Affirmative Action at Indiana University (May 28, 2003)

In 1999 the average Black LSAT at Indiana University was 146, which was the 32nd percentile of test-takers nationwide. The average non-minority LSAT was 159, which was the 81st percentile.

To interpret the significance of an LSAT of 146, it is useful to know the average LSAT scores at various law schools. I have shown them below, and also included the school's place, if it has one, in the 177 schools ranked on IU's excellent and widely used Ranking Game website. I've included the bottom 7 schools in that ranking, a smattering of other low-LSAT schools, and, to show that IU is far nearer the top of the law school LSAT range than to the bottom, the number 1, 10, and 103 schools, Yale, Virginia and Santa Clara. (Note that Indiana's LSAT score below is 161, 2 points higher than the 1999 figure in the jpg files. I suspect that what is reported as "average" here is really the median, not the mean.)

Various Law Schools

School	Average LSAT	IU Ranking
Texas Southern	145	unranked
Inter Am. U. of Porto Rico	unreported	175
Pontifical Catholic U. of Porto Rico	unreported	174
California Pacific	140	unranked
Glendale	145	unranked
Cal Northern	145	unranked
Lincoln Law School of Sacramento	145	unranked
Florida A and M	146	unranked
Washburn	148	90
St Thomas	148	172
New England	148	176
Monterey	148	unranked
Oklahoma City	149	146
Golden Gate	150	162
Capital	150	171
Thomas Jefferson	151	170
South Texas	151	173
Santa Clara	156	103
Indiana-Bloomington	161	20
Virginia	166	10
Yale	171	1

In 2001, the 25th percentile LSAT of those admitted to IU was 156 and the 75th percentile was 163. A grid showing the probabilities of admission for various combinations of LSAT and GPA is at officialguide.lsac.org/OFFGUIDE/AdmissionGrids/G1324ADMG.HTM . The average score was reported as 161 by the Princeton Review (perhaps for 2002).

This data was acquired by Scott Dillon under an open records act, which requires public access to certain kinds of state documents. He made his request of Indiana University on January 27, 2003. The University Counsel's office told him that they needed to research whether the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, the Buckley Amendment, 20 USC 1232g) allowed them to disclose the information. After inquiring about progress and receiving a number of emails saying that the university needed more time, he filed a formal complaint with the Office of the Public Access Counselor on April 3, 2003, and finally received the information on April 7.

The open records act does not require state institutions to collect data; only to disclose documents. Thus, since the University did not have any records of test scores by race after 1999, that is the latest data available to the public.

You can get the data in three formats. Best for most people is Scott Dillon's memo (the one stolen from the law students' mailboxes) which has it retyped, in MS-WORD or ascii-plain text (which is poorly formatted).

The alternative is to get JPG scanned images of the university records. The files are about 50K each. If they do not display well on your screen, try printing them out. The images are listed below.

• Cover letter
• 1999 and 1998 and 1997 and 1996 and 1995 and 1994 and 1993 and 1992 and 1991 and 1990

You might also like to look at data from Michigan and California.

Mr. Dillon tried distributing the data via law student school mailboxes, but any that weren't picked up within a day seem to have been stolen. Some items connected with that event:

• The stolen mailing, in MS-WORD or ascii-plain text (which is poorly formatted)
• The Law School Dean's email to all law students with her thoughts on the theft

• A press release on a resolution deploring the theft and the law school's response by the Indiana Association of Scholars, an affiliate of the National Association of Scholars
• An article by the Bloomington Herald-Times on the theft
• An article by the Chronicle of Higher Education on the theft
• An article by National Review on the theft
• An article in TownHall.com on the theft
• An article in the Indianapolis Star, from an AP story, on the theft