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1. A Precedent: Desegregating the Law School Admissions Test Centers, 1960–1962
- Louisiana State University Press
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10 A Precedent deSegregating tHe law SCHool adMiSSionS teSt CenterS, 1960–1962 All tests so given are grossly unfair to Negro applicants. We urge prompt revamping of [segregated] testing practice. —Roy Wilkins, executive secretary, NAACP, telegram to Educational Testing Service, August 1960 Almost from its formation in 1948, Educational Testing Services (ETS) had been concerned about segregated conditions at centers for its several test programs. Complaints from black candidates in the South arrived regularly at the ETS campus in Princeton, and the organization addressed them on a case-by-case basis, o≠ering apologies and making special accommodations when appropriate. Meanwhile, demand for all tests administered by ETS was growing steadily, with more candidates each year for Graduate Record Examinations, Secondary School Admissions Tests, College Board tests (including the Scholastic Aptitude Test [SAT]), Law School Admissions Tests (LSAT), Secondary School Admissions Tests, National Teachers Examinations, and others. ETS was enjoying this growth and knew that it risked losing test centers and white candidates in the South if it insisted on integrated centers. The LSAT centers became the first that ETS studied with the idea of desegregation in mind. Its success in that arena led to a much more ambitious plan to desegregate College Board test centers. These two e≠orts parallel the movement to desegregate A Precedent: Desegregating the LSAT Test Centers, 1960–1962 11 public law schools that eventually led to the desegregation of public higher education generally and then, finally, to the desegregation of public schools. Background on the LSAT and the desegregation of law schools, outlined in this chapter, provides a context for what follows.1 The College Entrance Examination Board developed the LSAT in the late 1940s in response to a request from Frank Bowles, director of admissions at Columbia University and later president of the College Board. Columbia and Yale University had the longest histories of administering legal aptitude tests, both having begun that practice in the 1930s. Bowles was dissatisfied with the entrance test Columbia was using at that time. He and other Columbia representatives met in July 1947 with Henry Chauncey, then treasurer of the College Board, and other College Board o∞cers to discuss alternatives.2 Those attending the July meeting issued an invitation to representatives of Harvard University and Yale to join Columbia in a project wherein the College Board would develop and administer an aptitude examination for the three universities to use as part of their law school admissions process. Harvard and Yale agreed to the proposal. When the university and College Board representatives met in August, they decided to include several other law schools, inviting all institutions holding membership in the College Board and having law schools to form a group that would finance the development of the test.3 In November 1947 the Conference on the Legal Aptitude Test took place. Those present agreed to o≠er the opportunity to participate in the project to any law school that belonged to the Association of American Law Schools, an organization encompassing the country’s most prestigious law schools. In the end, 22 law schools participated. Pretesting was conducted at 9 law schools in the fall of 1947, and 2,753 candidates took the first form of the test the following spring. Having assumed responsibility for all College Board test administrations on January 1 of that year, ETS administered the test. During the 1948–49 academic year, ETS tested approximately 7,500 LSAT candidates. By the end of 1948 the LSAT had become a self-supporting division of ETS, and all of the original donors to the program were reimbursed from the collection of test fees.4 The year 1948 was a banner one for law schools, which enrolled more [44.222.104.49] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:19 GMT) 12 a campaign of quiet persuasion first-year students during that academic year than in any prior year due largely to the influx of World War II veterans; moreover, the 1948–49 academic year would continue to hold that record for nearly two decades. Because postwar candidates were so diverse in their academic backgrounds and because they were applying from all over the United States, law school admissions o∞cers needed a standard measure of aptitude to aid them in their selection processes.5 By 1953, the fifth anniversary of the LSAT, the number of those taking the test, after an initial dip from its starting point of 7,500, had reached 8,283. In addition to the...