War on standards, bar exam edition

Black law school graduates fail the bar exam in disproportionate numbers. That’s not surprising when one remembers that, thanks to racial preferences, Blacks are admitted to law schools with worse credentials — college grades and LSAT scores — than are Whites and Asian-Americans.

Bar passage rates are unequal, but there’s nothing inequitable about them. Blacks and Whites take the same exam and the grading is color blind. What’s inequitable is two sets of standards for law school admission — one for Whites and Asians and another for Blacks.

Nonetheless, Eileen Kaufman, a law professor, is calling for an end to the bar exam. She wants it replaced by something called a Lawyers Justice Corps.

Instead of gaining entrance into the profession by demonstrating knowledge of the law, graduates would gain it by providing legal services for “poor and under-represented communities.”

Kaufman’s proposal would achieve two objectives. It would provide foot soldiers for left-wing causes and would increase minority representation in the legal profession somewhat.

Kaufman isn’t cagey about the first objective. She states:

Lawyers are needed to challenge racist practices, design new initiatives, and help communities overcome persistent bias,. While laws alone cannot solve the persistent and deep-seated problems endemic to our society, enforcing the laws we have and working for legal change is critical to progress, and lawyers are essential to every such effort. . . .

[T]he Lawyers Justice Corps. . . would serve the public while playing a key role in dismantling the status quo.

(Emphasis added)

As to the second objective, law school graduates would be admitted to the bar upon certification by attorneys in the “social justice” outfits to which they are assigned. It’s all but free passage except, perhaps, for conservative attorneys who don’t show their lefty bosses enough enthusiasm for “dismantling the status quo.”

Forcing law school grads to work for causes they may not believe in as a condition of becoming a lawyer should be a non-starter. So should permitting grads to enter the legal profession without demonstrating through objective measurement that they know the law.

Will Kaufman’s proposal gain traction? One would think not, but who knows? There are probably some state bar associations radical enough to be tempted by the idea.

And soon enough, we may see proposals for allowing med school grads who cannot pass certification exams to instead get credentialed by serving minority communities.

The war on standards proceeds on front after front.

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