The African American, Latino, and Native American Graduates of One American Law School, 1970-1996

In the spring of 1965, only one African American student and no Latino students attended the University of Michigan Law School. At the time, Michigan, like most American law schools, was a training place for white males. In 1966, the law school faculty adopted a new admissions policy that took race into account as a plus factor in the admissions process. This policy of affirmative action has taken many forms over the years, but, across the decades of the 1970\u27s, the 1980\u27s and the 1990\u27s, about 800 African Americans, 350 Latinos, 200 Asian Americans and 100 Native Americans have graduated from the law school. The great majority of the African American, Latino and Native American students would not have been adrrutted to Michigan if race had not been taken into account. In 1996, three of us at Michigan who have been interested for many years in the careers of our alumni decided to undertake a survey of all of our minority graduates and a sample of our white graduates. Our principal goal was simply to learn the experiences of 30 years of minority graduates of our school We also realized that one of many ways to respond to public doubts about affirmative action in admissions would be to demonstrate (if it in fact proved true) that the minority graduates of our school have had productive careers and provided highly valuable service