Following the Courts

Under Florida law, neither race nor gender can legally be considered when a law school reviews applications for prospective students. And a U.S. Supreme Court decision is pending on college affirmative action programs.

Pitcher said that due to recent court rulings, Southern University Law Center doesn't look at race when sorting through the 1,300 to 1,400 applications each year to choose 150 freshmen slots.

Pitcher said the law school has to comply with the standards set by the American Bar Association and federal laws against racial discrimination. In choosing a freshman class, the committee looks closely at college grades and LSAT pre-law test scores, but also considers other factors.

"We also look at life experiences and other factors to determine who should fill these slots that we have available," Pitcher says.

Since 1994, Louisiana has been operating under court-supervised settlement to resolve a long-running federal lawsuit over racial segregation of its public higher education system.

That settlement has forced the creation of several graduate school programs at historically Black universities to attract White students. But none has been as successful, in terms of diversity, as the law center. And undergraduate programs at Grambling State and Southern University's Baton Rouge campus have seen little change in White enrollment over the past nine years.

"It's an easier sell than undergraduate programs, because students recognize that after matriculating at Southern or Texas Southern or Howard (law schools), that they're going to get the same opportunity to take that bar exam as everybody else," Pitcher says. "And once that happens, they are out there competing with everybody else."