Table Of ContentBlack Men in Law School
Grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT), Black Men in Law School refutes
the claim that when African American law students are “mismatched”
with more-selective law schools, the result is lower levels of achievement
and success. Presenting personal narratives and counter-stories, Jackson
demonstrates the inadequacy of the mismatch theory and deconstructs the
ways race is constructed within American public law schools. Calling for a
replacement to mismatch theory, Jackson offers an alternative theory that
considers marginalized student perspectives and crystallizes the nuances
and impact that historically exclusionary institutions and systems have on
African American law school students. To further the debate on affirmative
action, this book shows that experiences and voices of African American
law school students are a crucial ingredient in the debate on race and how
it functions in law schools.
Darrell D. Jackson is Associate Professor of Law at University of Wyoming,
USA.
Routledge Research in Educational Equality and Diversity
Books in the series include:
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Darius Prier
Educational Policy Goes to School
Case Studies on the Limitations and Possibilities of Educational
Innovation
Edited by Gilberto Conchas and Michael Gottfried
The Making of Indigeneity, Curriculum History, and the
Limits of Diversity
Ligia (Licho) López
An Asset-Based Approach to the Education of Latinos
Understanding Gaps and Advances
Eugene E. Garcia and Mehmet Dali Öztürk
Whiteness, Pedagogy, and Youth in America
Critical Whiteness Studies in the Classroom
Samuel Jaye Tanner
Building resilience of floating children and left-behind children
in China
Power, politics, participation, and education
Guanglun Michael Mu
Black Men in Law School
Unmatched or Mismatched?
Darrell D. Jackson
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Research-in-Educational-Equality-and-Diversity/book-series/
RREED
Black Men in Law School
Unmatched or Mismatched?
Darrell D. Jackson
First published 2018
by Routledge
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For my family
those who forged the path before me
those who walk this journey beside me
and those I have yet to meet
Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgements xii
1 The Law School “Race”: An Introduction 1
2 Exploring the “Appropriate Place” for African American
Law Students: Understanding Mismatch Theory 18
3 Mapping the Racetrack: A Conceptual Framework 40
4 Finding Olympians: Research Design and Methods 62
5 Analyzing the Race: Dialogues From African American
Male Former Law School Students 77
6 Looking at Different Racetracks: Mismatched
or Maligned? 100
7 Crossing the Line: Conclusions and Recommendations 112
References 123
Appendix A: Interview Protocol 134
Appendix B: Document(s) Request 135
Appendix C: May 2011 NVIVO Coding 136
Appendix D: February 2012 NVIVO Coding 147
Appendix E: The Process of Progress 164
Appendix F: Recruitment Letter 165
Index 167
Preface
As an academic, I regularly hear others (and myself) ask their research assis-
tants to summarize an article or book. Instead of allowing another to define
that summary, I include it here. If you are unable or unwilling to dive deeper
into this project, this section will provide you with an overview that pro-
vides more than an abstract.
In January 2013, the Association of American Law Schools hosted a panel
about the ever-controversial topic of affirmative action. As a speaker on the
panel, Professor Richard Sander had an opportunity to defend his mismatch
theory, which posits that affirmative action produces more harms than ben-
efits and, therefore, African American law students are “mismatched” with
their appropriate law schools. During the question and answer session, an
audience member rose and asked the panel, “Did anybody ask the people
that you’re writing about how they felt?” As an African American man who
served as an assistant dean at a top-tier law school, survived two doctoral
programs, and has experienced being silenced, talked about instead of being
engaged in conversation, and reduced to a statistic, I resolved to ask and
answer that very question. This book is the result of having spoken to the
very people who are the objects of Sander’s mismatch theory and presents
their perspectives, along with my own analysis.
In short, according to mismatch theorists, African American recipients
of affirmative action are “mismatched” with the law schools to which they
were admitted, and end up with lower achievement and success as a result
of their matriculation. Following Sander’s logic, if African Americans are
matched with their “appropriate” schools, there would be greater benefits
and fewer costs. By “appropriate,” Sander means a school that has a median
LSAT score and UGPA closely equivalent to those of the applicant. This,
Sander concluded, would benefit African Americans in law schools and the
legal profession. Interestingly, Sander does not publicize the same recom-
mendation for similarly situated European American (read White) students.
The mismatch theory, therefore, makes very specific charges about race
and legal education. Yet, despite the vast research on African Americans and
affirmative action, little qualitative analysis has been done to investigate
how race exists and functions in American law schools. I researched the
Preface ix
ways in which race is constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed within
two American public law schools.
On November 6, 2012, America re-elected its first African American
President. On June 24, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court decided F isher , one
of the newest of the nation’s legal cases surrounding affirmative action.
On December 9, 2015, the Court heard arguments in Fisher again! And, in
2016, America considered electing its second African American President;
however, that candidate was from the opposing political party to the first.
The President elected in 2016 has created panic surrounding racial issues,
like immigration, criminal justice, and affirmative action. When one com-
bines these critical moments, today becomes an ideal time to reconsider the
political posture that race and, correctly or incorrectly, its legal correlation,
affirmative action, hold within the academy and the public. Historically,
posturing has focused on varied concepts of merit and ownership. These
concepts are typically measured through 30-second sound-bites and “shiny
objects” that grab the attention of politicians and their voters. The result is
a standardized number that defines the value, worth, and future potential of
an individual or group of human beings. Yet, rarely does anyone want their
entire worth to be reduced to some statistic. I move beyond the statistics to
evaluate how affirmative action affected the lived experiences of faculty and
students negotiating space within a hostile institution.
The central question of this book is: What can the experiences and voices of
African American male former law school students reveal about race and how
it functions in law schools? Additionally, how are these experiences related to
attending more-selective or less-selective law schools? I chose African Ameri-
can males due to their disproportionately small enrollment in law schools,
in graduate schools, and in higher education overall, as well as the critical
need to confront this issue until resolved. I chose former law school students
because I wanted their experiences, after leaving law school, to be part of
my analysis. In the United States, the value of African Americans’ law school
experiences has been, most recently, reduced to a statistic (e.g., graduation
rates, first time bar passage). Missing from the statistics are the unique voices,
perspectives, and experiences of African Americans who attended law school.
Grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT), I present personal narratives
or counter-stories that deftly demonstrate the inadequacy of the mismatch
theory. The experiences of 10 African American former law students, five of
whom attended a less-selective and five of whom attended a more-selective
law school, are brought to life through individual and group interviews.
Against a backdrop of six law school faculty interviews, to gain institutional
perspective, I examined the former law students’ costs and benefits as sug-
gested by Sander and others. The participants revealed that both types of
institutions must better address racial issues and impediments before identi-
cal statistical outcomes can be expected at any level.
Ultimately, I call for a replacement of the mismatch theory with the Process
of Progress (PoP). In my analysis of students’ fluid movement from novice
