Commentary: How to Help Blacks and Other Minorities Improve their Bar Passage Rates

The TaxProf Blog recently reported a shocking disparity for first-time bar pass rates between Whites and Blacks in 2022:  83% for Whites and 57% for Blacks (26 points).  This disparity cannot continue.  The only way for law schools to alleviate this disparity is for law schools to use new teaching techniques, especially in the first year.  Applying band aids to traditional approaches will not solve the problem.

Ten years ago, I noted that minorities often enter law school with educational disadvantages.  (here)  They often have fixed mindsets and lack motivation, metacogntive skills, and study skills.  They are rarely self-regulated learners.  In other words, the problem lies not in the lack of innate ability of our students, but what students bring to law school and how law schools deliver instruction to students.  As Professors Feinman and Feldman have asserted, “[t]his concept of widely distributed intelligence is evil and false. It is evil because it supports social institutions that prevent the full development of human potential and freedom by convincing people of their own inadequacy. It is false because it is inconsistent with mountains of research and years of experience demonstrating that widely distributed learning outcomes are more a product of ineffective schooling than of the abilities of students.”

I presented a plan to help minority law students in my book

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_skills/2023/04/this-blog-recently-reported-a-shocking-disparity-of-bar-pass-rates-between-whites-and-blacks-in-2022-83-for-whites-and-57.html