Putting the Bar Exam on Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, and the Public Good

Putting the Bar Exam on Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, and the Public Good By Scott Johns* ABSTRACT Nothing to see here. Season in and season out, bar examiners, experts, supreme courts, and bar associations seem nonplussed, trapped by what they see as the facts, namely, that the bar exam has no possible weaknesses, at least when it comes to alternative licensure mechanisms, that the bar exam is not to blame for disparate racial impacts that spring from administration of this ritualistic process, and that there are no viable alternatives in the harsh cold world of determining minimal competency for the noble purpose of protecting the public from legal harms. All a lie, of course. But rather than challenging our assumptions, state bar associations and bar examiners keep going as business as usual. We might even say that it’s just the cost of doing business. Yes, some bar applicants will pay the price, they admit, by not passing bar exams, but protecting the public good demands that we be demanding, that we not yield to temptation to soften our approach. We can never be too cautious when it comes to protecting the public. After all, the public good is at risk. Or is it? This Article challenges conventional stories told about the bar exam. Part I describes the background of the bar exam as currently used by most jurisdictions to include a hypothetical “Socratic” conversation as a prelude to understanding the bar exam and its impact on demography and the public good. Part II catalogues stories we tell to justify our recurrent resort to bar exams as the penultimate source of wisdom in making licensure decisions. Part III exposes fallacies behind many of these justifications. Part IV analyzes whether we might look to common law tort principles as a tool for exposing whether the bar exam, by producing recurrent well* Scott Johns serves as Professor of the Practice of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. J.D. (University of Colorado); Flight Safety Certificate (University of Southern California); B.A. Mathematics and Statistics (Miami University). Previously, he taught at Chapman University School of Law and Whittier Law School, where he worked on academic support and bar passage issues. Prior to law school, he served as a military officer and instructor pilot and then an airline pilot. 853 854 Seattle University Law Review [Vol. 45:853 known racial disparate impacts, might suffer from constitutional infirmity. Part V concludes with an exploration of some common-sense alternatives to the behemoth of the bar exam to better protect the public. CONTENTS I. BACKGROUND .................................................................................... 855 A. Overview of Argument ................................................................. 855 B. Bar Exam Formats and Cut Scores.............................................. 855 1. Overview of the Uniform Bar Exam ........................................ 856 2. Overview of the California Bar Exam (CBE) .......................... 859 3. Cut Score Anomalies................................................................ 861 C. The Crux of the Issue—Race & Ethnicity and the Bar Exam ...... 863 1. Predictive California Data ........................................................ 864 2. Actual California Data ............................................................. 865 3. Actual ABA Data ..................................................................... 866 D. A Cautionary Tale—Data Storytelling ........................................ 867 E. A “Socratic” Conversation about Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, and the Public Good ......................................................................... 869 1. Socrates Meets a Franklin Bar Examiner ................................. 869 2. Socrates Meets a Franklin Supreme Court Justice ................... 876 3. Socrates Meets a Law School Educator ................................... 879 4. Socrates Meets a Bar Taker...................................................... 881 5. Socrates Meets a Practicing Attorney ...................................... 882 6. Socrates Meets an Academic Support Professional ................. 885 II: THE STORIES TOLD........................................................................... 887 A. The NCBE Claim .......................................................................... 888 B. The Academic Claim .................................................................... 892 III. STORIES EXPOSED ........................................................................... 896 A. The 2017 California Bar Report: An Alternative View................ 897 B. The Oklahoma Experiment........................................................... 899 C. The Colorado Disciplinary Report .............................................. 900 D. Lessons Learned - Diploma Licensure ........................................ 901 IV. TORTS, DIGNITY, AND A CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE ............... 904 A. The Crux Revisited ....................................................................... 905 B. The Fairness Principle ................................................................. 906 1. Yick Wo v. Hopkins ................................................................. 907 2. Washington v. Davis ................................................................ 910 C. Torts, Dignity, and Un-Constitutional Intent............................... 913 2022] Putting the Bar Exam on Constitutional Notice 855 1. Fisher v. Carrousel Motor Hotel .............................................. 913 2. Garratt v. Dailey ....................................................................... 915 3. United States v. Carolene Products Co. ................................... 916 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 920 I. BACKGROUND A. Overview of Argument This Article argues that the bar exam suffers from a constitutional defect, namely, that the bar exam as an assessment apparatus lacks empirical support sufficient to justify its continued use considering the bar exam’s persistent disparate impacts based on race and ethnicity. As an exclusionary instrument, ostensibly separating competent from noncompetent attorneys, the bar exam does something much different. Rather than protecting the public, the bar exam restrains competition, restricting entry to the profession, notably favoring certain racial and ethnic groups over other groups. To begin, the data indicates the bar exam acts as a barrier to entry to the legal professional by producing significant disparate impacts against marginalized groups. In this Article, I explore jurisdictional reports detailing the impacts based on race and ethnicity. Based on the evidence of disparate demographic impacts, the Article then argues that the evidence to justify the continued use of the bar exam for its publicly stated purpos (...truncated)