Abstract

Educating for Privilege

The author claims that law schools and universities in the United States currently discriminate on the basis of class and income. The graduates of the country's strong law schools enjoy a hugely disproportionate access to opportunity and authority in the private and public sectors of our economy. The University of Michigan case, of course, explored the accessibility of selective higher education when it comes to race. But what if we asked about the diversity of selective student bodies on the basis of class? I think we'd find that the great institutions of American higher education, and their law schools, are constructed on a foundation of economic advantage that is bad--and getting worse. The Educational Testing Service recently published a study of the nation's 146 most selective colleges and universities. ETS concluded that only 3 percent of those students come from the bottom economic quartile. A 2003 Education Department study found that the lion's share of the past decade's financial aid increases has gone to students in the top economic quarter. As private law school tuition has skyrocketed, some of the best public law schools have, in effect, privatized. This crescendo of rising costs and expenditures cannot be thought acceptable. It fences out a huge segment of our community on the basis of wealth. No single formula will push back the mounting exclusion. But altered admissions and financial aid practices could work to assure that poor students matter. And meaningful loan forgiveness programs, at both state and federal levels, could help return public-sector jobs to viability.