Affirmative Action Is Finally Waning

Law-school data shows that racial preferences have diminished since the justices’ 2023 decision.

By Richard Sander and Henry Kim. Mr. Sander is a law professor at UCLA and co-author of “Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It.” Mr. Kim is a research scientist at UCLA. Excerpts:

"University leaders, including law-school deans, had warned before the 2023 decision that ending racial preferences would dramatically diminish minority enrollment at professional schools and elite colleges. So far, the opposite is true at law schools. The total number of black and Hispanic students matriculating at law schools has risen more than 5% over the past two years.

There are two key reasons for this seemingly counterintuitive result. First, the number of black and Hispanic applicants to law school jumped by more than 30% over the two cycles following Fair Admissions. So far in the 2025-26 admissions cycle, black and Hispanic applications to law school are again growing faster than those from whites and Asians.

Something similar happened at the University of California after voters approved Proposition 209, a 1996 ballot measure prohibiting racial preferences in state programs. The rate at which black and Hispanic applicants accepted offers of admission rose across UC’s eight undergraduate campuses. The more a school reduced the weight it gave to race in the wake of Proposition 209, the more its uptake rate from accepted minority applicants increased.

The implication is that blacks and Hispanics prefer attending schools where they’ve been admitted under the same standards that apply to everyone else. They likely recognize that degrees untainted by preferences will have greater market value."