Shocker: The Bar Exam Is Racist
20th March 2024
The State of Washington’s highest court has determined that its bar exam is racist. A lower passing score and “alternative pathways” into the legal profession have been mandated. It would be nice if the esteemed justices could point to a single exam question and explain how it is racist. How exactly does one go about excluding minority test-takers from correctly answering questions about the law of property or about search and seizure? Smuggle in references to polo, yachting, formal table settings or tuna-on-white sandwiches?
Systemic racism is a near-magical thing. White people are pulling it off and yet have no idea how exactly we are doing it, so we can’t stop it. It is much like the way women have always been intensely drawn to me. Sure, there are some obvious assets present but clearly, there is some ineffable extra something at play that I no longer bother to try to define. And as with Washington Supreme Court Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis’s grasp of the reality of systemic racism, there is just no way to fully capture the phenomenon and its causes other than acceptance of its validity and proceed from there.