The Disadvantaged Student and Preparation for Legal Education: The New York University Experience

The law school commitment to enroll more minority students is a decision which can have many and varied ramifications for the law school as an institution. Minority students will bring new perspectives, different needs a total outlook on life and law potentially at variance with that of the majority culture in which most law school faculties and students have been educated. The resulting challenge to accepted norms can be met by the law schools in many ways--it can be ignored, creating frustration and anger, or it can be utilized creatively, expanding the horizons of the law school to include hitherto unperceived areas of thought and endeavor. The latter alternative was the approach of New York University, whose minority students, in conjunction with certain majority student organizations, called for and received law school reforms altering the framework of the legal education process at NYU