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Law schools enrolled their most diverse matriculating classes on record in 2023, the final class to be selected before the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down affirmative action in June, according to new data from the American Bar Association.
The national incoming law class is made up of 40 percent students of color, a one-percentage-point increase over last year and the third straight year of historic diversity for law schools. Nonwhite students also made up a larger portion of the applicant pool this year—42 percent, up by one percentage point from last year as well.
People of color are still woefully underrepresented in the legal profession, however: in 2021 fewer than 12 percent of attorneys were nonwhite. Many worry that gains in diversity among prospective J.D. earners will be stymied or reversed by the affirmative action ban.
Medical schools also enrolled their most diverse classes ever this year, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Law school enrollments in general stabilized this year, though they have not yet begun to recover after a roller coaster two years. In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, total enrollment surged by 12 percent, then took a 20 percent nosedive in 2022. This year it declined by half a percentage point.
