American Bar Association House of Delegates rejects bid to eliminate LSAT
Jeremiah Poff
The American Bar Association voted against eliminating the LSAT as a requirement for law school admission on Monday despite the group’s legal education council broadly supporting the move.
The assembly of the ABA’s House of Delegates rejected the proposal to eliminate the standard law school entrance exam brought forward by the ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The effort was rejected by a voice vote and marks the council’s second failed attempt to eliminate the test in five years.
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Proponents of eliminating the LSAT for law school admissions said the test posed a barrier to diversity efforts in law schools and the legal profession at large. A recent study found that black applicants have a lower average LSAT score than white and Asian applicants.
Members of the council also noted that the ABA is the only accrediting body that requires institutions to maintain an entrance exam requirement. In 2021, the ABA approved the use of the GRE, the graduate school standard test, in law school admissions.
The Law School Admission Council, which administers the LSAT, broadly opposed the removal of the test requirement.
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In a Monday statement, Kellye Testy, the council’s president, said the vote “will ensure that we have additional time for research into the actual impact of test-optional policies on students and diversity.”
The LSAC and other groups that opposed the removal of the test said that eliminating the requirement would actually harm diversity efforts because admissions offices would place greater emphasis on the prestige of an applicant’s undergraduate institution and other more subjective assessment measures.