As the nation sees what they want to see, we fail to look at the truth. As the United States becomes an increasingly diverse nation, the lack of Black legal professionals is cause for major concern. The complex look into the obstacles facing African Americans reaching the status of judge will be examined. Furthermore, we will examine the process it takes to become a judge, the education as well as social disparities faced amongst African Americans.
The lack of African American Judges can be attributed to the process in which it takes to become one. Additionally, the process for anyone to enter college is a tedious and time consuming experience. Carefully choosing the classes you take in high school help to you learn the proper way of studying …show more content…
Admissions to Juris Doctor (JD) programs of law schools is based on the Law Standard Admission Test (LSAT) score, however some may say there is some racial discrimination on these test that they rely so heavily on these test scores for admission to the program. These claim state “It was pointed out that over-reliance on LSAT scores by many Law Schools has left out many African-American students who have low scores due to lack of resources for adequate preparation.” (Opati, 2007) The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) are designed to assess reading comprehension, logical and verbal reasoning proficiencies, existing since 1948 when it was created to set apart students with the same GPA’s. Another obstacle in the face of African Americans is that many law schools have a recruitment program however when the recruiters are whites then they tend to preference those who remind or relate to them and these are usually other whites. The institutional barriers they face as well as lack of professional role models decrease the amount of law school graduates. Once law school is completed if they thought the LSAT were hard there is another mountain to overcome and it is called the Bar exam. It is a generally a two day academic test “the first day for the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), the second for a state-specific exam. The MBE is a six-hour, 200-item test that covers the same six areas covered in the core curriculum of all ABA accredited universities: Contracts, Torts, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Evidence, Property and Torts. The state test tends to be in essay form and its topics vary depending on the state.” (Burritt, 2006) Furthermore, the battle to become a judge does not stop
The lack of African American Judges can be attributed to the process in which it takes to become one. Additionally, the process for anyone to enter college is a tedious and time consuming experience. Carefully choosing the classes you take in high school help to you learn the proper way of studying …show more content…
Admissions to Juris Doctor (JD) programs of law schools is based on the Law Standard Admission Test (LSAT) score, however some may say there is some racial discrimination on these test that they rely so heavily on these test scores for admission to the program. These claim state “It was pointed out that over-reliance on LSAT scores by many Law Schools has left out many African-American students who have low scores due to lack of resources for adequate preparation.” (Opati, 2007) The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) are designed to assess reading comprehension, logical and verbal reasoning proficiencies, existing since 1948 when it was created to set apart students with the same GPA’s. Another obstacle in the face of African Americans is that many law schools have a recruitment program however when the recruiters are whites then they tend to preference those who remind or relate to them and these are usually other whites. The institutional barriers they face as well as lack of professional role models decrease the amount of law school graduates. Once law school is completed if they thought the LSAT were hard there is another mountain to overcome and it is called the Bar exam. It is a generally a two day academic test “the first day for the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), the second for a state-specific exam. The MBE is a six-hour, 200-item test that covers the same six areas covered in the core curriculum of all ABA accredited universities: Contracts, Torts, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Evidence, Property and Torts. The state test tends to be in essay form and its topics vary depending on the state.” (Burritt, 2006) Furthermore, the battle to become a judge does not stop