Prominent Bar Associations, Attorneys and Stanford Law Dean Oppose Sander’s Data Requests
Last fall, the California Bar Association again denied Professor Richard Sander and his research partners’ request for private data on recent bar applicants. Sander and his research team seek to utilize this data to study the relationship between affirmative action and bar-passage rates for students of color. The data requested by Sander and his researchers includes applicants’ LSAT scores, race, gender, law school attended, grades for law school and undergraduate study, and bar exam scores.
In journalistic accounts and in papers filed before the Bar, Sander suggests that the Bar Association’s repeated denials are simply the product of a liberal bar and affirmative-action advocates wanting to stop his research from proceeding. He claims that any privacy claims are simply “red herrings” because no data will be made public and no students identifiable. He further argues that the discussion of his proposed study was “full of misconceptions.” Read more
EJS Board of Directors Selects Anthony Solana, Jr. as New Chairperson
The Equal Justice Society today announced that its board has selected Anthony Solana, Jr. as its new chairperson, effective immediately.
Solana, an attorney with the Los Angeles office of Winston & Strawn LLP, and an EJS board member since 2003, succeeds Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. as chair.
“I’m delighted that Anthony will assume the role as Chair of EJS. He has a remarkable ability to build a strong consensus among people fighting for more equality and fairness,” said Professor Ogletree, EJS’s inaugural chair. “He is the right person to lead EJS at this critical time in our journey.”
“Anthony has been with us from the inception of EJS and brought to the board a tenacity for justice, strong leadership and the belief that the law can be used to ensure opportunities for the disenfranchised and oppressed,” said Eva Paterson, co-founder and president of EJS. “We’re enormously proud to have him as our board chair.”
Solana is also president and chair of For People of Color, Inc., an organization he founded to empower people of color wanting to enter the legal profession.
He is the author of “A Guide to the Law School Application Process For People of Color” and “A Guide to the Bar Examination For People of Color” and a motivational speaker, frequently enlisted to be the keynote at numerous events, including law school admissions workshops, bar examination workshops, academic support programs and commencement ceremonies.
In the Los Angeles office of Winston & Strawn LLP, Solana practices in the areas of complex commercial litigation, internal investigations and general business disputes. He was formerly an attorney with Morrison & Foerster LLP. He focuses his pro bono practice to immigration and international human rights matters. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights recently awarded Solana the Father Cuchulain Moriarity Award, which recognizes an attorney who has made an extraordinary contribution to the organization’s asylum program.
Solana also serves as a board member of the Greenlining Academy Alumni Association, which recently recognized him as its “Alumnus of the Year.”
Solana received his Juris Doctor from the University of California Los Angeles School of Law where he served as the co-chair of the Seventh Annual National Latina/o Law Student Conference and was a founding member of the National Latina/o Law Student Association. He received numerous accolades, including the University of California Regents’ Scholarship, American Bar Association Legal Opportunity Scholarship, Los Angeles County Bar Association Diversity Scholarship and Mexican American Bar Foundation Scholarship.
In 2003, Solana and a team of UCLA School of Law students submitted an amicus curiae brief supporting the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program to the Supreme Court of the United States in Grutter v. Bollinger. He was also involved in creating the “Preserving Diversity in Higher Education” manual on admissions policies and procedures after the University of Michigan decisions. His progressive views on equal educational opportunities have been chronicled in the Wall Street Journal, California Law Review, and L.A. Weekly.
Solana received his B.A. in Political Science and History, with honors, from the University of California, Berkeley. He was the first person in his family to attain a college degree and Juris Doctor. Anthony, however, is proudest of the fact that he was born and raised in East Los Angeles, California.
Nation’s First Multilingual Poll Uncovers Tensions Among The Largest Ethnic Groups In America
The nation’s first multilingual poll of Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans has uncovered serious tensions among these ethnic groups, including mistrust and significant stereotyping, but a majority of each group also said they should put aside differences and work together to better their communities.
The poll, which was released yesterday during a news conference at the National Press Club and discussed this morning in San Francisco, was sponsored by New America Media (NAM) and nine ethnic media outlets who are founding members of the organization.
Santa Clara University law professor Margaret Russell, an Equal Justice Society board member, joined Nora Vargas of the Latino Issues Forum and other panelists at the San Francisco briefing to share reactions to the poll. (I’ll post in a few days my analysis of the poll results.)
AP: Race-Based Admissions in LA Schools OK, Says Judge
From the Associated Press (Dec. 12, 2007):
The Los Angeles Unified School District’s practice of using race as a factor in enrolling students for its popular magnet programs doesn’t violate an anti-discrimination law, a judge has ruled.
In a ruling filed Monday, Superior Court Judge Paul Gutman upheld the nation’s second-largest school district’s integration plan, which also buses volunteer minority students to schools in certain parts of the city.
The American Civil Rights Foundation had filed a lawsuit in 2005 claiming the district’s practice violated a voter-approved initiative that outlaws racial preferences in all public programs in California.
District officials contend they are exempt from the court order and the state law because they’re operating under a 1981 court-ordered desegregation program.
“It appears quite clearly and beyond dispute that … LAUSD was ordered to employ race and ethnicity to ensure that the magnet schools would in fact be segregated,” Gutman said. He noted that the 1981 order did not set a date for desegregation goals to be achieved.
“It thereby becomes beyond rational argument that the order approving implementation of the desegregation plan … still exists … and has never been affected by any subsequent ruling,” the judge said.
An attorney for the foundation said he planned to appeal the decision.
