The study --‘Does race matter in educational diversity? A legal and empirical analysis’ – is based on data collected over the last decade, encompassing the views of some 6,500 students at 50 law schools, reports the National Law Journal.

Better understanding

According to the survey, the majority of law students said they had a better understanding of the law as a result of the diversity among their classmates.
University of North Carolina School of Law professor Charles Daye conducted the research. He commented on the results: ‘Diversity matters in the way students conduct conversations in class, how they interpret cases, in the way they interact in social settings and with their professors… The students told us that they learn from each other: white students from black students and black students from white students.’

Controversial quotas

The subject of race and university and law school admissions has been a controversial, with the first attempts to introduce racial quotas narrowly voted against by the Supreme Court in 1978.
‘This is a very important question,’ Prof Daye said. ‘We're in a global world where lawyers will interact with a wide array of people, and judges will need to understand the perspectives of people of other races.