Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Civil-Rights Panel Wants Law Schools Required to Disclose Key Affirmative-Action Data

By PETER SCHMIDT
Washington

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights plans to issue a report today calling for federal and state officials to require law schools to disclose detailed information about their use of affirmative action in admissions and the short- and long-term success of the minority students they enroll.
The report also urges the section of the American Bar Association that accredits law schools to drop a requirement that law schools seeking accreditation demonstrate a commitment to diversity, with a majority of the commission's members arguing that such a requirement infringes on the schools' academic freedom. Among its other recommendations, the report calls for the National Academy of Sciences or some other entity to finance research on the effect of law schools' affirmative-action policies, and it urges state bar associations to cooperate with such studies.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/08/2007082801n.htm (subscription required). To see the Civil Rights Commission report, go to :http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/AALSreport.pdf and for the Commision's media advisory, go to: http://www.usccr.gov/index.html .]

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