Yesterday, the American Bar Association’s (ABA) policy making body rejected a bid to remove the law school admissions test requirement from the law school accreditation standards. The vote marks the second defeat of the proposal in six years.
Potentially allowing law schools to go “test optional” for admissions starting in 2025 created a unique controversy, as both proponents and opponents of the policy argued that it would be harmful to law school diversity.
“As the debate showed, we all care deeply about diversity, we just have different views on the best way to pursue it. The LSAT is an important tool for advancing diversity. The incoming class of 2022 is by far the most diverse class in history, and more than 98 percent of those students used the LSAT. And this year’s applicants are even more diverse than last year, which bodes well for continued progress. The House vote will ensure that we have additional time for research into the actual impact of test-optional policies on students and diversity, so that any policy changes are based on evidence and data,” said Kellye Testy, the President of LSAC, in a statement after the vote.
Testy’s statement echoed a sentiment shared previously in an open letter penned by 60 law school deans urging the ABA to reject the proposal. The letter called out the potential harm that removing the test could do for diversity in admissions, as it would require schools to depend more heavily on other, potentially more biased, metrics like GPA, recommendations, and the reputation of an applicant’s undergraduate institution.