|
Every state except Alaska has at least one law school.
Fourteen states have one law school and 11 states have
two law schools.
Excess State Whiteness is the percentage of whites in a
school that exceed the availability of the percentage of
whites in the state application pool. The excess
whiteness percentage for the state is calculated by
subtracting the state whiteness from a school’s total
whiteness, dividing the difference by the whiteness in
state LSAC applications, and then multiplying the total
by 100.
Of the 177 schools with three or more schools,
Pennsylvania had the school with lowest excess state
whiteness (University of Pennsylvania, -14%) while
California had the school with the highest excess state
whiteness (Pepperdine, 61 %). Half of the states’ law
schools exceeded the whiteness in state applications by
12.5%. Pennsylvania had the lowest median (-0.1) while
California had the highest (32.5%). The excess state
whiteness averaged 14.7% in states with three or more
schools;, Minnesota had the lowest mean (-1.0) while
California had the highest (34.0). The difference in
mean is statistically significant (p=.000); there is
less than 0% chance that the difference occurred by
chance alone.
Region. Of the 177 HWLS, the average (mean)
difference between the schools’ whiteness and the
whiteness in the states’ LSAC applications was 14.7%.
The Mountain West had the lowest mean (2.5) while the
Pacific West had the highest (28.3%). Half of the
schools (median) are above 12% more white than the
available applications in the states. The New England
region had the lowest median (.1 %), with half of the
schools having excess state whiteness below .1%. The
Southeast region had the highest excess state whiteness
(27.8%).
The school with the lowest excess state whiteness from
the Mountain West Region was the University of New
Mexico (-18.60) while the school from the Southeast
Region with the highest was Samford University,
Cumberland (66.5%). Excess whiteness percentage varied
significantly within regions. In the Southeast region,
St. Thomas had a negative excess whiteness (-3.9),
making the total range 70.4 percentage points. The
regional difference in excess state whiteness percentage
is statistically significant (p=.000); the probability
that the difference occurred by chance alone is less
than .0%.
US NEWS Tiers. In excess whiteness based on state
LSAC applications, 1st tier law schools had
the lowest mean (10.9) while 4th tier law
schools had the highest (17.2%). In the 1st
tier, half of the law schools had excess whiteness less
than 9% of their state’s LSAC applications; in 3r d
tier schools, half of the law schools had excess state
LSAC applications below 15%. Of the 1st Tier
Schools, Baylor University had 45.8% more whiteness than
the LSAC applications from Texas. Of the 3rd
tier HWLS, University of the Pacific, McGeorge had the
most excess whiteness percentage (55.5%)
The excess whiteness percentage based on state LSAC
applications among US NEWS tiers is significant (p=.27);
the probability that the difference occurred by chance
alone is less than 27%.
Private-Public Law School Status. Public schools
had more excess whiteness based on state LSAC
applications than private schools. The mean for private
schools was 16.6 while the mean for public schools was
11.9. However, the median for public schools (8.4%) was
lower than for private schools (16.0). The difference
was statistically significant (p=.04); the probability
that the difference occurred by chance alone is 4%
|
