Asserting that the “California bar exam, like similar standardized tests, has a racially discriminatory impact on all people of color, but particularly on Black test takers,” four members of the state Assembly this week asked the Supreme Court to immediately lower the exam’s passing score. “[W]e must become a nation of anti-racists, rooting out explicit and implicit bias wherever it lurks,” the legislators said, “particularly in the legal profession.”
The request came in a letter — signed by Judiciary Committee Chair Mark Stone, Public Safety Committee Chair Reginald B. Jones-Sawyer, Sr., Legislative Latino Caucus Chair Lorena Gonzalez, and Legislative Black Caucus Chair Shirley N. Weber — that also asked the court to “help the COVID-19 law school class of 2020 by permitting them to practice law in the interim, with appropriate oversight.”
Regulating the admission of applicants to the Bar is one of the Supreme Court’s many non-case-related tasks.
Related:
Cheryl Miller in The Recorder — “California Lawmakers Urge Court to Lower Passing Score for Next Bar Exam”
A revealing interview with the Chief Justice
Supreme Court will not lower bar exam passing score, at least not now