• Public law schools are supported by the taxes of the citizens of their state. They have a responsibility to serve all the citizens.  

• This listing ranks the public law schools on whether they are serving white citizens better than the rest of their state population. 

• Specifically, excess whiteness in law school was calculated  using two different base populations. 

• First,  using the population of the state 21-39 years old.  Second, using the law school applications as a basis. 

• This page report is based on LSAC Applications from the state. Specifically, excess whiteness was calculated by taking the based LSAC state applications and calculated % of the applications that were from white applicants  and subtracting the "%whiteness in the law school" from it. 
  • LSAC State Applications does not represent the application pool to a particular institution but the number of applicants in the general pool who listed the state as their home.  The actual applicant pool to a particular state could be significant different. (note added: 04/16/04)

• The greater the disparity the higher the rank. Ranking is based on excess whiteness not actual percentage of white students.  That is the disparity between the percentage of whites in the law school from the percentage of whites in the LSAC state applications.

• So, for example, Texas Tech has 85.7% white students. In 2002 there was 6797 LSAC applications from the state of Texas. Of those applications, 4043 or 59.5% were from white applicants .   Consequently, the disparity (excess whiteness) between whiteness in the student body and in the state application pool is  26.2 percentage points. That is, based on the LSAC applications from the state, only 59.5% of Texas Tech Student body should be white.

• While there are a number of reasons why the disparity exist, where the difference is significant, a state has to be concern about whether its public institutions are preparing a group of lawyers to match the racial diversity of its population.

• For the seventy-four public law schools, the average excess whiteness based on LSAC State Applications is 9.86 percentage points; half of the schools have excess whiteness below 9.55 percentage points.  In fact, 9 (12.2%) have no excess whiteness and  another 15 (20.3%)  have less than 5.00 percentage points excess whiteness.  For example, if a LSAC State Applications was 50% white, the average law school would have whiteness 59.86 %  (9.86 Excess Whiteness Percentage Points)

• On the other hand 24 (31.4%) have significant excess whiteness with excesses over 15.00 percentage points. (See Table)  For 12 schools, the disparity between the whiteness of the applications from the state and the whiteness of the law school is over 20 percentage points.  
• No schools had Excess whiteness percentage points over 30.0.

• Based on percentage of whites in the law school, some schools in the Top Ten have remarkably low percentage of whites in the student body. For instance, the Golden Gate has 70.2% whiteness and  the University of California (Los Angeles)  has 71.3% whiteness.  However, when compared to the percentage of whites in LSAC State applications in their respective states, these schools still have a unusually high percentage of whiteness in the law school. Only 48.1% of the LSAC applications from California were from white applicants.

• There are a number of factors that can affect why such disparities exist , i.e.  interest in law school, preparedness for law school, etc.,  however as state schools such large disparities may  also represent a failure of the law school to adequately serve the needs of the state by assuring access to legal education to all citizens of their state.

• The Top Ten Whitest Public Law School based on LSAC Application all have excess whiteness of 20 percentage points or more. For example, if a LSAC State Applications was 50% white, the law school would have whiteness over 70%  (20 percentage points excess whiteness)

• Half The Top Ten Whitest Public Law School have excesses over 22.4 percentage points and the average is 22.8 percentage points ; the minimum is 21.10 and the maximum is 26.20.

• With the attack on affirmative action it is probably of no surprise that Texas with Hopwood  has two schools on the Top Ten Whitest Public Law School list and California with Proposition 209 has two schools. 

• However,  the disparities is striking and one wonders if the difference can all be accounted for by demise of affirmative action.

• The regions are based on Law school admission council (LSAC) designation. They include: Northeast, New England, South Central, South East, MidSouth, Midwest, Great Lakes, Mountain West, Northwest, and Far West.

• Midsouth has the lowest minimum excess percentage points (-17.20); South Central has the highest (26.20); Southeast has the highest mean (19.31) and Midwest has the lowest mean (2.27); Southcentral also has the highest median (20.60) and Mountain West has the lowest median (3.56).

• Five (5)  of The Top Ten Whitest Public Law School are  from the south. 

• Only two public law schools have disparities in percentage points greater than 25.

• None of the schools in the southeast have excess whiteness below 15.00 points; all of the schools in New England have excess whiteness points below 15.00 points;  Six regions have some schools with no excess whiteness.

• Of the 8 schools with no excess whiteness, 77.7%  are in the Midwest/Great Lakes/Mountain West region

• The difference among region is statistically significant (p=.03). That is, there is less than  3% probability that the difference occurred by chance alone. Given that the highest medians occurred in three regions (South central, Southeast and Far west) provides some indication that attacks on affirmative action is making the legal profession more white.

• Tier designation is based on the 2003-2004 US News & World Report rankings.

• 3 of the Top Ten Whitest Public Law Schools are 1st tier schools and 4 are 2nd tier

• 68.9% (51) of Historically White Public Law School are 1st tier or 2nd tier schools. In fact, only 9.5% (7) are 4th tier law schools.

• The 1st tier has the lowest minimum excess whiteness percentage points (-5.20); the 4th tier has the highest maximum excess whiteness percentage points (26.20); the 3rd tier has the lowest mean (7.14) and the 4th tier has the highest mean (12.09); the 4th tier has the lowest median (6.90) and the 1st tier has the highest median (12.00)

• The 4th tier law schools is the only tier to have schools with excess white percentage points over 25.00. 

• The difference among tiers is not statistically significant.

Top Ten Whitest Public Law Schools
(LSAC State Applications)

Excess Whiteness in Public Law Schools 
Based on State LSAC Populations (Ranking)