Variations in the Success Rates of Minority and Nonminority Candidates In the AALS Faculty Appointments Register
by Richard A. White
(This article was published in the March 1996 issue of the AALS Newsletter.)
There is a widespread misperception that most entry-level law school faculty members are hired through the AALS Faculty Appointments Register process. In fact, in recent years, only about half of new assistant and associate professors have obtained their positions through the Register. However, the percentage of those using the Register has increased from 44.4 percent in 1991 to 55.9 percent in 1995. Every fall, the AALS compares the faculty members appearing in the Directory of Law Teachers for the first time with the candidates in the previous year's Register to determine the success rates of the candidates. Through this process valuable information about trends in hiring is obtained. For a number of years the AALS has tracked, in particular, the success rates of minority and female Register candidates. For information about hiring trends in 1991 through 1993, see my article, "The Gender and Minority Composition of New Law Teachers and AALS Faculty Appointments Register Candidates," Journal of Legal Education, Volume 44, Number 3 (September 1994). This newsletter column is a summary of a report updating that article. A complete copy of the report can be obtained from the AALS.
One hundred forty-four (12%) of the 1,199 candidates in the 1994 Faculty Appointments Register are listed as new faculty members in the 1995-96 Directory of Law Teachers -- the highest rate of success for Register candidates since 1991 when 13.1 percent of the 1990 candidates were successful. Until this year the overall candidate success rate had been dropping steadily: 13.1 percent in 1991, 11.9 percent in 1992, 10.1 percent in 1993, and 9.8 percent in 1994.
Another trend observed over the previous four years was reversed in 1995. Among those candidates providing ethnic information, minority candidates had higher success rates than nonminority candidates throughout the five-year period, but the size of the difference had been decreasing until this year. In 1991, 25.6 percent of the minority candidates and 13.3 percent of the nonminority candidates in the previous year's Register were successful. In the following three years the minority to nonminority success rate difference diminished; the rates were 20.3 and 13.3 in 1992, 15.9 and 10.5 in 1993, and 12.4 and 10.3 in 1994. In 1995, however, 27.5 percent of the minority candidates compared to 10.3 percent of the nonminority candidates were successful.
Minority women have consistently had the highest success rates over the five-year period. This was especially notable in 1995: 32.4 percent of the minority women candidates were successful, compared to 24.5 percent of minority men, 11.9 percent of nonminority women, and 9.7 percent of nonminority men. In contrast, the differences in the success rates in 1994 -- minority women (13.4%), nonminority women (12.8%), minority men (11.9%), and nonminority men (9.2%) -- are statistically insignificant. The success rates of nonminority men have been the lowest and the most stable over the past five years: 12.6 percent in 1991, 9.9 percent in 1992, 8.8 percent in 1993, 9.2 percent in 1994, and 9.7 percent in 1995.
The success rate comparisons suggest two inquiries. Why were the success rates of minority Register candidates declining from 1991 to 1994? Why did this trend reverse dramatically in 1995?
Corresponding to the pattern of changing success rates, the minority composition of the successful candidate cohort was 25.0 percent in 1991, 23.8 percent in 1992, 21.6 percent in 1993, 18.9 percent in 1994, and 32.9 percent in 1995. Also in line with the increased success rate of minority Register candidates this year, the minority percentage of the cohort of new assistant and associate professors was higher than in any of the previous four years. In 1991, 30.7 percent of the new assistant and associate professors belonged to a minority group; that percentage dropped to 24.7 percent in 1992, 27.6 percent in 1993, 28.0 percent in 1994, and then increased significantly to 35.4 percent in 1995. There have been no corresponding changes in the overall composition of the Register candidate pool, remaining stable at approximately 15 to 16 percent minority in all five years.
The number of minority faculty who leave the law schools each year could also have an effect on the number of minority faculty the schools hire, in turn affecting the success rate of minority Register candidates. Relatively high percentages of those who do not return to law teaching each year are minority faculty. In 1991, 17.4 percent of the professors who did not return to teaching belonged to a minority group; that percentage was 16.3 in 1992, 21.7 in 1993, 19.5 in 1994, and a high of 22.5 in 1995. These percentages are much higher than the corresponding minority percentages of all professors. Only 755 (13.7%) of the 5,504 full, associate, and assistant professors (who provided ethnic information) in the 1995-96 Directory are members of minority groups. Over the past four years the number of newly hired minority assistant and associate professors has been highly correlated to the number of minority full, associate, and assistant professors who left the law schools. In 1992, 21 left and 48 were hired; in 1993, 26 left and 45 were hired; in 1994, 22 left and 46 were hired; and in 1995, 31 left and 62 were hired. Although this simple comparison is not sufficient to determine the significance of the correlation, it does show that the number of minorities who left are in roughly the same proportion to the number hired. Approximately two new minority assistant or associate professors were hired for each minority professor who left. This analysis leads to the inquiry: why are such relatively large percentages of the "leaving" cohort minorities, particularly the cohort that left between 1994 and 1995?