Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Council Decision, Notice of Finding of Significant Noncompliance With Standards 202(a), (c), and (d) Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (Aug. 31, 2021)
• AALS, New Deans Starting in the 2021-22 Academic Year
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Beat Goes On
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Season Was One For The Ages: Applicants Were Up 12.6%, With Biggest Increase (66%) Among The 170+ LSAT Band
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism: A Short Critique
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog),  Synthesizing Rules

• James Goodnow (CEO & Managing Partner, Fennemore Craig), How The Pandemic Breathed Life Back Into Law Schools
• Harvard Law Today, ‘Being a Lawyer is a Superpower’
• Law360, Law Schools At A Crossroads
• Veronica Root Martinez (Notre Dame), On Being First, on Being Only, on Being Seen, on Charting a Way Forward
• Podcast, The History Of Female Law Professors With Patricia Cain
• Jenna Sutherland, Vermont Law School Is Right to Cover Over a Controversial Mural
• U.S. News & World Report, How to Assess Law School Bar Passage Rates
• Catharine Wells (Boston College), Microaggressions: What They Are and Why They Matter

Comment: I am concerned by the significant number of law review articles today that ignore unfavorable evidence concerning the article's theories.  Case in point: Rory D. Bahadur, Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism.  In this article Professor Bahadur asserts that the U.S. News law rankings are racist based on "antiracist" theories.  Fair enough.

The problem with the article, however, is that he ignores a ton of scholarship criticizing antiracist theory.  The article gives the impression that antitracist theory is solidly established and that there is no criticism of the field.  Nothing could be further from the truth. (see here and the many articles cited therein)  This is ironic considering that Professor Bahadur accuses others of suffering from the confirmation bias ("Confirmation bias is the tendency of people to give more credence and validity to information consistent with their beliefs or hypotheses.").

Legal scholarship should not ignore unfavorable theories and evidence.  A convincing article critically examines the negative material and shows why it is wrong or not applicable.  Like so many other articles today, Bahadur's piece fails to do this.