Empowerment and Achievement in Minority Law Student Support Programs: Constructing Affirmative Action

Part I of this Article reviews the findings of the LSAC Report. The LSAC Report is a good beginning for an understanding of the structure of current minority academic support programs. The data provided by the Report, particularly regarding student selection criteria, demonstrates the link between support programs and affirmative action. Part II explores the stigma exacerbated by many academic support programs and the prejudice that stigma perpetuates. Part III examines law school myopia in approach and design of academic support programs. Academic support should do more than reiterate, albeit at a slow and studied pace, earlier classroom material. Students with a different acculturation require new approaches to material. Finally, Part IV describes concrete, affirmative measures to ameliorate the prejudice that isolates and undermines minority law students, the most important of which is the hiring of minority law faculty.