Sander reminisces about his history on mismatch (the gap in academic qualifications between students admitted to law schools because they are more diverse than the rest of the student body) in a blog post. It’s been very difficult to obtain additional data.
Robert Steinbuch (a University of Arkansas, Little Rock colleague) and I managed to secure the public release of data for 12 cohorts of law student at four law schools. This covered about 6,500 students. After a multi-year review, the Journal of Legal Education—the official organ of the Association of American Law Schools—has now agreed to publish the first set of our results in its next issue.
Our research shows that mismatch may account for between two-thirds and three-quarters (or more) of the Black/white gap.
