Black Women Are Increasing Their Share of All African-American Enrollments in Law School

Women make up 47 percent of all enrollments at the nation’s law schools. But JBHE’s analysis of enrollment data furnished by the American Bar Association finds that black women now make up 61.5 percent of the African-American enrollments at the nation’s 50 highest-ranked law schools.

There are only seven of these 50 top-rated law schools where men make up a majority of the African-American students. At more than half of these top-rated schools, black women make up more than 60 percent of the African-American students. At 11 of the top 50 law schools, black women make up 70 percent or more of all African-American enrollments. In 2000 there were only five top law schools where black women made up 70 percent of all African-American enrollments. At the University of Washington and Baylor University, black women are now 80 percent or more of all African-American enrollments.

Furthermore, while the percentage of women of all races who are enrolled in law school has declined in recent years, JBHE data shows that the percentage of all African Americans enrolled in law school who are women continues to increase. While the percentage of women of all races in law school has dipped from 50 percent to 47 percent since 2002, the percentage of women among African Americans enrolled in law school has increased from 59.6 percent to 61.5 percent.