Richard Sander (UCLA), The Waning of Racial Preferences at American Law Schools, 2021-2025:

Up until now, no one has had much idea of just how, or whether, colleges, universities, and professional schools were complying with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision prohibiting them from using racial preferences in student admissions.  Using an innovative new data source, we present estimates of the extent of racial preferences at American law schools over the five admissions cycles from 2020-21 through 2024-25.

As a rough generalization, the size of Black preferences used by schools has fallen by about half,  but this varies significantly across schools in ways we analyze.  Hispanic preferences have fallen by a comparable or arguably greater amount.  We also find a good deal of evidence that the diminished scale of law school racial preferences has, somewhat counterintuitively, been a boon for Black and Hispanic students.

Both groups have applied to law schools in substantially increased numbers over the past two admissions cycles, and overall Black and Hispanic enrollments have increased in absolute numbers.  The modest declines in Black enrollment at the more elite law schools, and the small overall decline in the share of 1L seats occupied by Blacks, are counterbalanced by a large decline in the “credential gap” between entering Black students and their classmates, which, we predict, is likely already improving their relative school performance and their prospects for passing the bar and enjoying long-term success in the legal profession.

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:  Affirmative Action Is Finally Waning: Law-School Data Shows That Racial Preferences Have Diminished Since the Justices’ 2023 Decision, by Richard Sander (UCLA) & Henry Kim (UCLA):

The results, which we released last week on the Social Science Research Network, tell a remarkable story. Fair Admissions, like Bakke and Grutter, didn’t lead to complete race neutrality. Most law schools still appear to use racial preferences. But unlike after those earlier rulings, the evidence shows that most law schools are reducing preferences.

In the 2023-24 admissions cycle, the typical top-40 law school reduced by about a third the weight it gave preferences for black applicants. In the 2024-25 cycle, the weight dropped further, to about half the level of preference before Fair Admissions. Preference for Hispanic students declined in a similar way.

University leaders, including law-school deans, had warned before the 2023 decision that ending racial preferences would dramatically diminish minority enrollment at professional schools and elite colleges. So far, the opposite is true at law schools. The total number of black and Hispanic students matriculating at law schools has risen more than 5% over the past two years.

There are two key reasons for this seemingly counterintuitive result. First, the number of black and Hispanic applicants to law school jumped by more than 30% over the two cycles following Fair Admissions. So far in the 2025-26 admissions cycle, black and Hispanic applications to law school are again growing faster than those from whites and Asians. …

Second, the effect of declining racial preferences on enrollment is mitigated by the “cascade” effect. Minority students who are now rejected by very elite schools are still likely to be accepted by moderately elite schools, students who are rejected by moderately elite schools are accepted by good but non-elite schools, and so on. Thus, although black first-year enrollment at top-40 law schools fell by 16% from 2023 to 2025, it rose by 19% at non-elite schools, producing a net increase in black enrollment.

Since law-school enrollment generally grew over these two years, the share of seats held by blacks and Hispanics did fall marginally. But because of the cascade effect, Hispanics and especially blacks were much better matched with their classmates. The typical gap in entering credentials between black students and their classmates, very wide before Fair Admissions, narrowed by nearly half. Blacks across all tiers will be much more competitive—earning higher grades, graduating in higher numbers, and narrowing longstanding racial gaps in bar-passage rates. …

We predict that as deans and admissions officers realize that reducing racial preferences has few costs and many benefits for minority students, schools will continue to make incremental progress toward race neutrality. Perhaps one day university leaders will reflect on why they insisted for decades that racial discrimination was essential to their educational mission.

Editor’s Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to legal education posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.