I actually recently graduated from UCLA Law with a concentration in Critical Race Studies. I also did some research on UCLA Law admissions policies and statistics, and how curricular diversity ("magnet programs) relate to the actual goals of representation and whether it's back-door affirmative action leading to stigmatization, etc. Having gone through two years in CRS, I can tell you first hand that though the concentrators are diverse, they are by no means concentrated in any one ethnicity/race. Most of the concentrators are White or Asian-American, followed by Latina/o and Black. The highest correlation is between CRS and PILP actually. In the end, the class of 2005 contained only 8 CRS concentrators--it's tough for people to finish their Bar req./PILP req. and 7 CRS req., particularly the extra writing req. The fact that it graduates relatively few, given that its core classes (CRT, Civil Rights) can number into 35-40 demonstrates that most students view the classes as legitimate curricula that they wish to take to broaden their legal education; therefore many students take the classes on an ad hoc basis. If it were a stealth program, all of its graduates would be minorities, and they would be predominately Black/Latino. The fact that Black/Latino students take these classes does not mean that they got in through the back door or are looking for an easy way through law school. The CRS program is a rigorous program emphasizing scholarly writing--four of us graduates, including myself, are currently looking towards entering the market for legal academia. I guess my point is, the CRS is not a "stealth racial preference," but rather an academic program comprising what you perceive as disproportionate numbers of of minorities and public interest minded students. The Corporate Law Program and the Environmental Law Clinic at UCLA have a disproportionate number of White people--would we call these programs a "stealth" method of recruiting John Muir sympathizers or Warren Buffet types? Law school admissions is about intellectual diversity as much as demographic diversity--therefore, it behooves a school to offer varied curricula in order to entice a varied student body.

CRS was introduced at UCLA in part to remedy a drop in URM enrollment caused by Prop 209. Students expressing an interest in CRS on their application get an admissions preference, regardless of their race. I'm not aware that students expressing an interest in the Corp Law or Environmental Program get a similar preference. So both the intent & the implementation are different.

I don't agree that "if it were a stealth program, all of its grads would be minorities" -- any program that is designed to have a disproportionate effect on URMs while evading Prop 209 is by definition stealth. The fact that whites and Asians can also benefit doesn't change that.

Nowhere did I suggest that CRS is an "easy way through law school" or anything less than "rigorous".

My point was simply this: I had approx 215 total classmates last semester, which is about 35% of the 2L/3L enrollment. Of these, exactly one student was black. Perhaps it was a sampling anomaly. But that's fewer than I'd expect given the overall black representation of 4% or so.

To me, this is an example of why Prop 209 is a failure. I think admissions offices should be allowed to admit whomever they want, for whatever reason. There is no absolute scale of 'merit'. As Souter said in Gratz, "equal protection cannot become an exercise in which the winners are the ones who hide the ball".