Every year and universities around the nation, after the new students start the year, administrators have to report the ethnic make up of the student body. The goal of every university is to appear as diverse as it can so that A) it looks good for the school, and B) it helps in the recruiting of more students of color.

I work at a university and I have the opportunity to see how different institutions (schools vs other companies or programs that work with schools) count race. For instance. The LSAT (the test applicants take as part of their bid to get into law school) allows students to choose one of the 5 main races, as well as choose not to indicate, or not authorize the information be given out. The admissions program that our school uses allows for the input of three different ethnicities. In this case a mixed race/mixed ethnicity has the capability to indicate what they are because this information is taken from what is written on their application. Then we have to filter it down to 1 of 30 choices. My school actually has a code for multiracial, but they do not track what the mix is, so I come out being the same as the Asian/white student or the Thai/black student.

THEN for the sake of reporting to the legal educations governing board students once again have to be assigned to one of the five main racial categories, international, or unknown. It is infuriating that they have not yet added a multiracial category, even if it just says multiracial. So then what to do with those mixed students that are mixed white? well they are counted in with the minority category (a structure that reinforces the one drop rule ~grrrrr) And those students who are a mix of two underrepresented groups are assigned to the one with the least numbers. I sat in a meeting, and being who I am, I had to try so hard to not feel like my deans were being opportunistic (I really do like them a lot). They structure within which they have to report to the ABA is such that they are forced to make these decisions.

Hey, if this is the case one way to increase diversity would be to only recruit mixed kids. Then you could count them as what ever seems convenient (bad bad joke). The ABA (American Bar Association) needs to seriously look at the way they are doing things. I think that this also falls into the discussion that is going on in the rest of the field of education about how to classify mixed students. While only having a single mixed or multiracial category is easier in terms of collecting statistics, because of the inherent heterogeneity of the mixed population though having just the single check box washes us out and doesn’t give whoever is looking at the stats a realistic picture of the mixed population that they are dealing with.

I think, and this is based on talking with people, and things I have read, and so on, that there are differences in experiences that come from our different social histories and the histories of the ways in which the races or ethnicities that a person is a part of have interacted with each other. What have the power dynamics been like between the groups? What do the cultures feel about outsiders? What is the climate of the current society? what was the social climate that the person grew up in? All of these things can be so different among different mixed populations and having an understanding of what some of the issues our students could be dealing with would help us to offer programing and educational environments that are more encompassing and more educational for ALL students.
If there are any mixed law students out there I would love to know if you know if this is being addressed at all? Also I would love to find out if there are any issues that are specific to mixed law students? Are their needs being addressed within the legal curriculum? is Loving vs Virginia ever brought up in classes? how do all the white law students feel about it?