Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), Columbia Law School Said It Would Require Applicants To Submit ‘Video Statements’ In Wake Of Affirmative Action Ban. Then it Backtracked.:
Columbia Law School said on its website that it would require all applicants to submit a 90-second "video statement" in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ban on race-based college admissions.
"All applicants will be required to submit a short video, no longer than 90 seconds, addressing a question chosen at random," the school’s admissions page said Monday morning. "The video statement will allow applicants to provide the Admissions Committee with additional insight into their personal strengths."
Critics slammed the move as a thinly veiled attempt to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling and practice affirmative action by other means, using appearance as a proxy for race. Columbia’s decision "has all the hallmarks of a willful effort to evade the requirements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act," said Edward Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiffs in the June case that outlawed affirmative action. "What is a 90-second video supposed to legitimately convey that a written statement could not?"
Reached for comment by the Washington Free Beacon, however, a spokesman for the law school said it had all been a misunderstanding and, by 6:00 PM Monday evening, Columbia had scrubbed the language from its website. …
"Law schools shouldn’t select future lawyers based on personal appearance," a graduate of Columbia Law School, who is now a partner at a prominent New York law firm, said of the scuttled policy. "This was a transparent attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's ruling, and, by extension, the Civil Rights Act."
