ABA Committee Decides To Diversify Diversity. It Should Come With A Clear Reason For Why That’s Important.

// It is commonplace to read or hear about how important it is to foster diversity in the law. Usually, “diversity” is a proxy for race, gender, and first-generation students every once in a blue moon. Of course, diversity is more than that — there are many ways to be different and those differences can enrich our field. The ABA wants law schools to do a better job of highlighting the manifold ways that diversity can show up on campus when it comes to their faculty. From the ABA Journal:

[A]t a meeting last week, the committee decided that the schools have to expand their understanding of disadvantaged faculty even more, arguing that the list should also include religion, national origin, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, military status, Native American tribal citizenship and socioeconomic background.

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This is great… in theory. Not so sure what it means in practice. Thinking about diversity racially, about 80% of law school faculty in 2022 was white. That’s pretty homogenous. But, by factoring in religion, national origin, and the like, you could play around a lot with “diversity” outcomes without changing any of the inputs. Say for the sake of argument that being a protestant makes you come from a minority background. Having dual citizenship with Germany does too. Younger than your peers by a decade? Factor that in as a well. That same data set that showed 80% uniformity would come back showing huge amounts of diversity. The point feels germane, but seeing all-white staff being touted as diverse is nonetheless a little jarring. Because if you nuance and redefine what constitutes diversity enough, at some point this will count:

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Elite Law Firm’s All-White Partner Class Stirs Debate on #Diversity. @jeligon @noamscheiber @nytimes https://t.co/SAjTMbcDDu pic.twitter.com/3Y1fVvCwPQ

— Aanika I. (@aanika_islam) January 28, 2019

If you factor in age, religion, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, and disability, there is a colorable argument that this partner class was actually on the cutting edge of diversity the whole time. That’s weird. Weird enough for Paul Weiss to go on and make substantive plans to further increase diversity.

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The ABA decision is aimed at law schools and not law firms, but it’s a problem for the schools too. Imagine for the sake of argument that a law school admitted a 250-person cohort with seven women and 243 men. Do they get to leverage the religious backgrounds of their male students when they brag about how overwhelmingly diverse the class is? That wouldn’t be weird?

None of this is to say that diversity isn’t important, it is. That said, we need to have a clearer understanding of how diversity matters and why. We once lived in a country where Bakke was good law. Back then, we had an understanding that racial diversity had particular educational benefits in classrooms. Post SFFA v. Harvard, the rationale for the significance of diversity isn’t nearly as clear. What is good about diversity, generally? If we don’t want to end up at the point where candidates are diverse by virtue of being Republican at Yale and Harvard, we should start setting parameters on why it matters.

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ABA Considers Expanding Law School Diversity Standards [ABA Journal]

Earlier: Paul Weiss Press Release Captures Everything Broken About Biglaw In One Image

After Taking Heat Last Year, Paul Weiss Spent 2019 Providing Firms A Blueprint For Improving Diversity

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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DEI, Diversity, Law Schools