School Admissions Services, THE LAw SCHOOL ADMISSIONs TEsT:
SouRCES, CoNTENTS, UsES (Sept. 1991), at 5 (“(The] LSAT is designed to perform
… the task of predicting academic success in the first year of law school.”). See also
Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education, SELEcnvE ADMISSION IN
HIGHER EDUCATION: CoMMENT AND RECOMMENDATIONS AND Two REPORTS,
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 19TI). For general studies, see George L. Dawson, Use
of the Law School Admission Test to Predict First Year Law School Performance: An
Update, B. EXAMINER, May 1988, at 35, 38-39; Donald E. Powers, Long-term Predictive
and Construct Validity of 1Wo Traditional Predictors of Law School Performance,
14 J. Eouc. PsYCH. 568, 569 (1982).
180. Memorandum from Kristine Knaplund, Professor of Law at the UCLA
School of Law to Michael Rappaport, Assistant Dean of Admissions (Feb. 11, 1987).
181. An LSACsponsored study, after reviewing the results of fifty-seven different
validity studies, concluded, “Not surprisingly, admissions directors at many
schools have found that, for the great majority of their students, grades and LSAT
scores are not very closely related to actual first year performance.” Albert R.
‘Thmbull, WilliamS. McKee, and L. Thomas Galloway, LAw SCHOOL ADMissioNS:
A DESCRIPI1VB STUDY, in LAw SCHooL ADMISSION CoUNCIL, REPoRTS OF LSAC
SPONSORED RESEARCH: VOLUME ll, 1970-74, 265 (1976).
124 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 16:90
criticism of the reliance on grades and the LSAT is that these
indicators are correlated more to an applicant’s economic background
and race than to any objective notion of academic merit.
The LSAT score has a very high correlation with the socioeconomic
status of an applicant’s family.182 This correlation is magnified
at schools like UCLA, where the admissions office
calibrates an applicant’s college grade point average according to
the LSAT mean of all LSAT test-takers from the applicant’s college.
183 Meanwhile, there is an ongoing debate as to whether the
LSAT is culturally biased.184 However, supporters of the predictive
index distinguish correlation from causation. Most attribute
differences in grades and LSAT scores among different groups to
the persistent realities of unequal educational opportunities
available to students of different race and class origins in this
country. Perhaps others continue to believe that the wealthy and
the white are simply smarter and work harder.
Aside from the causes of disparities in academic performance,
the fact is that admissions decisions based solely on grades
and the LSAT negatively impact people of color. UCLA admissions
statistics in recent years clearly indicate that if the law
school were to rely primarily on grades and the LSAT for admissions,
the student body would be overwhelmingly white. In general,
UCLA’s white students have significantly higher college
grades and LSAT scores than the students of color, although a
182. Franklin R. Evans and Donald A. Rock, A Study of the Effects of Moderator
Variables on the Prediction of Law School Performance, in LAw SCHOOL ADMISSION
CoUNCIL, REPORTS OF LSAC SPONSORED REsEARCH: VoLUME n, 1970-74, 357
(1976). See also ALLAN NAIRN AND AssociATES, THE REIGN OF ETS: THE RA1..PH
NADER REPORT ON THE EDUCATIONAL TEsTING SERVICE 220-259 (1980).
183. Evans and Rock, supra note 182 (The schools whose students systematically
scored lowest on the LCM were the ones where students had the lowest incomes.
Some entire classes of schools – such as the predominantly black colleges – had
their grades systematically valued as inferior by the LCM.); See also NAIRN, supra
note 182, at 247 (citing Guide to the Interpretation of Undergraduate Transcripts
(LSAC Nov. 1972)).
184. See, e.g., TOWARDS A DIVERSIFIED LEGAL PROFESSION: AN INQUIRY INTO
THE LAw SCHooL ADMISSION TEsT, GRADE INFLATION, AND CuRRENT ADMissioNs
PouCIES (David M. White ed., 1981); LLoYD BoND, BIAs IN MENTAL TEsTs,
IN IssuEs IN TEsTING: CoACHING, DisCLosuRE, AND ETHNic BIAs (Bert F. Green,
ed., 1981); David M. White, National Conference of Black Lawyers, The Effects of
Coaching, Defective Questions, and Cultural Bias on the Validity of the Law School
Admission Test (1984); Cecil R. Reynolds and Robert T. Brown, BIAs IN MENTAL
TEsTING: AN INTRODUcriON TO THE ISSUES, IN, PERSPECTIVES ON BIAS IN MENTAL
TEsTING 1, (Cecil R. Reynolds and Robert T. Brown, eds., 1984); David M. White,
Culturally Biased Testing and Predictive Invalidity: Putting Them on the Record, 14
HARv. C.R.-C.L. L. REv. 89 (1979); David M. White, Pride, Prejudice and Prediction:
From Brown to Bakke and Beyond, 22 HowARD L. J. 375 (1979); David A.
Weber, Racial Bias and the LSAT: A New Approach to the Defense of Preferential
Admissions, 29 BUFFALO L. REv. 439 (1975); and Edward Bronson, Trial by Numbers:
The LSAT and Cultural Bias, 34 GUILD PRAc. 33 (1977).
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 125
·growing number of Asian American students are being admitted
with comparable records.
Despite the problematic nature of formula admissions based
strictly on grades and the LSAT, another common reason why
law schools rely on them is simply that this approach is easy and
cost-efficient. Given the thousands of law school applications
that understaffed admissions offices face each year, the pressure
is strong to rely on mechanical and computerized decision-maleing
processes. Even the Law School Admissions Council, which
administers the LSAT, is critical of admission decisions based
solely on grades and the LSAT.1ss
D. Using Bar Passage Rates to Justify the Use of the Predictive
Index
Another justification for the reliance on college grades and
the LSAT is their usefulness in predicting law school grades,
which in tum have been fairly accurate predictors of bar passage
rates. Some UCLA faculty members have argued that public law
school resources should not be squandered by educating students
who have little chance of passing the California bar, so these students
should not be admitted into the law school.
While law school grades by race were not available to the
author, available bar passage statistics clearly indicate that
UCLA diversity students had tremendous difficulties in passing
the California bar exam during the 1980s. These difficulties indic~
te an undetermined degree of correlation between their academic
records prior to law school and their bar passage rates.
DIVERSITY STUDENT BAR PASSAGE RATES, 1982-1985.186
Graduating aass
1982
1983
1984
1985
Frrst-time CA Bar
Passage Rate
41
32
25.8
36.6
CA Bar for
Repeat Exam Takers
69 (for 1-9 attempts)
57.6 (for 1-7 attempts)
62 (for 1-5 attempts)
51.6 {for 1-3 attempts)
Relevant statistics are also available for minority graduates
of California’s American Bar Association-accredited law schools.
For first-time July California bar exam takers from the state’s
ABA-accredited schools, minority students consistently passed at
185. Thrnbull, et al., supra note 181.
186. Memorandum from Kristine Knaplund, Professor of Law at the UCLA
School of Law, and Susan Praser, Dean of the UCLA School of Law, to the Faculty
attachment B (Apr. 2, 1987) (on file with LRLSA).
126 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 16:90
lower rates than white students from 1977 through 1988.187 According
to one study, virtually all disparities in bar exam scores
and passing rates among groups can be explained by differences
in their law school grades.tss
However, defenders of law school affirmative action efforts
emphasize that the primary concern should be whether students
who wish to practice in California eventually pass the bar, not
that they pass on their first try. The eventual passing rate of minorities
is much higher than the passing rate among its first-time
takers. Most students of color eventually pass.1~
Meanwhile, numerous legal challenges have been raised
against the California bar examination for being racially or culturally
biased.190 During the 1970s, legal claims of intentional or
inherent racial discrimination directed at bar exams and bar examiners
reached its peak.191 Studies on such claims remain inconclusive,
and the legal challenges have failed thus far.
E. College Grades and the LSAT are Poor Predictors of
Success as Lawyers
Aside from the debate as to whether college grades and the
LSAT are useful predictors of bar passage rates, these measures
are widely criticized for having little correlation to the likelihood
of success in the legal profession.192 For example, they may not
accurately assess such critical factors as motivation, maturity,
187. Stephen P. Klein, Disparities in Bar Exam Passing Rates Among RaciaVEthnic
Groups: Their Size, Source, and Implications, 16 T. MARSHALL L. REv., 516,519
(1991).
188. Id. at 523 (Based on one’s law school grades alone, “it is possible to predict
with about 79% accuracy whether a candidate will pass the California exam.”); See
also Donald E. Powers, Differential Trends in Law Grades of Minority and Nonminority
Law Students, 76 J. EDuc. PsYCHo. 488, 488-89 (1984); Donald E. Powers,
Comparing Predictions of Law School Performance for Black, Chicano, and White
Law Students, LAw SCHOOL ADMISSION CoUNCIL, REPORTS OF LSAC SPONSORED
REsEARCH: VOLUME III, 1975-1977,721 (1977); Robert L. Linn, Test Bias and the
Prediction of Grades in Law School, 27 J. LEGAL EDuc. 293 (1975).
189. Klein, supra note 186, at 526-527.
190. See, e.g., Pettit v. Gingerich, 427 F. Supp. 282, 290 (1977). (Plaintiffs allege
that the examination is inherently discriminatory or culturally biased against blacks
as evidenced by the disproportionately high black failure rate.); Symposium: The
Minority Candidate and the Bar Examination, 5 BLACK L.J. 120, 128 (1977). (Keynote
speaker, Lennox S. Hinds, suggests that the difference in bar performance between
minority and white candidates is most likely the result of cultural bias or racist
practices in the bar examination process rather than any difference in their respective
skills and knowledge.)
191. See generally National Conference of Bar Examiners, THE BAR EXAMINERS
HANDBOOK, 18 (S. Duhl ed., 2d ed. 1980), at 35-49.
192. See, e.g., SusAN E. BRoWN, MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION
FuND, LAw SCHooL ADMISSIONS STUDY 37 (1980); Andrew Hacker, The
Shame of Professional Schools, 32 J. LEGAL EDuc. 278, 281 (1982); and Peter J.
Liacouras, Toward a Fair and Sensible Policy for Professional School Admission, 1
CRoss REFERENCE 156 (1978).
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 127
commitment to client or community interests, business savvy, or
counseling and negotiating skills.193
As civil rights advocates have successfully argued in the employment
discrimination context, many believe that the use of
standardized tests like the LSAT should be justified only if the
tests measure traits relevant to the legal profession.194 For example,
when Leon Letwin established the LEOP program to train
lawyers to serve disadvantaged communities, he emphasized that
traditional criteria like the LSAT were not designed to address
the problems of low-income minority communities, and suggested
that community leadership, tenacity, and identification
with the community may be more valued criteria for LEOP
admittees.19s
F. UCLA’s Emphasis on Grades and the LSAT Results in a
Disparate Impact Against the Socioeconomically
Disadvantaged
Recent surveys of UCLA law students also illustrate how
the admissions office’s emphasis on grades and the LSAT has
had a disparate impact on socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
Surveys of incoming members of the classes of 1993 and
1994 found that the median income of students’ parents was
$75,000 in 1990, with over a third of students’ parents earning
incomes over $100,000.196 In contrast, the median income of all
families in the U.S. was $35,700 in 1990, while the corresponding
median income in Los Angeles was $38,000.197 Roughly half of
UCLA students come from families in the top 10 percent of the
national income distribution, while only 20 percent come from
families in the bottom half.198 These findings are consistent with
studies done at other law schools since 1961, showing that the
“eliteness” of law students seems consistent over time and
geography .199
The surveys also found that the parents of students represent
even more of an educational elite than an economic one.
Among those participating in the UCLA survey, 45 percent of
students’ fathers and 21 percent of students’ mothers had graduate
degrees, as compared to about 8 percent of all American men
193. See, e.g., LAW SCHOOL ADMISSIONS CoUNCIL, supra note 174, at 71; Letwin,
supra note 5, at 11.
194. See, e.g., Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
195. Birmingham, supra note 39, at 1, 4.
196. Rick Sander, Another Side of Diversity, THE DoCKET, Feb. 1994, at 1.
197. /d.
198. /d.
199. /d. at 4; Robert Stevens, Law Schools and Law Students, 59 VA. L. REV.
551, 572 (1973).
128 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 16:90
and 3.5 percent of all American women of their generation.2oo
Over 68 percent of students’ fathers and 54 percent of students’
mothers had bachelor degrees. In comparison, in the general
population, only 22 percent of the men and 13.5 percent of the
women of the parents’ generation are college graduates. Again,
this finding of educational eliteness is consistent with past
studies. 201
Finally, the surveys also suggest that the socioeconomic
eliteness of its law students holds true across racial lines. The
median income of non-white students responding to the survey
was about $60,000, about 20 percent lower than the school-wide
median, but nonetheless, still much higher than the corresponding
figure in the general population. Moreover, close to half of
the African American, Latino, and Asian American students
who participated in the survey come from families whose income
places them among the most affluent 10 percent of all non-white
families in the United States.2o2
The relatively privileged socioeconomic backgrounds of
UCLA law students may come as no surprise. Disadvantaged
students of all races face tremendous economic, educational, and
other obstacles that they must overcome in order to get to the
point of applying to law school. Students of color who graduate
from high school, enter college, and graduate are members of a
very small group within the minority youth population.203 Financial
hardships are likely to undermine a student’s undergraduate
academic record. Moreover, disadvantaged minorities who attend
predominantly white colleges experience subtle cultural influences
that create a sense of alienation and undermine their
motivation, particularly if they come from dramatically different
backgrounds than most of their college peers. Succeeding in academics
against these obstacles is a tremendous and truly exceptional
accomplishment for students of any race.
G. UCLA Should Make a Greater Commitment to Admit
Students from Economically Disadvantaged
Backgrounds
To make law schools more representative of the economic as
well as racial diversity in our society, the admissions office should
200. Memorandum from Rick Sander, Professor of Law at the UCLA School of
Law, to the Faculty 2 (Jan. 11, 1991).
201. ld. at 4.
202. Id. at 4.
203. In 1990, the high school graduation rate for Latinos was 54.5 percent; for
African Americans, 77 percent; and for whites, 82.5 percent. Among those who
graduated from high school, in 1990, 29.1 percent of Latinos went to a two or fouryear
college, 33 percent of African Americans, and 39.4 percent of whites.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 129
make a stronger effort to admit disadvantaged students who possess
the basic academic ability necessary to· successfully complete
law school and pass the bar. Just as the law school has recognized
racial diversity as an admissions goal worthy of pursuit
along with academic excellence, class diversity should be similarly
recognized as an important goal.
There are particularly compelling reasons for admitting students
into law school who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The wisdom of a 1949 State Bar report still holds true
today:
Under our form of government, law is so closely related to
politics and to the operation of government that any barrier to
the legal profession which would keep out the economically
less fortunate would have serious political repercussions and
would ultimately impair the functioning of the democratic process.
Even with the road to the legal profession open to all, it
tends to become an essentially conservative group, largely
concerned with maintaining the social and economic status
quo. If the legal profession were to be recruited . . . mainly
from the sons and daughters of the well-to-do, this tendency
might well be accentuated to a degree seriously against the
public interest.204
To deny a person access to the legal profession, is to deny access
to judgeships and to significantly limit access to influential positions
in government, business, and politics. Almost two-thirds of
all United States Senators, almost one-half of Congressional representatives,
and about one-sixth of the nation’s state legislators
are lawyers.205
As a public institution, UCLA should be held to a heightened
obligation to train lawyers from disadvantaged backgrounds
in order to provide more effective political and legal
representation of poor and working-class people. Lawyers who
have personally overcome many of the same obstacles that their
client community faces would be most familiar with the oppressive
conditions of poverty.
204. STATE BAR OF CALIFORNIA, LEGAL EDUCATION AND ADMISSIONS TO ‘1HE
BAR IN CALIFORNIA: REPORT OF nm SPECIAL SURVEY BoARD at 82, (1949). It is
noteworthy that the 1949 California State Bar report recommended that the UCLA
School of Law offer a part-time division to make it more accessible to students who
can not afford a full-time legal education. The Report noted that “a relatively small
number of students, many of whom could well afford to pay tuition, are being given
legal education at public expense,” while “a very much larger number of students
who are compelled to support themselves through law school and therefore to go to
school at night are paying high rates of tuition in private institutions.” The Report
concluded, “If the provision of part-time professional instruction in law is a public
necessity, it is equally a public responsibility and should be publicly financed.” I d. at
84.
205. NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES, STATE LEGISLATORS’
OCCUPATION {1987).
130 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW (Vol. 16:90
For example, members of cultural and linguistic minorities
are more familiar with how cultural and language barriers tend to
inhibit members of their communities from consulting lawyers
not of their race or ethnicity when they are in need of legal services.
As former Harvard Law School Dean Erwin N. Griswold
has stated:
Minority law consumers frequently are able to relate better to
a member of their own race and are sometimes unwilling to
confide in a member of another race and, therefore, do not
utilize our legal system. Effective access to legal representation
not only must exist in fact, it must also be perceived by
the minority law consumer as existent so that recourse to law
for the redress of grievance and the settlement of disputes becomes
a realistic alternative to him.206
Dean Griswold’s observation found support in a 1988 survey
of UCLA’s Asian alumni, which compared LEOP and diversity
alumni with Asian Pacific Islander alumni who entered UCLA
under regular admissions.207 According to the survey, LEOP and
diversity alumni’s estimated percentage of minority clients
was almost two (1.8) times that of alumni who entered UCLA
through regular admissions.2os Moreover, LEOP/diversity
alumni’s percentage of low-income and working-class clients was
more than two and a half (2.7) times larger than that of the regular
admit alumni.209 Fmally, LEOP/diversity alumni’s percentage
of clients who required foreign language proficiency was more
than three (3.1) times larger than that of the regular admit
alumni.2to
UCLA can also promote the goal of community empowerment
by training people from disadvantaged communities to return
to their communities to serve as lawyers. In recent years,
poverty law practitioners and scholars have begun to emphasize
the importance of lawyer-activists who are part of the community
in which they serve, rather than those whose life experiences differ
from their client community.211 Having outsiders serve disadvantaged
communities only reinforces the sense of dependency
among subordinated people on the charity or benevolence of
206. Erwin N. Griswold, Some Observations on the DeFunis Case, 15 CoLUM. L.
REv. 512, 517 (1975).
207. Memorandum from the Asian Concerns Committee of the Japanese American
Bar Association, Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association, Korean
American Bar Association, and the Philippine American Bar Association to the
Faculty of the UCLA School of Law (May 9, 1988).
208. ld.
209. Id.
210. Id.
211. See, e.g., GERALD L6PEZ, REBELLious LAWYERING: ONE CHICANO’s VISION
OF ~OGRESSIVE LAW PRAcnCE (1992).
1995) UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 131
government or elites, rather than encouraging them to take control
of their own affairs and work to improve their condition.
While those having more privileged backgrounds should be
encouraged to assist underserved communities, advocates of
community empowerment should work toward the admission of
more disadvantaged students who demonstrate an interest to return
to their communities as lawyer-activists.
H. UCLA should admit more students committed to serving
disadvantaged communities
As a public institution, the UCLA School of Law should not
only admit more economically disadvantaged students, but also
make a greater effort to train lawyers who will serve the disadvantaged.
In support of this idea, a 1980 ABA committee
formed for the study of legal education reported that perhaps too
much attention is being paid to grades and LSAT scores across
the range of law schools, without sufficient regard for other attributes
such as the desire to serve the disadvantaged.212 This
argument is particularly compelling for taxpayer-subsidized
schools like UCLA. Moreover, a law school can profoundly
mold student attitudes as to what are appropriate concerns and
values in the legal profession. These values are reflected by the
characteristics that a law school looks for in an applicant. UCLA
can actively encourage students to serve the underrepresented by
giving preferential status to applicants who have demonstrated
their commitment to public service prior to entering law school.
Without active encouragement, the pervasive law school culture
of working in corporate law firms will often deter even the
most committed student from entering into public service careers.
1)rpical of a nationally ranked law school, UCLA’s gradu-,
ates are overwhelmingly corporate law firm-oriented.213 While
UCLA’s employment statistics may not accurately reveal the
public service inclinations of graduates, these statistics nonetheless
illustrate the general corporate orientation of UCLA
students.
These employment statistics contradict the Karst Report’s
stated objective of promoting diverse career goals among its students.
Under the Karst Report, UCLA should be promoting diversity
in career aspirations by looking at not only an applicant’s
212. AMERICAN BAR AssoCIATION, SPECIAL CoMMITI’EE FOR A STUDY OF
LEGAL EDUCATION, LAw SOIOOLS AND PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION 29 (1980).
213. For example, the UCLA aass of 1993 was more or less typical of employment
trends in recent years. At the time of graduation, only 1.2 percent secured
public interest employment, while another 4.2 percent attained government positions.
Of the respondents, 67.5 percent accepted employment with private law finns
of more than 50 attorneys.
. 132 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vo1.16:90
self-proclaimed career goals, but also her community service record
prior to law school.214 Among those who defend the current
emphasis on grades and the LSAT, many focus on the difficulties
in attempting to predict whether an applicant will, after three
years of law school socialization and financial debt, continue to
pursue a· career serving the underrepresented. Several studies
have documented how the public service inclinations of entering
students tend to erode during law school. UCLA can survey
their students at different points in their law school years to discuss
this problem and to identify potential countermeasures to
the prevailing corporate orientation of the law school culture.
Some professors also complain that admissions criteria involving
community service tends to be ideologically loaded.
Their criticism can be addressed in two ways. First, the reliance
on grades and the LSAT for admissions decisions can similarly be
challenged for its ideological content. As discussed earlier, given
the existing realities of unequal educational opportunities along
race and class lines, the continued reliance on traditional measures
of academic performance merely perpetuates the privileged
status of the wealthy and white. Second, the Admissions Committee
and students should work together to establish guidelines
on the criteria that constitutes community service for admissions
purposes.
There are some who argue that public service goals should
be encouraged not by admissions, but by establishing mandatory
pro bono requirements, loan forgiveness programs, and curricular
and clinical programs geared toward public interest law. Such
efforts are also important. But it is logical to assume that such
programs are more likely to encourage UCLA graduates to serve
the underrepresented if these students demonstrate a predisposition
to such work prior to attending law school.
I. Are LEOP and diversity alumni more service-oriented than
other UCLA alumni?
Studies have shown that minorities and students from lowincome
backgrounds are more likely to cite service to the underprivileged
as a motivation for entering law school than other students.
215 This tendency was supported by the 1988 survey of
UCLA law school’s Asian and Pacific Islander American
alumni.216 According to the survey, LEOP/diversity alumni contributed
seven times more pro bono hours in the minority com-
214. Karst Report, supra note 102, at 4.
215. See, e.g., Robert Stevens, Law Schools and Law Students, 59 VA. L. REv.
551, 613-14 (1973).
216. Memorandum from the Asian Concerns Committee, supra note 207.
\.
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 133
munities, and almost four times (3.7) the amount of time in
minority civil or business organizations than their regular admit
counterparts.217 Moreover, LEOP/diversity alumni spent more
than one and a half (1.6} times the amount of time in ethnic bar
associations than their regular admit counterparts. 21s
These survey results can be interpreted in different ways.
Some may cite these findings to argue that the existing diversity
program is already doing enough to promote service to the underserved.
But a noteworthy fact is that the surveyed alumni all
attended UCLA before student input was dramatically reduced
in 1988. Thus, the commendable service record of these LEOP
and diversity alumni can be seen as the expected result of an earlier
admissions program that favored applicants who demonstrated
their commitment to community service.
J. Admissions decision.:.makers should be more representative
of the diversity which the law school seeks to promote.
To effectively accomplish the goals of admitting more disadvantaged
students who will return to serve their communities as
lawyers, those with the power to make admissions policy decisions
should include those who have personally experienced race
and class subordination. This proposal is based on the premise
that those who come from a particular community or background
are better qualified to determine who is likely to effectively serve
their communities.
In the early years of LEOP, Leon Letwin and other faculty
members who were instrumental in establishing LEOP were very
conscious of the importance of incorporating diverse perspectives
in the admissions decision-making process. Today, however,
Assistant Dean of Admissions Michael Rappaport holds
almost all decision-making power over diversity admissions.
Rappaport occasionally consults witlr the faculty Admissions
Committee chair on individual admissions cases. Thus, at least in
terms of public perception, minority participation in the admissions
process has been limited to the advisory roles served by the
student organizations.2t9
Rappaport defends his position by saying that he has a very
prescribed range of authority, and th~t he merely administers the
217. ld.
218. ld.
219. At UCLA School of Law, general policy decisions are made by faculty-student
committees. The Dean•s Advisory Committee, comprised of two Associate
Deans and three professors elected by the faculty, make all committee appointments,
including committee chair appointments. The Student Bar Association
makes all student committee appointments. Each committee has at least twice as
many faculty members as students.
134 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 16:90
policies that the faculty sets. Moreover, as the Assistant Dean of
Admissions since the early 1970s, Rappaport possesses an institutional
memory of past admissions debates, the law school, and
local communities. He cites the problem of inconsistency among
faculty and students in past admissions committee experiences,
and believes that faculty-student committees wasted a great
amount of time to arrive at an outcome that differed very little
from his own decisions. Finally, Rappaport criticized the inconsistent
levels of commitment and organization among the participating
minority organizations in the past.22o
As to the public perception of one man holding the power to
determine who is admitted through the diversity program, Rappaport
counters that the law school has tried a wide variety of
alternatives, with very little difference in results. Thus, he argues,
accommodating public perception would make little difference
at the expense of an enormous expenditure of time and
effort by faculty and students.221
Nonetheless, using efficiency as a primary justification, the
current approach gives the Assistant Dean tremendous discretion
in administering the broad guidelines of the Karst Report.
One former LRLSA admissions representative who worked extensively
with Rappaport criticized the Assistant Dean for
largely ignoring the Karst Report provisions which list economic
disadvantage and prior community service as diversity admissions
criteria, and for focusing primarily on an applicant’s predictive
index and race.222
K. Some strategies for change
Any proposed departure from the prevailing emphasis on
college grades and the LSAT is likely to meet significant resistance
from the faculty. Faculty members occupy their current positions
precisely because they excelled in the traditional system of
academic merit. To propose admissions criteria other than those
that they have excelled under would undermine their own legitimacy.
As Letwin states:
They have mastered the system as it now stands. Indeed they
owe their faculty status to their outstanding success as students
in the system. It has certified them as persons of considerable
distinction. They are children of the system, and it would be a
thankless child who now questioned the very standards that
proclaim his virtue. 223
220. Interview with Michael Rappaport, Assistant Dean of Student Admissions,
UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles, Cal. (Feb. 15, 1994).
221. /d.
222. Sanniento, supra note 165, at 169.
223. Letwin, supra note 5, at 11.
I
1
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 135
Moreover, resistance is likely to come not only from the
faculty, but from all those with a vested interest in maintaining
UCLA’s prestige, including alumni and current students. It is
no secret that highly competitive admissions requirements translate
into prestige for law schools.224 The reputation of the student
body can affect a law school’s ability to recruit and hire
respectable or promising faculty members and the brightest students.
Prestige also translates into expanded career opportunities
for all those affiliated with UCLA. Even students and
alumni who entered UCLA through affirmative action have a
vested interest in having average grades, LSAT scores, and bar
passage rates rise, which translates into more value for their
UCLA degrees.
One UCLA professor commented on student demands for
greater diversity:
Some students think that if the law school became a thirdworld
law school it would still be the same law school, would
have the same faculty and the same high ranking in academic
circles. I doubt that any faculty member believes this. But no
faculty member wants to get caught up in a debate which
would require an open and complete response to the question
of why, even if the faculty remained the same (and it would
not), the law school would not be the same and the degree
offered would not mean as much to those receiving it; that
only the numbers of minority students receiving the degree
would change.225
Thus, it seems that any attempt to make UCLA admit more students
committed to work for the underserved would encounter
significant resistance from all those who have a vested interest in
maintaining UCLA’s reputation along the lines of “excellence
and diversity,” and not as a Third World school training community
lawyers.
Progressive students who seek to reform the current admissions
program must also assess the current political realities
outside the law school. The general political climate in the country
is clearly against affirmative action. Since the decision in
Bakke, the composition of the Supreme Court has changed, thus
clouding the future of affirmative action and the constitutionality
of UCLA’s diversity program.
Because of these concerns, some proponents of affirmative
action believe that they should not push forward now, for fear of
a conservative backlash that may undermine UCLA’s current ef-
224. See, e.g., Leo M. Romero, An Assessment of Affirmative Action in Law
School Admission After Fifteen Years: A Need for Recommitment, 34 J. LEGAL
Eouc. 430, 433 (1984).
225. Alleyne, supra note 45, at 3-4.
136 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
forts to promote racial diversity. Others, including myself, believe
that while such concerns are legitimate, in the long run
activists must constantly educate and organize to build the political
base of support for affirmative action, rather than letting
complacency erode the support of those in the ideological middle
ground.
Along with advocating for the admission of more disadvantaged
students, it is important to remember the importance of
academic support programs and curricular reform. As UCLA
learned through experience, students from educationally disadvantaged
backgrounds need additional academic support to assist
them with law school and the bar exam.226 To its credit, UCLA
already has one of the best academic support programs among
the nation’s law schools. However, other steps can be explored
in order to better prepare students for the bar exam, such as incorporating
more practice bar problems in the existing
curriculum.
Given the fact that only faculty members hold decision-making
power on admissions and other policy matters, students need
to support the hiring of progressive and diverse professors who
will support and initiate reform. While advocating for racial diversity
on the faculty, students should remember that some of the
most outspoken supporters of students of color have been white
men, such as Leon Letwin and Kenneth Graham.
As of the spring of 1993, there were only eight minorities
among 69 UCLA faculty members.227 While the greater participation
of minority professors in admissions affairs certainly does
not insure a more progressive faculty, the underrepresentation of
minority perspectives should at least raise serious doubts as to
the representative nature of this policy-making body. Furthermore,
while UCLA’s faculty diversity record may be better than
most other schools of equal caliber, this fact merely underscores
how poorly the other schools are doing in terms of diversifying
their faculty ranks. 228
In advocating for change, students should maximize their
political power. For example, students can leverage their influence
on admissions affairs by coordinating alumni donations and
letterwriting campaigns, enlisting the support of ethnic bar as-
226. See, e.g., Rappaport, supra note 16, at 512-13.
227. William Litt and Dorris Y. Ng, Student Organization Focuses on Faculty Diversity
at UCLA Law, THE DoCKET, Mar. 1993, at 1, 6.
228. For a comparative discussion of the UCLA School of Law and other law
schools in terms of their efforts to diversify their faculties, see Larry Frank, A Question
of Commitment? The Recruitment, Hiring,” and Retention of Minorities and
Women Faculty Members at U.S. Law Schools with a Focus on UCLA School of
Law (May 18, 1990) (unpublished student paper on file with LRLSA).
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 137
sociations, gaining media publicity, and utilizing alumni contacts
with state legislators and other influential people.
At the same time, students should recognize that the faculty
and administration, despite real or perceived shortcomings, may
be more supportive of a progressive agenda than potential
outside actors. As Assistant Dean Rappaport once stated, “I
don’t see any court telling the law school that we’re not doing
enough to diversify the legal profession. “229
IV. CONCLUSION
Professor Derrick Bell writes:
We must remember that minority admissions programs are far
more the product of minority insistence than the tardy manifestation
of white conscience. The Supreme Court did not create
minority admissions programs, and the Bakke decision,
even on the slender record in that case, narrowed, but did not
eliminate discretion to operate these programs. Thus, for the
present, their continued existence will depend on the efforts of
proponents in each school. After Bakke, it may be prudent to
substitute vagueness for precise quotas, and to rely on the vigilance
and persistence of minority admissions advocates rather
than on court orders. 230
For student activists to be effective, they must work to preserve
an institutional memory that will allow them to learn from
and build upon past admissions struggles. An institutional memory
for students is particularly important in light of the fact that
students come and go every three years, in contrast to the faculty
and administration. Until the political pendulum swings back toward
a social climate more hospitable to affirmative action and
other initiatives of social equity, these memories of past struggles
can provide valuable lessons and hope for current and future
generations of activists.
ALBERTY. MURATSUCH.rt
229. Interview with Michael Rappaport, supra note 220.
230. Derrick A. Bell Jr., Bakke, Minority Admissions, and the Usual Price of
Racial Remedies, 61 CAL. L. REv. 3, 18-19 (1979).
t Deputy Public Defender, Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office;
J.D. 1994, UCLA School of Law; B.A. 1988, University of California at Berkeley.
138 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol.16:90
APPENDIX I.
TABLE 1: AVERAGE UNDERGRADUATE GRADE PoiNT
AVERAGE (UGPA) AND LSAT (WITH PERCENTILE RANKING)
FOR UCLA REGULAR ADMITS
(Source: UCLA School of Law Admissions Office)
–1989 1990 –199–1 –199–2 –1993
UGPA 3.6 3.66 3.68 3.6 3.64
LSAT 42 44 44 (97) 168 167 (96)
TABLE 2: AVERAGE UNDERGRADUATE GRADE POINT
AVERAGE (UGPA) AND LSAT (WITH PERCENTILE RANKING)
FOR UCLA DIVERSITY ADMITS
(Source: UCLA School of Law Admissions Office)
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993
UGPA 3.2 3.24 3.25 3.32 3.36
LSAT 36 37 38 (82} 158 158 (78)
TABLE 3: ADMITI’EES BY RACE
(Source: UCLA School of Law, Office of Admissions)
* Note: 1989 admittee statistics not available.
1990 Group
white
black
Latino
Asian/Pac. Islander
Native American
1991 Group
white
black
Latino
Asian/Pac. Islander
Native American
1992 Group
white
black
Latino
Asian/Pac. Islander
Native American
1993 Group
white
black
Latino
Asian/Pac. Islander
Native American
Regular
613
1
8
63
0
Regular
650
0
11
87
0
Regular
625
3
14
89
1
Regular
757
3
22
171
1
Diversity
26
104
89
42
5
Diversity
27
113
85
46
7
Diversity
49
110
88
44
10
Diversity
40
98
83
34
10
1995] UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW ADMISSIONS 139
TABLE 4: ENROLLEES BY RACE
(Source: UCLA School of Law, Office of Admissions)
1989 Group Regular Diversity
white 177 20
black 0 31
Latino 1 41
Asian/Pac. Islander 12 31
Native American 0 4
1990 Group Regular Diversity
white 194 11
black 1 39
Latino 0 39
Asian/Pac. Islander 11 27
Native American 0 2
1991 Group Regular Diversity
white 177 10
black 0 31
Latino 2 42
Asian/Pac. Islander 19 27
Native American 0 4
1992 Group Regular Diversity
white 144 25
black 1 34
Latino 2 45
Asian/Pac. Islander 13 23
Native American 0 7
1993 Group Regular Diversity
white 197 15
black 0 21
Latino 3 47
Asian/Pac. Islander 47 18
Native American 0 2
140 CHICANO-LATINO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 16:90
APPENDIX n
Asian Concerns Committee (a joint committee of the Japanese
American Bar Association, Southern California Chinese Lawyers
Association, Korean American Bar Association, and the
Philippine American Bar Association), Results of the UCLA
Asian Alumni Survey, May 9, 1988. The results of the survey are
as follows:
I. Total responses: 84
Respondents who were Diversity/LEOP admittees: 33
Respondents who were regUlar admittees: 33
Respondents who were uncertain as to which program they
were admitted under: 18
II. Service to the Ethnic Minority Community
A. Diversity/LEOP Admittees:
i. Average percentage of ethnic or minority clients in regular
practice: 46.7 percent
ii. Average percentage of low-income/working class clients
in regular practice: 39.5 percent
iii. Average percentage of current practice which requires
foreign language proficiency: 15.9 percent
iv. Average hours per month of pro bono work with ethnic
or minority community: 2.1 hours per month
v. Average hours per month in ethnic civic/business organizations:
5.2 hours per month
vi. Average hours per month in ethnic bar associations: 3.3
hours per month
vii. Average hours per month of pro bono in general community:
0.9 hours per month.
B. Regular Admittees
i. Average percentage of ethnic or minority clients in regular
practice: 25.2 percent
ii. Average percentage of low-income/working class clients
in regular practice: 14.6 percent
iii. Average percentage of current practice which requires
foreign language proficiency: 5.0 percent
iv. Average hours per month of pro bono work with ethnic
or minority community: 0.3 hours per month
v. Average hours per month in ethnic civic/business organizations:
1.4 hours per month
vi. Average hours per month in ethnic bar associations: 2.0
hours per month
vii. Average hours per month of pro bono in general community:
1.0 hours per month.
Circa 1927: Letwin family in Milwaukee prior to Leon’s birth: L to R: Gertie and Anna Rosenthal, Lazar, Bessie and Bill Letwin (child)
Circa 1932: The young Leon
Leon Letwin (1929-2015) 