An Unprecedented Shift in Law School Admissions

In mid-December, the American Bar Association released enrollment statistics for law students who began their studies in 2024 at the almost 200 ABA-approved law schools. The release was much anticipated because the data reflects the first cohort that went through the application process after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in the affirmative-action case, Students for Fair Admissions. While the court stopped short of outright prohibiting the consideration of applicant race, it narrowed permissible consideration to an extent that forced many law schools to revamp their admissions policies.

The decision was issued in late June 2023, at the tail end of the 2022-23 admissions cycle and just before the launch of the next cycle. The timing created ideal conditions for investigating the decision’s impact and comparing the cohorts that were admitted before and after it was issued. Relevant differences between the cohorts can be attributed in large part to the court’s ruling. The dominant prediction was that SFFA would harm the admission chances of applicants from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, those who tended to benefit from affirmative action. With the 2024 data, we can test this hypothesis.

In its data release, the ABA provided tables displaying topline demographic comparisons of the 2023 and 2024 first-year cohorts. The trends are striking: They show overall enrollment patterns that remained relatively stable. The percentage of white first-year enrollees fell about 1 percent, for instance, and the percentage of Asian first-year enrollees rose 2 percent. If SFFA had an impact on the racial and ethnic composition of the 2024 cohort, it appeared modest.

But the topline data is not sufficient for drawing definitive conclusions because it does not capture the nuances of legal education’s prestige hierarchy. The hierarchy, old as formal legal education itself, influences decision-making and behavior among a wide swathe of stakeholders, including applicants, students, legal educators, and employers. Any real analysis of the effect of SFFA must consider that prestige hierarchy, especially after The New York Times wrote about plummeting Black first-year enrollment at Harvard Law (from 43 such students pre-SFFA to just 19).

I have conducted such analyses. The results, summarized below, demonstrate unprecedented one-year shifts in racial and ethnic enrollment patterns that align with the prediction most of us made. Enrollment of Black and Hispanic first-year students at the nation’s highest-ranked law schools has fallen, despite relatively flat trends over all.

The legal-education prestige hierarchy is embodied most prominently by the oft-maligned but almost universally acknowledged Best Law Schools rankings, published by U.S. News & World Report. The legitimacy of the rankings is surely questionable; but unquestioned is their sway. I used the 2023 Best Law Schools rankings to compile the following eight school groupings: top 14; top 25 (including the top 14); 26-50; 51-75; 76-100; 101-125; 126-150; 151+. I then accessed 2023 and 2024 school-level enrollment data published by the ABA and combined each year’s data for all schools within each grouping. Here’s what I found, organized around the ABA’s demographic categories.

• Asian first-year law students were 11-percent more likely to attend a top 14 law school in 2024 compared to 2023, and 13-percent more likely to attend a top 25 law school. They saw large proportional increases in each school grouping in the top 100. Conversely, their presence fell at schools ranked between 101 and 150, suggesting that 2024 applicants had better access to higher-ranked law schools.
  
• Black first-year law students were 16-percent less likely to attend a top 14 law school and 17-percent less likely to attend a top 25 law school in 2024. Black students were less likely to attend schools in each grouping comprising the top 75, with a staggering 32-percent decline among schools ranked 26-50. Their presence increased 11 percent at schools ranked 76-100, suggesting a settling effect for Black students shut out of higher-ranked schools. Their proportional presence increased most (18 percent) at schools ranked 151 or lower.
  
• Hispanic first-year law students (of any race, as the ABA categorizes this group) were 21-percent less likely to attend a top 14 law school in 2024 and 17-percent less likely to attend a top 25 law school. They were 8-percent more likely to enroll in schools ranked 26-50 but 17-percent less likely at schools ranked 51-75. Like Black students, their proportional presence increased most (17 percent) at schools ranked 151 or lower.
  
• White first-year law students were 2-percent less likely to attend a top 14 law school in 2024, 3-percent less likely to attend a top 25 law school, and 6-percent less likely to attend a school ranked 76-100. White students, however, were 5-percent more likely to enroll in schools ranked 101-125, suggesting a slight settling effect. Over all, enrollment trends for white students were stable, relative to the large swings among the other groups.

There is one caveat to these trends. Before 2024, the ABA combined non-U.S. resident students into one discrete and blunt category. This practice meant that nonresident students were excluded from the racial and ethnic demographic calculations. The latest calculations, however, include nonresident students based on their self-reported racial and ethnic identity. This change in methodology is reflected in the trends observed in my analysis.

For example, Asian students comprise a disproportionate share of nonresident students, around 40 percent, according to a 2020 study. Therefore, the inclusion of nonresident students in the demographic calculations explains some of the increases observed among Asian students. But nonresident students comprise only a small proportion of all first-year law students, about 4 percent in 2023. The inclusion of such a small group cannot come close to explaining the intense post-SFFA shifts. For further clarity, I shifted my analysis back one year, focusing on racial and ethnic enrollment changes for the pre-SFFA entering class of 2023. Those changes were slight compared to what happened just one year later. The driving factor is clear.

SFFA is affecting law-school enrollment in unprecedented ways. Asian applicants experienced vast increases in access to the nation’s highest-ranked schools. Black and Hispanic applicants experienced unprecedented declines in opportunities at these schools. These latter groups are already underrepresented in legal education, and so it looks like SFFA will intensify deficits and militate against efforts to bring about equitable and representative access to the legal profession.

To be clear, a school’s ranking is not always a proxy for a school’s quality, especially when a student’s individual needs and priorities are considered. But the rankings reflect and enforce perceptions that influence post-graduation opportunities, which affect one’s ability to pay off student loans and build wealth. It matters that SFFA has narrowed access to the highest-ranked law schools for aspiring lawyers from underrepresented groups.

Moreover, there is the ominous possibility that the trends will worsen. An AccessLex study of state affirmative-action bans found that the declines in law degrees awarded to underrepresented people intensified as years passed. The baleful trends we are seeing now may be as good as it gets.