A Forked River Runs Through Law School: Toward Understanding Race, Gender, Age, and Related Gaps in Law School Performance and Bar Passage |
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| Authors: | Timothy T. Clydesdale |
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| Affiliation: | Timothy T. Clydesdale is associate professor of sociology, The College of New Jersey. The author wishes to thank David Chambers, Richard Lempert, Scott Lynch, Gita Wilder, Diane Bates, Matthew Lawson, Howard Robboy, Katrina Bledsoe, Beth Paul, Kim Pearson, Dawn Suydam, Jonah Alexander, Grace Eddie, Susan Model, Keith Brown, members of the Sociology Faculty Colloquia at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He also thanks the Law School Admission Council Research Grants Program for their support of this project. The opinions and conclusions contained in this report are, however, solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Law School Admission Council. |
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| Abstract: | Analyses of the National Longitudinal Bar Passage Study (N = 27,478), demonstrate that law schools enlarge entering academic differences across race, age, disability, and socioeconomic origins rather than reduce them, and that academic differences in turn impact bar passage. Such differences cannot be reduced to (1) academic preparation, effort, or distractions; (2) instructional or law school-type characteristics; (3) social class; or (4) acceptance of an elitist legal ethos. Rather, results suggest that (1) women, minorities, and other atypical law students confront stigmatization throughout legal education;(2) for women (entering law school in 1991), this stigmatization is new, rejected, and consequently unassociated with law school outcomes; (3) for minorities, this stigmatization is continuous with prior socialization, making resistance difficult and consequent impact sizable; and (4) for other atypical law students, this stigmatization varies with visibility of difference, as do resistance and impact. Implications for social stigma theory and legal education are discussed. |
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