How do law schools even KNOW YOUR RACE? Forum

[2011Law]

Yes. Definitely misinterpreted that one, I apologize sincerely.

Not enough, I would like some reparations for the harm that you have caused me.

EDIT: OH YEAH, I WENT THERE!!!

[mrmangs]

okay try living in orange county, CA as a black male. my boyfriend of 4 years is black, and my parents refuse to accept it. any other race would've been okay. yeah my parents can be seen as racist because of this, but I can't help that so please don't go there. and no, in orange county, if you are black, you don't get a huge boost because you are a URM. you don't get the job as a front desk receptionist with 2 degrees from UCLA because the firm doesn't want a black person to be the first person your all-white clients see when they walk into a swanky law office.

They wouldnt hire a white person with 2 degrees from UCLA as a receptionist because you are over qualified and they know that you will not stay, it is only something small till you get a real job.

And I did live in OC for my last 2 years of High School, lived in Lake forest. (after 2 years of living basically on the border of alabama and florida lol)

And I NEVER saw or heard of ANYONE being racist, sounds like your parents are a huge problem to society

FWIW, you have demonstrated a severe lack of credibility as far as being objective about racism is concerned.

[005618502]

I don't want this thread to continue further in the wrong direction. Just a simple suggestion to everybody here, just be respectful of others. If someone says they had a hard time growing up, accept it or do not comment. To challenge someone's daily issues that you know nothing about is unfair and unwarranted. We all have law school as an ultimate goal. Let's be more supportive of each other reaching that goal.

This is true. I am sorry to come off as disrespectful. I just wish people would realize that even URM's grow up with affluent parents in nice neighborhoods while there are white people that struggle. Its not totally one sided. Now i do hate hearing people say that they have experienced such racism in this day and age, especially in an area where i grew up. I guess you dont notice it when it isnt happening to you.

I am sorry to everyone here i offended. That got out of hand

[sophia.olive]

I could give you a bunch of studies and anecdotal evidence and Im sure you can find the average salaries for races online. But you are blinded by your little situation and LIFE NOT BEING FAIR lol. Though I can say in my personal life I saw a lot of blame etc... go towards black folk where white people got away with it. I have been pulled over by the police a bunch of times and never got a ticket. My black friend got pulled over and got a ticket for license plate coverings etc... My father told my not to date black men..etc... sure slavery is over but this stuff doesnt just disappear it will last for much longer in the psyche of both whites and blacks...blah blah ... I have had friends go to the same place to get a job and the black girl was way more qualified and they hired my anti-social pothead white friend instead.
This is bigger than your personal experience, a system was created BY white people FOR white people and now there are things that try to make the system BY/FOR the people who live in this country. Whether or not that involves giving them a boost on some standardized test so they can represent the top stratus of our society (because they are not general represented despite your limited experience) then so be it. The fact that we are structured in a way to where segments of our population are not GENERAL achieving what the rest is means we are not structured correctly. Personally I dont want to go to Law school and be surrounded by a bunch of other white people and then become the heads of a legal world that governs both black and white. It doesn't matter if they have to accept students who scored a little lower on the lsat. I dont care. The profession should represent the people that demand its services.

[Gotti]

okay try living in orange county, CA as a black male. my boyfriend of 4 years is black, and my parents refuse to accept it. any other race would've been okay. yeah my parents can be seen as racist because of this, but I can't help that so please don't go there. and no, in orange county, if you are black, you don't get a huge boost because you are a URM. you don't get the job as a front desk receptionist with 2 degrees from UCLA because the firm doesn't want a black person to be the first person your all-white clients see when they walk into a swanky law office.

They wouldnt hire a white person with 2 degrees from UCLA as a receptionist because you are over qualified and they know that you will not stay, it is only something small till you get a real job.

And I did live in OC for my last 2 years of High School, lived in Lake forest. (after 2 years of living basically on the border of alabama and florida lol)

And I NEVER saw or heard of ANYONE being racist, sounds like your parents are a huge problem to society

no, they will not hire someone because they are racist. it's not just one firm...it's many firms.

You never saw it because you never experienced it. I am not a minority, and I saw (and still see) it all the frickin time. Open your eyes. Racism and prejudice still exists, as much as you would like to believe otherwise. I walked across the street with my boyfriend in Costa Mesa and these white guys sitting at El Pollo Loco screamed “you f***in n****r” at him for no reason. We weren’t doing anything…just walking across the street to get some food. This was 6 months ago.

[005618502]

okay try living in orange county, CA as a black male. my boyfriend of 4 years is black, and my parents refuse to accept it. any other race would've been okay. yeah my parents can be seen as racist because of this, but I can't help that so please don't go there. and no, in orange county, if you are black, you don't get a huge boost because you are a URM. you don't get the job as a front desk receptionist with 2 degrees from UCLA because the firm doesn't want a black person to be the first person your all-white clients see when they walk into a swanky law office.

They wouldnt hire a white person with 2 degrees from UCLA as a receptionist because you are over qualified and they know that you will not stay, it is only something small till you get a real job.

And I did live in OC for my last 2 years of High School, lived in Lake forest. (after 2 years of living basically on the border of alabama and florida lol)

And I NEVER saw or heard of ANYONE being racist, sounds like your parents are a huge problem to society

no, they will not hire someone because they are racist. it's not just one firm...it's many firms.

You never saw it because you never experienced it. I am not a minority, and I saw (and still see) it all the frickin time. Open your eyes. Racism and prejudice still exists, as much as you would like to believe otherwise. I walked across the street with my boyfriend in Costa Mesa and these white guys sitting at El Pollo Loco screamed “you f***in n****r” at him for no reason. We weren’t doing anything…just walking across the street to get some food. This was 6 months ago.

Did your BF do anything about it? or just let it happen?

[Gotti]

okay try living in orange county, CA as a black male. my boyfriend of 4 years is black, and my parents refuse to accept it. any other race would've been okay. yeah my parents can be seen as racist because of this, but I can't help that so please don't go there. and no, in orange county, if you are black, you don't get a huge boost because you are a URM. you don't get the job as a front desk receptionist with 2 degrees from UCLA because the firm doesn't want a black person to be the first person your all-white clients see when they walk into a swanky law office.

They wouldnt hire a white person with 2 degrees from UCLA as a receptionist because you are over qualified and they know that you will not stay, it is only something small till you get a real job.

And I did live in OC for my last 2 years of High School, lived in Lake forest. (after 2 years of living basically on the border of alabama and florida lol)

And I NEVER saw or heard of ANYONE being racist, sounds like your parents are a huge problem to society

no, they will not hire someone because they are racist. it's not just one firm...it's many firms.

You never saw it because you never experienced it. I am not a minority, and I saw (and still see) it all the frickin time. Open your eyes. Racism and prejudice still exists, as much as you would like to believe otherwise. I walked across the street with my boyfriend in Costa Mesa and these white guys sitting at El Pollo Loco screamed “you f***in n****r” at him for no reason. We weren’t doing anything…just walking across the street to get some food. This was 6 months ago.

Did your BF do anything about it? or just let it happen?

He turned around and asked them wtf they just said

They were like NOTHING MAN JUST KEEP WALKIN JUST KEEP WALKIN.

There were like 3 of them…he wasn’t about to start a fight. What else can you do when you experience this kinda thing so often? There are ignorant people in this world, dude. Racism is everywhere and you may not notice it because you don’t experience it, and that’s the point. Just because you went to a predominantly black school doesn’t mean that you know everything there is to know about being a black person in this country. It sucks, but it’s true. But like RJ127 said, just be careful what you say. Obviously he knows there are affluent black people and there are very poor white people. Historically and currently, though, you can’t say that minorities are not at a disadvantage. That’s all.

[BrownBears09]

[NZA]

It ain't easy being white.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvgCvT9xX7A

[mrmangs]

I just wanna peace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Vaz9jW054

[005618502]

Did your BF do anything about it? or just let it happen?

He turned around and asked them wtf they just said

They were like NOTHING MAN JUST KEEP WALKIN JUST KEEP WALKIN.

There were like 3 of them…he wasn’t about to start a fight. What else can you do when you experience this kinda thing so often? There are ignorant people in this world, dude. Racism is everywhere and you may not notice it because you don’t experience it, and that’s the point. Just because you went to a predominantly black school doesn’t mean that you know everything there is to know about being a black person in this country. It sucks, but it’s true. But like RJ127 said, just be careful what you say. Obviously he knows there are affluent black people and there are very poor white people. Historically and currently, though, you can’t say that minorities are not at a disadvantage. That’s all.

Yea, you are right. But one of my best friends is black and we do hang out about everyday. If anyone ever said anything like that they would have been put in the hospital, wether it be 1 guy or 5, its the principle. I guess that has never happened to us though, maybe because we are bigger guys, i dont know. Im sorry you have had those experiences, thats terrible. But one good thing is black people have an advantage in that gym! Edit: <-----the gym thing was a joke, maybe not appropriate but just wanted to clarify i was joking lol

[BrownBears09]

Did your BF do anything about it? or just let it happen?

He turned around and asked them wtf they just said

They were like NOTHING MAN JUST KEEP WALKIN JUST KEEP WALKIN.

There were like 3 of them…he wasn’t about to start a fight. What else can you do when you experience this kinda thing so often? There are ignorant people in this world, dude. Racism is everywhere and you may not notice it because you don’t experience it, and that’s the point. Just because you went to a predominantly black school doesn’t mean that you know everything there is to know about being a black person in this country. It sucks, but it’s true. But like RJ127 said, just be careful what you say. Obviously he knows there are affluent black people and there are very poor white people. Historically and currently, though, you can’t say that minorities are not at a disadvantage. That’s all.

Yea, you are right. But one of my best friends is black and we do hang out about everyday. If anyone ever said anything like that they would have been put in the hospital, wether it be 1 guy or 5, its the principle. I guess that has never happened to us though, maybe because we are bigger guys, i dont know. Im sorry you have had those experiences, thats terrible. But one good thing is black people have an advantage in that gym! Edit: <-----the gym thing was a joke, maybe not appropriate but just wanted to clarify i was joking lol

World views and life experiences. You lack them.

[Gotti]

World views and life experiences. You lack them.

LMFAO.

[Ginj]

World views and life experiences. You lack them.

<3

[Sinra]

Also: IBTL

[blackwater88]

we are talking about the whole world not your personal pity party.

cool story though

The whole world? How about we talk about the United States. Where if you are black/mexican/NA and try hard you can get into schools with numbers that are undeserving, then when hiring comes around you get another HUGE boost.

Man sounds like it must be pretty rough.

LOL

You got a 165

[bilbobaggins]

These are the threads where I become convinced that most people on TLS are idiots regardless of their LSAT scores or GPAs.

Race correlates strongly with wealth and educational background in the United States. This is the result of several hundred years of systematic oppression against people of non-white races.

The purpose of affirmative action based admissions is to make sure that America's lawyers are at least somewhat of a representation of the American people. Even at a school like Boalt, the number of African American men in my class can be counted on one hand.

No one alive is directly responsible for the origins of systematic inequality based on race in America. This is why, given our country's focus on the individual, it is so difficult for some of us to see affirmative action programs as being fair. However, race is still a real issue when you have a country with a higher percentage of its black population in jail than during the worst of Apartheid in South Africa. So, it might not seem "fair" to you that you don't get the benefits of affirmative action. It certainly doesn't seem fair to me that the US systematically enslaved and then continued to subjugate via the law a whole race of people. I wonder which unfairness is more important?

[blackwater88]

These are the threads where I become convinced that most people on TLS are idiots regardless of their LSAT scores or GPAs.

Race correlates strongly with wealth and educational background in the United States. This is the result of several hundred years of systematic oppression against people of non-white races.

The purpose of affirmative action based admissions is to make sure that America's lawyers are at least somewhat of a representation of the American people. Even at a school like Boalt, the number of African American men in my class can be counted on one hand.

No one alive is directly responsible for the origins of systematic inequality based on race in America. This is why, given our country's focus on the individual, it is so difficult for some of us to see affirmative action programs as being fair. However, race is still a real issue when you have a country with a higher percentage of its black population in jail than during the worst of Apartheid in South Africa. So, it might not seem "fair" to you that you don't get the benefits of affirmative action. It certainly doesn't seem fair to me that the US systematically enslaved and then continued to subjugate via the law a whole race of people. I wonder which unfairness is more important?

And posts like this restore my faith on TLS.

[Gotti]

These are the threads where I become convinced that most people on TLS are idiots regardless of their LSAT scores or GPAs.

Race correlates strongly with wealth and educational background in the United States. This is the result of several hundred years of systematic oppression against people of non-white races.

The purpose of affirmative action based admissions is to make sure that America's lawyers are at least somewhat of a representation of the American people. Even at a school like Boalt, the number of African American men in my class can be counted on one hand.

No one alive is directly responsible for the origins of systematic inequality based on race in America. This is why, given our country's focus on the individual, it is so difficult for some of us to see affirmative action programs as being fair. However, race is still a real issue when you have a country with a higher percentage of its black population in jail than during the worst of Apartheid in South Africa. So, it might not seem "fair" to you that you don't get the benefits of affirmative action. It certainly doesn't seem fair to me that the US systematically enslaved and then continued to subjugate via the law a whole race of people. I wonder which unfairness is more important?

finally.

[mrmangs]

These are the threads where I become convinced that most people on TLS are idiots regardless of their LSAT scores or GPAs.

Race correlates strongly with wealth and educational background in the United States. This is the result of several hundred years of systematic oppression against people of non-white races.

The purpose of affirmative action based admissions is to make sure that America's lawyers are at least somewhat of a representation of the American people. Even at a school like Boalt, the number of African American men in my class can be counted on one hand.

No one alive is directly responsible for the origins of systematic inequality based on race in America. This is why, given our country's focus on the individual, it is so difficult for some of us to see affirmative action programs as being fair. However, race is still a real issue when you have a country with a higher percentage of its black population in jail than during the worst of Apartheid in South Africa. So, it might not seem "fair" to you that you don't get the benefits of affirmative action. It certainly doesn't seem fair to me that the US systematically enslaved and then continued to subjugate via the law a whole race of people. I wonder which unfairness is more important?

This man is reasonable. Thank your sir.

[Stringer Bell]

These are the threads where I become convinced that most people on TLS are idiots regardless of their LSAT scores or GPAs.

The thing is that anyone who disagrees with a URM admissions boost is automatically labeled as an idiot or a racist by people that do agree with the boost regardless of the soundness of their position.

I'm too busy to really get into this right now. But trying to create equality simply by saying "Ethnic group A receives less of X in the marketplace than Ethnic group B, we need to correct the end result of that as opposed to the drivers behind it" has resulted in some undesireable consequences.

[NZA]

These are the threads where I become convinced that most people on TLS are idiots regardless of their LSAT scores or GPAs.

Race correlates strongly with wealth and educational background in the United States. This is the result of several hundred years of systematic oppression against people of non-white races.

The purpose of affirmative action based admissions is to make sure that America's lawyers are at least somewhat of a representation of the American people. Even at a school like Boalt, the number of African American men in my class can be counted on one hand.

No one alive is directly responsible for the origins of systematic inequality based on race in America. This is why, given our country's focus on the individual, it is so difficult for some of us to see affirmative action programs as being fair. However, race is still a real issue when you have a country with a higher percentage of its black population in jail than during the worst of Apartheid in South Africa. So, it might not seem "fair" to you that you don't get the benefits of affirmative action. It certainly doesn't seem fair to me that the US systematically enslaved and then continued to subjugate via the law a whole race of people. I wonder which unfairness is more important?

Good points! Not trying to be a troll, here, but I'm not entirely sure I agree with your argument.

The question that I think a person who is against affirmative action/providing a soft for a person of a specific racial background might raise is the point that someone mentioned earlier: that simply belonging to a race or ethnic group does not necessarily demonstrate any history of overcoming racial obstacles in that individual's life.

We can all obviously agree that, from an institutional/statistical standpoint, the average African-American male faces far more challenges to success than the average White male. This is beyond a doubt a truth, and institutions like law schools do have a certain responsibility to our nation to help bring about a just state of race relations.

That having been said, the application process for the applicant is not about statistics or US history. It's about the years of hard work in college, graduate school, or at a place of employment. It's about studying night and day for the LSAT in order to achieve a score that he or she can be satisfied with. And after all that hard work, I can definitely understand why it would appear "unfair" that a person who did not do quite as well in these areas can gain admission to prestigious law schools based on a factor that has nothing to do with their willful choosing.

When a previous poster raised the point that there are some African-Americans, for instance, that have had significantly greater advantages than some White people, that does not invalidate the admissions process of taking a person's race into account. It does, however, point out that our nation definitely embraces the idea of a meritocracy.

Nonetheless, I think the best argument for factoring in race is the fact that it does not "disadvantage" anyone in the admissions process. In fact, it benefits everyone, regardless of race. By having people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds in the classroom, the class is enriched. People of differing perspectives bring something unique to the table, allowing everyone's horizons to expand. THIS, I think, is the reason why factoring in race to admissions is a good thing.

In other words, arguing that law schools are somehow correcting an historical/institutional injustice misses the mark. Or rather, the injustice corrected is different from what most suppose. While it seems like you, bilbo, are focusing on the history of race in this country (a sad, twisted history if there ever were one), I think it is better to focus on the present moment. Again, increasing the amount of minorities/LGBTQ(or whatever acronym you're supposed to use)/economically disadvantaged/international students is correcting the injustice of depriving all students of having the opportunity to learn from others.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about.

[d34d9823]

I wonder which unfairness is more important?

To me, the one where I don't get HYS because I'm white.

To society, whatever the other thing you said was.

[Gotti]

These are the threads where I become convinced that most people on TLS are idiots regardless of their LSAT scores or GPAs.

The thing is that anyone who disagrees with a URM admissions boost is automatically labeled as an idiot or a racist by people that do regardless of the soundness of their position.

I'm too busy to really get into this right now. But trying to create equality simply by saying "Ethnic group A receives less of X in the marketplace than Ethnic group B, we need to correct the end result of that as opposed to the drivers behind it" has resulted in some undesireable consequences.

Please teach us how to correct institutional and systematic racism against minorities in this country. Maybe if you can do this, it'll be a great soft factor for your applications.

[blackwater88]

These are the threads where I become convinced that most people on TLS are idiots regardless of their LSAT scores or GPAs.

The thing is that anyone who disagrees with a URM admissions boost is automatically labeled as an idiot or a racist by people that do regardless of the soundness of their position.

I don't think that's the problem, I'm sure he was referring to stupid posts like these:

I think the whole system would be more fair if everyone was black and/or puerto rican.

Obviously you can get into some good law schools with those numbers alone, but you can get into some even better schools with the addition of the URM status that you would not get otherwise.

God I wish I was black, life would be so much easier.

Why, if I was black i would be going to HYS, so yes life would be easier for me too