American Bar Association Panel Makes LSAT Optional for Law School Admittance

A panel of the American Bar Association voted Friday to make the Law School Admissions Test optional, a win for critics who said the standardized test hampered diversity efforts.

The panel’s decision comes amid debate on whether the exam harms or helps with diversity in law schools. Nearly 60 law school deans in September signed a letter that claimed getting rid of the requirement would actually hurt the goal of diversifying law schools by leaning harder on individual GPAs or other factors that could be tinged with bias.

“We believe that removal of the testing requirement could actually increase the very disparities proponents seek to reduce by increasing the influence of bias in the review process,” Kristen Theis-Alvarez, assistant dean of admissions and financial aid at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said in the letter.

The Southern University Law Center, a historically black university in Louisiana, will still use the LSAT to analyze candidates, according to the university’s chancellor, John Pierre, who said he agreed with the panel. However, schools should make their own decisions, Pierre added. (Read more from “American Bar Association Panel Makes LSAT Optional for Law School Admittance” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.