Plain Talk About Testing and Race: A Reply to Professor Harvey Gilmore and a Law Review Publishing Drama

Abstract

The following is my response to an essay that was accepted in May 2015 by the University of Minnesota’s “Law & Inequality” for its winter issue. The essay in question continues a disputation that I and a number of others have engaged in on the subject of testing and race. In brief, I favor continued use of testing for admission in law school, although with liberal allowance for alternative measures of readiness for law study. Professor Harvey Gilmore, the author of the essay, believes that tests such as the LSAT are virtually useless and that just about any college graduate who wants to go to law school should be able to do so. For reasons that will be clear at the outset, I found Gilmore’s tone to be abusive. I also found many analytical flaws. Perhaps sensing that his word would, and maybe should, not be the last on the subject, Gilmore, whom I know well, sent me a copy of his essay in which he explicitly invites my response. On the same theory, “Law & Inequality” also invited me to respond. “Law and Inequality,” for whom my piece could have been red meat,” has now rejected my submission. In addition, after reading my draft the journal is urging Gilmore to make changes, something the editors committed to not doing if my article was accepted. But nullifying a full summer’s work of mine will not do. My essay not only needs to be read, but it needs to be read in the light of the essay that was originally accepted. Adjusting Gilmore’s article in response to my draft does not solve the problem I identify -- that only validated views on race are publishable. That is to say, both the writing and the acceptance of Gilmore’s article as is, is central to the story.