This story begins with a Black mail carrier.
In 1950, Heman Marion Sweatt applied to the University of Texas School of Law.[1] After years of working as a railway mail carrier and labor union organizer, Sweatt decided to study the law in an effort to help secure voting rights and employment protections for Black Texans.[2] Like many states at the time, Texas law upheld Jim Crow, which codified racially segregated schools and public facilities from the late 19th to mid-20th century.[3] These laws prohibited Black students from attending law school alongside their white counterparts, relegating them to severely under-funded institutions with inferior facilities and inadequate resources.[4] In practice this meant that, although Sweatt was a qualified applicant, he was automatically denied admission solely because of his race.
Sweatt filed suit against the University of Texas, citing a violation of his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[5] After a long fight, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Sweatt, finding that he was unjustly denied admission,[6] both challenging the “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson, and paving the way for the historic Brown v. Board of Education.[7] This was an incredible moment of progress. The landmark Sweatt v. Painter decision promised aspiring Black lawyers access to legal education and pushed open doors that were previously shut by institutions like the University of Texas.
Yet, seventy-five years after Sweatt v. Painter, that door is only partially open. Today, Black students remain significantly underrepresented among law students, making up only 8% of first-year law students nationwide.[8] While the courts made it illegal to bar prospective lawyers from entering law school based on their race,[9] structural barriers to admission are still keeping many Black students from pursuing a legal education. Recent policy changes to federal student loans, combined with impacts of the SFFA v. Harvard decision, make Sweatt’s promise of access more elusive.
This article asks what happens when the law opens the door to access but ongoing financial barriers and newly weakened legal standards determine who becomes a lawyer and who remains shut out. It focuses on three questions: how barriers like finances and education inequities restrict opportunities, how SFFA has impacted access, and what a path forward might look like.
The Struggle is Costly: Financial Barriers
For many prospective law students, the first question in deciding whether to attend law school is: “Can I afford this?” With tuition costing upwards of $150,000,[10] cost has become one of the most significant and prohibitive factors in a decision. For example, the estimated cost of attendance (COA)[11] at The George Washington University Law School for the 2025-2026 academic year is $110,947, with an anticipated yearly increase of 3-5%.[12] A new study from LSAC shows that 84% of all first-year law students identify debt as a barrier to attending law school.[13] This burden is even greater for Black 1Ls who estimate an average of $108,713 in debt after graduation, a figure significantly higher than that of white students.[14]
The last two presidential administrations have taken vastly different approaches to addressing student debt, but both have led students to the same dead-end. The Trump Administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” eliminates the Graduate PLUS loan program for new borrowers beginning July 1, 2026, caps federal borrowing for professional degrees at $50,000 annually, reduces flexibility on income repayment plans (including SAVE, PAYE, and IBR), and removes deferment options for financial hardships.[15] This means aspiring Black law students—who are disproportionately reliant on federal student loans to pursue legal careers—are left with fewer options to finance their education.
The Biden Administration proposed a different solution, steeped in the promises of student loan forgiveness made during the 2024 campaign.[16] The proposed cancellation of up to $20,000 in debt for borrowers who received Pell Grants was struck down in Biden v. Nebraska, where the Supreme Court held that the policy does not have authority to do so under the HEROES Act.[17] The alternative, the SAVE income-driven repayment plan,[18] was developed to lower monthly payments but is currently facing legal attacks threatening its existence.[19] While both proposals could have helped law students with existing debt, neither addresses the upfront cost of law school tuition. Importantly, neither plan included targeted relief for law students.[20]
Extending beyond loans, scholarships and grants can help offset the cost, but racial and ethnic minority students still receive them at a rate 15% lower than white students.[21] As LSAC officials have noted, this financial disparity functions as its “own form of gatekeeping” where personal savings and family support benefit only the wealthiest students.[22]
The central issue in this article is not whether law school should be affordable in the abstract, but that its high cost falls most squarely on Black students who already face structural barriers to access. While divergent in approach, both administrations have failed to directly address financial hurdles, which disproportionately impacts Black students–at best leaving existing speed bumps in place, and at worst turning those speed bumps into a brick wall.[23]
The Struggle is Systemic: Educational Inequities
Cost isn’t the only barrier to access. Black students often find themselves at a disadvantage long before the law school application process even begins. Historical inequalities in education can shape a variety of factors from unequal K-12 resources,[24] to standardized test preparation, to adequate college counseling.[25] For example, predominantly Black school districts receive $23 billion in less funding each year than predominantly white districts.[26] On average, nonwhite school districts receive $2,226 less than a white school district for every student enrolled.[27] The fact that more than half of all students attend racially segregated schools underscores how pervasive these realities are.[28]
These disparities can extend into the law school pipeline, touching LSAT scores, application costs, and mentorship during the lengthy and complex application process. According to LSAC, Black applicants experience a persistent gap in LSAT scores compared to white test takers.[29] On its face, this may appear to reflect merit, but connecting the dots from the disparities listed above makes the reality clear: decades of systemic educational inequality can heavily influence performance.[30] A Black student who has attended underfunded and segregated schools from K-12 is less likely to have access to test prep, counseling and comparable resources that allow them to compete on equal footing during the application process.[31]
Of course, this data is not conclusive: Not all Black students fare worse on law school applications than all white students.[32] This is an example of what some scholars call a “sieve problem,” where structural inequities can function as filters at every stage of the process, reducing the number of viable Black candidates who have the option of admissions.[33]
Impact of SFFA
Those who circumvent these barriers and make it through the process must still contend with another form of filtering: acceptance. The landmark Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision struck down race-based admissions in higher education, holding that such policies violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.[34] This decision eliminated race as a factor for consideration in the higher education admissions process.[35]
While data on the effects of SFFA remains limited, early indicators point to a concerning trend. One year after the decision, the American Bar Association reported a decline in Black student enrollment across all T14 (top fourteen) law schools.[36] Despite a 2.6% increase in overall first-year enrollment, the number of Black students enrolled in T14 schools dropped to 356 Black students, 31 fewer than the previous year.[37]
In Harvard Law’s first admitted class after the Supreme Court’s decision, the school enrolled just 19 Black students in its Class of 2028 compared to 43 in the Class of 2027, reflecting a decrease from 18% of the law student population to a mere 14%.[38] To put it into perspective, in 1965 Harvard admitted 15 Black students to its first-year class.[39] The Class of 2028 is the lowest number of entering first-year students the school has seen since then, nearly 75 years after Sweatt.[40] Harvard Law Professor David Wilkins put it plainly: “This is the lowest number of Black entering first-year students since 1965.”[41]
The University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill also saw a drop in Black student enrollment with only 9 first-year students, down from 13 last year.[42] Researchers call this the start of a possible “cascade effect,” where following affirmative action bans, students of color tend to end up at less-selective institutions, which in turn impacts job opportunities at top law firms and judicial clerkships.[43]
One common response: the real barrier is with socioeconomic class, not race, and any admissions rewiring should focus on that.[44] In this view, Black students from financially secure backgrounds don’t share the same obstacles because they have access to tutors, mentors and other financial resources.
But the data doesn’t support this assumption. Returning to the LSAT, the racial score gap persists across all socio-economic levels, showing that income alone doesn’t ensure equity.[45] A growing body of research has found that the racial backgrounds of applicants are a contributing factor to LSAT performance gaps “such that upper-class African Americans are outscored by lower-middle-class white applicants.”[46]
This gap may be driven by the reality that even high-earning Black households are less likely to have generational financial safety nets or access to social capital: the kind of advantage that can help secure elite internships and recommendations.[47] There still remains an uphill climb for most Black students, including those from higher earning households.
This inconvenient truth is what SFFA fails to consider: eliminating race as an admission factor and treating applicants as if these barriers do not exist denies Black students a truly fair admissions decision and compounds inequities in law school admissions.
A Path Forward?
It is important to note that despite gaps that make the admissions process more challenging, Black law students are shown to be more than capable of excelling, with graduation rates at top professional schools approaching 100 percent in many cases.[48] A survey by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education shows an almost near perfect graduation rate at top law schools like Columbia, Cornell and Georgetown; business schools at Dartmouth and MIT; and medical schools at Vanderbilt and University of Pittsburgh.[49]
This is why direct federal and state action is critical to helping students gain access. Unfortunately, there are currently no federal laws tackling this problem.[50] The Preventing Risky Operations from Threatening the Education and Career Trajectories (PROTECT) Students Act focused on predatory admissions practices and greater transparency in colleges and universities, but does not explicitly address law school barriers.[51] At the state level, progress has been inconsistent, ranging from Maryland’s recent ban on legacy admissions,[52] to Ohio’s rollbacks of DEI and race-conscious programs, further weakening the already limited tools available to promote equity.[53]
Still, there is a bright spot: the private sector has increasingly made targeted investments in Black applicants facing barriers. AccessLex offers a post-baccalaureate program designed to prepare first generation law students for the academic and financial demands of legal education.[54] LSAC’s Plus Guided Journey works with 34 law schools to help mentor and prepare applicants who face structural barriers.[55] The Sidley Prelaw Scholars Initiative provides financial assistance and LSAT prep for students facing barriers,[56] and Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO)’s pre-law fellowship connects underrepresented students with top law firms for paid internships prior to starting law school.[57]
If congressional and state actors take the lead from the private sector, there is potential to build widespread, long-term solutions, like federal support for pipeline programs, meaningful admission reforms and debt relief explicitly aimed at law school. These challenges run deep, and they won’t be solved by a single bill or overnight fix. The only way the promises of Sweatt can materialize is if we begin moving in the right direction with intentional, equitable reform.
Conclusion
A critical part of Heman Sweatt’s story is often overlooked. Though he enrolled in law school that fall, Sweatt dropped out before completing his second year. His family would later cite the toll that his case had taken on his health as the reason.[58] This isn’t just a footnote; it is a reminder that simply granting access may not be enough. The door was cracked open for Sweatt, but it didn’t erase the years of stress the case took on him—just like laws alone cannot dismantle the centuries of structural inequalities that have kept Black Americans out of these coveted spaces.
This story begins with a Black mail carrier because at the core of these legal arguments and policy debates are real people. The aspiring lawyers who came before Sweatt weren’t lacking in ability or ambition. What they lacked was access. Once that access became available, it allowed Black lawyers to contribute meaningfully to the study and practice of law, creating a more diverse and robust legal system for everyone.
But it can’t stop there. Today’s underrepresentation of Black students in law school is not due to a lack of will or motivation. It is a reflection of inequities that cannot be overridden by simply passing a law. It will take the collaborative work of legal institutions, federal and state level action, and continued private sector innovation to ensure that the progress made is not undone by anti-affirmative action measures.
Fewer Black law students mean fewer Black judges, fewer Black partners at law firms, fewer Black hiring managers and mentors, and fewer Black law school deans who can shape the legal education landscape, dismantle gatekeeping, and help fulfill this promise of a deep and rich legal system.
A Personal Note
As a Black woman law student who has “made it through the door,” I still find myself wrestling with a sense of belonging in law school and legal spaces, often sitting with the quiet truth that I am navigating a system that was never meant for me. That means taking a deep, tentative breath before speaking in classes that are sparsely populated with other Black students. It means constant pep talks and self-affirmations that I sometimes only halfway believe. It means knowing I belong here, but not always being able to access that feeling.
I remember texting the other three Black women in my Jay Inn section[59] before our first exam in Fall 2022:
Though Sweatt’s journey began 75 years ago, today’s reality is a reminder that there is much work that needs to be done to push forward this lasting legacy.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
* Star Nadiyah Johnson is a 4L student at The George Washington University Law School, a DC native, and a proud member of the illustrious Jay Inn evening student cohort. She worked full-time during law school while attending classes part-time. Contact: starj@law.gwu.edu
[1] Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, 631 (1950).
[2] “African‑American Postal Workers in the 20th Century: Who We Are,” U.S. Postal Service, https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/african-american-workers-20thc.htm.
[3] K.M. Walsemann et al., Education in the Jim Crow South and Black–White Inequities in Allostatic Load Among Older Adults, 19 SSM Popul. Health 101 224 (2022).
[4] Charles T. Clotfelter et al., Public Universities, Equal Opportunity, and the Legacy of Jim Crow: Evidence from North Carolina (Nat’l Bureau of Econ. Research, Working Paper No. 21577, Sept. 2015), https://www.nber.org/papers/w21577.
[5] Sweatt, 339 U.S. at 631.
[6] Id. at 636.
[7] Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
[8] Karen Sloan, Fewer Black and Hispanic Law Students at Elite Schools Portends “Cascade Effect”, Reuters (Dec. 19, 2024), https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/fewer-black-hispanic-law-students-elite-schools-portends-cascade-effect-2024-12-19/.
[9] Id. at 3.
[10] Law School Admission Council, Funding the First Year: How 2024 1Ls Paid for Law School (Anna Russian & Elizabeth Bodamer 2025), https://www.lsac.org/data-research/research/funding-first-year-how-2024-1ls-paid-law-school.
[11] COA is a budget for the academic year which includes room and board, personal, and transportation costs, added together and divided by the nine months of the standard academic year.
[12] George Washington University Law School, Cost of Attendance, 2025‑2026 Academic Year, JD Program, (2025), https://www.law.gwu.edu/cost‑of‑attendance.
[13] Julianne Hill, Cost of Law School Drives Where Students Enroll, New LSAC Study Shows, ABA Journal, May 30, 2025, https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/cost-of-law-school-drives-where-students-land-lsac-study-show.
[14] Id. at 7.
[15] Mary Cunningham, “Are You a Student Loan Borrower? Here’s How the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Could Affect You”, CBS News, July 12, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/big-beautiful-bill-changes-student-loan-repayment/.
[16] Statement from President Joe Biden on Approving Student Debt Cancellation for Over 5 Million Americans, The White House, Jan. 13, 2025, https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2025/01/13/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-approving-student-debt-cancellation-for-over-5-million-americans/.
[17] Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477, 499-500 (2023).
[18] Federal Student Aid, U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Income-Driven Repayment Plans, https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans/income-driven.
[19] Federal Student Aid, U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Court Actions, https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/idr-court-actions.
[20] Mary Cunningham, Are You a Student Loan Borrower?, supra note 13; Statement from President Joe Biden on Approving Student Debt Cancellation, supra note 14.
[21] Id. at 8.
[22] Id.
[23] Readers may draw their own conclusions as to which administration did which.
[24] See Opportunity Gap, Close the Gap Found., https://tinyurl.com/close-the-gap-foundation.
[25] See generally The Role of Standardized Tests in College Admissions, UCLA Civil Rights Project (2023), https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/college-access/admissions/the-role-of-standardized-tests-in-college-admissions/Admissions_Zwick_060523-082923-copyright-fix.pdf.
[26] Ben Zapp, Why White School Districts Have So Much More Money, NPR Feb. 26, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/02/26/696794821/why-white-school-districts-have-so-much-more-money.
[27] Id.
[28] Id.
[29] Laura A. Lauth & Andrea Thornton Sweeney, LSAT Performance with Regional, Gender, and Racial and Ethnic Breakdowns: 2011–2012 Through 2017–2018 Testing Years, LSAT Technical Report Series, TR 22-01, L. Sch. Admission Council Oct. 2022.
[30] Cf. S. Lynee McDuffie, Recognizing Another Black Barrier: The LSAT Contributes to the Diversity Gap in the Legal Profession, 12 J. Race, Gender, & Poverty 5 (2021) (discussing how outcomes from test scores reflect systemic inequality).
[31] Cf. McDuffie, supra note 28 (describing how Black applicants face educational inequalities ranging from test prep to private tutors).
[32] UCLA Civil Rights Project, supra note 23.
[33] Barrett J. Taylor, et al., The Shape of the Sieve: Which Components of the Admissions Application Matter Most in Particular Institutional Contexts, 97 Sociology Educ. 233 (2024).
[34] Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181, 217-18 (2023).
[35] Id.
[36] Id. at 5.
[37] Id.
[38] Kathryn Palmer, Harvard and UNC enrolled fewer Black law students this year, Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 18, 2024, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/12/18/harvard-and-unc-enrolled-fewer-black-law-students-year.
[39] Id.
[40] Id.
[41] Id.
[42] Id.
[43] Id.
[44] The Case for Socioeconomic‑Based Affirmative Action, FedbBar Blog, Jan, 21, 2025, https://www.fedbar.org/blog/the-case-for-socioeconomic-based-affirmative-action.
[45] See generally S. Lynee McDuffie, Recognizing Another Black Barrier: The LSAT Contributes to the Diversity Gap in the Legal Profession, 12 J. Race, Gender, & Poverty 5 (2021).
[46] Id. at 5.
[47] “Career Opportunities,” in A First Generation’s Guide to Law School, CALI eLangdell Press, https://halefirstgenguide.lawbooks.cali.org/chapter/career-opportunities.
[48] The Widening Racial Scoring Gap on Standardized Tests for Admission to Graduate School, J. of Blacks in Higher Educ.Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 51, (Spring 2006), https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/51_graduate_admissions_test.html.
[49] Id.
[50] House Democrats Reintroduce Legislation to Fulfill Promise of Brown, Press Release, House Committee on Education & Workforce (May 23, 2025), https://democrats‑edworkforce.house.gov/media/press‑releases/house‑democrats‑reintroduce‑legislation‑to‑fulfill‑promise‑of‑brown (highlighting a proposed reform in light of the lack of existing federal legislation addressing educational racial inequality).
[51] PROTECT Students Act of 2025, S. 994, 119th Cong. (2025).
[52] Liam Knox, Maryland House Passes Legacy Ban, Inside Higher Ed Feb. 19, 2024, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/02/19/maryland-house-passes-bill-banning-legacy-admissions.
[53] Liam Knox, Ohio and Kentucky Ban DEI, Reduce Tenure Protections, Inside Higher Ed, Apr. 1, 2025, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2025/04/01/ohio-and-kentucky-ban-dei-reduce-tenure-protections.
[54] AccessLex Inst., LexPostBacc Program, https://www.accesslex.org/tools-and-resources/lexpostbacc-program.
[55] , L. Sch. Admission Council, PLUS Program, https://www.lsac.org/discover-law/access-and-community-law-school/plus-program.
[56] AccessLex Inst., Sidley Prelaw Scholars Program, https://www.accesslex.org/Sidley-Prelaw-Scholars-Program.
[57] SEO-USA, SEO Law Fellowship, Apply to the SEO Law Fellowship, https://www.seo-usa.org/law/our-program/apply-to-fellowship/.
[58] Andrea Hsu,‘Sweatt v. Painter’: Nearly Forgotten, But Landmark Texas Integration Case, NPR, Oct. 10, 2012, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/10/10/162650487/sweatt-vs-texas-nearly-forgotten-but-landmark-integration-case.
[59] Author’s note: For Tyra, Denisha, and Porsche.