Put Mack Brown to the task.

While that would do wonders for our recruiting efforts, it would also mean that we'd lose articles to the Oklahoma Law Review every year, and that's no good.

I think your problem is nationwide. I know we suffer the same fate here at Harvard. Our (crude) solution is simple affirmative action; applicants identify themselves as racial or ethnic minorities in the essay competition, and we give spots on the journal to about 10 of them every year, for better or for worse. We therefore avoid looking like Kenny G devotees, but I think the fact that we resort to such a policy indicates that we don't really understand what's going on, and that we don't really have any effective solutions. (And as I said, I don't think we're alone). So if you come up with any real solutions (in contrast to artificial solutions like affirmative action), please do share.

Merit-based selection is a bitch for bleeding-heart liberals. You give people a boost to get into your school, and then you get upset when they don't perform at the same level as people who didn't need the boost to get in.

Without affirmative action, the minority students who were just as qualified as their peers would be going to Texas instead of Harvard and Yale. And they'd be competitive on the writing competition.

No kidding! It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. Kinda like the BCS selection process.

I got the solution.

Save the trees. Eliminate law reviews.

Do it for the poor saps who waste their time on those reviews for the miniscule possibility that it might potentially affect their hiring chances.

Fat Tony: the "miniscule possibility that it might potentially affect their hiring chances"? I think you must not be familiar with the legal community. For -- absurd though it may sound -- the "possibility" that law review will affect your job opportunities is very far from "miniscule." Would I it were otherwise? Yes, of course. But students who tailor away on those damn journals do not do so in vain.

In my experience, Law Review doesn't do much for jobs.

South Carolina Law Review has zero African Americans, zero Asian Americans, zero Hispanic Americans, and is about 65% male. That's with a 100% anonymous write-on application and (currently) a moderate-to-left, female EIC. It's a difficult situation, because the LR wants to have better minority representation (as, probably, most do), but, frankly, the Harvard way of reserving spots just doesn't seem very healthy (sorry bigfatty).

socraticvictim: you may have misunderstood me. I think the Harvard way of reserving spots is extremely unhealthy. My only point was that I don't think anyone has yet devised ANYTHING else that works, despite all manner of effort. My advice to wingsandvodka was therefore purely practical: implement affirmative action, or accept the lack of color on your journal. Those options both suck (imho), but that's life.

NYU has a personal statement section they use in part to enact their affirmative action program. About 1/4 of the law review members are selected with grades, 1/4 with just write-on, and 1/2 a mix of grades, write-on, and personal statements. I'll report back with the ethnic and gender makeup after I'm asked to join.

BigFatty: I agree, and I followed what you were saying about Harvard. It's disappointing that, from the iconic Harvard to South Carolina, nobody has been able to figure this out. That's all I was saying. :)

so, at carolina law, what the hell, exactly, is just to the left of moderate?

Why not question the assumption that diversity for its own sake somehow trumps, or incorporates the pursuit of excellence? This is aside from the point (someone already made) concerning the failure of AA-riding students to perform at the same level. If I went out for the Jets, on the grounds that they have no Russian Jews, and got killed on the field, would anyone be surprised?

Why not question the assumption that diversity for its own sake somehow trumps, or incorporates the pursuit of excellence? This is aside from the point (someone already made) concerning the failure of AA-riding students to perform at the same level. If I went out for the Jets, on the grounds that they have no Russian Jews, and got killed on the field, would anyone be surprised?

Like I said, dog-eat-dog world out there, survival of the fittest, social Darwinism at its best...what better place to bring it all together than law school?

In case the sarcasm was not self-evident, let me propose another assumption that should be questioned: Schools MUST only serve Top XX% based an arbitrary standard that spits out numbers that I'm fairly confident I can milk.

"That's just absurd Armen. The whole point of education is to try to figure out who will do well and then ensure that they do, in fact, do well."

Naturally!

The California Law Review, in addition to using a write on system, demands that prospective members complete a "diversity statement" that is used in assessing membership.

Ah, affirmative action- allowing underqualified people access to everything.

Speaking STRICTLY for myself, I know I wouldn't hire anyone who worked on CLR given they had to write a diversity statement.

I'm guessing it's mostly self-selection. That can be partly addressed by having someone from the law review give a talk to the (minority in question) student group. Some of it may be a sense that they will be plenty employable if they just graduate.
Some of it may be a sense that law review would hurt their gpa. A big part might be people thinking, let's see, i've got three kids, law school, choir practice, add law review? Hell no. My experience was that the minority students were somewhat more likely to have lives outside school. (Our first semester affirmative action class consisted of the black students, the hispanic students, and that weird kid who thinks he's an aardvark.)

California Law Review's diversity statement requirement wasn't nearly as embarrassing as one of the grader's secret practice of rejecting everyone who made a conservative argument.