Amidst ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S., a recently released report seeks to understand the experiences of women of color in law school. And it finds that minority women are significantly less likely than white women to be satisfied with their law school experience, at 82 and 89 percent, respectively. Just 30 percent of minority women and 33 percent of minority men report that they are “extremely satisfied” with their experience compared to 39 percent of white women and 44 percent of white men.
The report, titled Women of Color – a Study of Law School Experiences, was released by the Center for Women in Law and the NALP Foundation, and was conceived in response to the underrepresentation and departure of women of color in legal organizations, especially law firms. The sponsoring organizations wanted to explore the possibility that early barriers and imbalances in opportunity for women of color created disadvantages that impacted their careers over time. The study leading up to the report looked at disparities in the law school experience, social and academic, between women of color, white women, white men, and men of color. The survey period ran from 2017 to 2018 and included over 4,000 students from 46 law schools; 773 were women of color which included Asian/Pacific Islander, Black/African-American, and Hispanic/Latina.
Key findings:
About one-third of women of color said that they have seriously considered leaving law school (31 percent), while about a quarter of white women, white men, and men of color said the same (24 percent, 22 percent, and 26 percent respectively). Among the minority women who said they considered leaving, most cited “do not enjoy law school” (45 percent), “financial debt” (38 percent), and “not a good fit socially” (35 percent) as the primary reasons.
When asked to assess race relations, just 40 percent of women of color rated their law school positively compared to 70 percent of white men, 59 percent of men of color, and 58 percent of white women. Among the women of color, Hispanic/Latina’s ratings were the most positive and 25 percentage points higher than Black/African American women, and 13 percentage points higher than Asian/Pacific Islanders.
Fifty-two percent of minority women reported they experienced comments or interactions by students and/or faculty that negatively impacted their academic performance, compared to just 21 percent of white men, 34 percent of minority men, and 41 percent of white women. Women of color were also less likely than white women to say that they frequently felt comfortable raising their hand in class to ask questions.
At 71 percent, women of color were the least likely cohort to report having discussions with professors about their career plans and future goals, which was six percentage points below white women who were the most likely to engage in such discussions. However, 85 percent of women of color reported meeting one-one-one with professors to discuss coursework or grades.
Similar numbers of students across demographics said that they expected to practice law after graduation: women of color (90 percent), white men (89 percent), white women (88 percent), and men of color (87 percent).
NALP Foundation President Fiona Trevelyan Hornblower, via Bloomberg law, said that law schools, “can use this data to intervene and develop strategies to support students, to advance their success, both in law school and beyond.”