A2Z 20: Diversity Statements and "diverse student"

[Music] hey everybody it is dnz speaking to you from my basement and today i want to talk to you about diversity statements by which i mean the optional essays that some schools invite you to submit as part of their overall admissions materials um let's start with what do we mean by diversity so literally diversity just means differing one from another but it is tied up in many people's mind particularly in the admissions context with race and ethnicity why i think it is because number one uh the supreme court case law that has to do with the admissions process and uh is all about the question of when is race properly utilized and when and what are the parameters about what you can and can't do and in that case law the theory that the court has rested on for why you can sometimes take race into account is the theory of diversity they say schools want to have a diverse class and they want it to be racially diverse in order to be able to meaningfully address important issues of race in the classroom and therefore diversity i think has become very much linked with the idea of race specifically i will acknowledge here that many people think diversity is a very bad theory for the court to have used from a social justice perspective but that is for some brilliant constitutional law scholar to get into rather than me i am your admissions lady so let's get back to the admissions topic okay so it's linked up mentally i think with race but that is certainly not um the full scope of what people are talking about when they are talking about diversity in the admissions context or at least that's not the full scope of what admissions officers are talking about i will say that it is important that you and this is always true but that you read whatever the prompt is for a school so it is possible that some school will uh specify something quite narrow in what they're looking for but in general the topics that i have seen the way they are written they tend to be broad and schools mean that why do they mean that why do they care about all forms of diversity well it's not really all forms it's all forms that will have a bearing on the law school classroom so there's certainly ways that you might be different distinct from the average law school applicant that isn't really worth writing a uh diversity statement about what's a good example um let's say you went gray i think i am thinking of this because i can see the little gray in my hair there uh anyway covet hair is really a thing anyway suppose you went gray when you were 18 that is unusual but it's probably not gonna be anything that needs to be uh aired in a law school classroom which is not going to be relevant so you would not be well served by writing an essay on that topic as with all writing that you are doing for admissions and i guess in the world you should have a point and the point of the diversity essay is how will your voice contribute in an important way to the conversation that occurs in a law school classroom so obviously a huge part of the development of our legal system has had to do with race and distinctions based on race ergo race is a topic that many people will want to write their diversity statement about but there are many other things that are relevant in a law school classroom too so gender for example uh lgbtq status uh religion these are all topics that come up a lot in law um other topics might be um you know something about your academic background so math majors engineers science majors they tend to approach problems differently than liberal arts majors um and so that can be an interesting topic particular experiences you have had as opposed to a category that you are part of that can be um something illuminating for a diversity statement but it should all get back to the point of how are you going to be adding to the classroom dialogue um or another valid way of thinking about this would be about like what are you going to be adding to the profession um but again it's about your voice like what will be productive about having you be part of the profession and um and why will that be good what are you representing that is new and different and helpful uh as we think about our profession and so i should say here too that when we were talking about race obviously being white which i am is a race but that's not a great topic for a diversity uh statement because it is not actually adding anything new to the profession the profession is pretty white so you know that you that is not giving you a distinct and new sort of voice so that can be something helpful to think about when you are thinking about this another hot um another area might be um viewpoint diversity right so uh thinking about like your political beliefs and and how will that add to the classroom but in all cases you want to be thinking about you know how you'll be moving the conversation forward one thing you need to be cautious about often people will start the diversity statement by saying i may not seem very diverse because i am a white cisgendered male yadda yadda and then they'll go on to the thing that you know they do want to talk about that they think makes them diverse just take out that whole first part it sounds defensive it is a waste of space and it um it's just not a strong beginning so i think people do that because they are struggling with writing it and they feel self-conscious so i would say examine that impulse if you are writing this essay and it feels awkward and it feels unnatural and it feels like you're saying something that nobody else is going to want to read listen to that impulse right there is no sense in forcing it it is very painful when you're an admissions officer reading an essay on any topic that you can tell has has been forced and it um you know didn't really come from a natural place i was gonna say from the heart but it doesn't have to come from the heart just some like authentic place and in that case if it's not coming from a natural place that's when you should look at what other alternatives does a school offer if you want to write something additional beyond your personal statement all right i think that is all i have to say on that topic i hope that's useful let's talk about grammar and i'm actually not going to move too much off of the subject for a second because one of my real pet peeves is when people use the phrase diverse lawyer like so and so is a diverse lawyer you yourself cannot be diverse you can add diversity to a group so if it is a group of all male people i will add some diversity by being a female um but i am not myself diverse so don't use the word diverse in that meaning because diverse means differing one from another as i said at the very beginning of this so an individual cannot themselves be diverse but they can add diversity uh you could also have a group that is diverse because there will be lots of different kinds of people in the group so that's an okay way to use diverse but don't say diverse lawyer and um yeah i feel very strongly about that and i hope i have convinced you that you too should feel strongly all right that is a wrap everything i have to say on this topic for the moment um thank you for watching uh please leave your comments and questions and additional thoughts below in the comments or send an email to at law.jd.admissions and put vlog in the subject line and if you're interested you may want to check out my vlog and yeah i'm also going to put a link to something i wrote on the subject of diversity in the admissions process about a million years ago but maybe you'll find it interesting all right thanks for listening and uh thanks to dustin as always wherever you go go blue [Music] you

Channel: Michigan Law

Views: 17,956

Keywords: Dean Z reads a full law school application, How do admissions look at law school apps, law school app reading, how admissions judges a law school app, A2Z, Law School, Michigan Law, How to get into Law School, How to apply to Law School, Law School Application, Law School Tips and Tricks, JD, Application, T-14, Dean Z, Sarah Zearfoss, MLaw, UMichLaw, University of Michigan Law School, Michigan Law Admissions, Law School Admissions, Applying to Law School, U-M, GoBlue, Ann Arbor

Id: K0e9A-6CE6Q

Length: 10min 0sec (600 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020