Student Participation and Social Difference 179also signs of lingering differences in experience for law students of color. Gulati,
Sander, and Sockloskie combined their results from a survey of third-year law stu-
dents at eleven law schools with the findings of two previous studies of law stu-
dents.^34 On the one hand, they conclude that overall, these law students are satisfied
with their law school experiences, and that this is true of students of color and fe-
male students as well as white male students at these schools. On the other hand,
when they examine the “gloomy” responses to their survey, they find that African
American, Asian American, and female students are overrepresented among the
most alienated group of third-year law students.^35 This leads them to conclude with
a mixed picture: that overall in the schools they examined, race-based differences
in satisfaction do not seem widely divergent, but that there are “pockets” of deep
dissatisfaction, and that students of color are disproportionately included in these
pockets. It would be interesting to learn more about the distribution of these pockets
of unhappiness in terms of types of law school contexts, given that there might be
systematic problems in some schools but not in others.^36
Classroom Patterns: Inclusion and Leading the Class
Against this backdrop, we turn now to examine the findings of this study regard-
ing racial dynamics in law school classrooms. Table 8.1 reports on participation
rates in the classrooms of this study in terms of race. One of the most striking pat-
terns is the relatively high level of participation found among students of color in
the two classes taught by professors of color (Classes #2 and #8). In terms of turns,
students of color participated more (proportionate to their numbers in class) than
did white students in both classes (11% more in Class #2; 43% more in Class #8).
In terms of time, students of color again participated more (51% more) in Class
#8. Interestingly, in the larger of the two classes taught by professors of color (Class
#2, which was also the largest class in the study, with 135 students), there is a 15%
time disproportion in favor of white students. However, this time disproportion
is the smallest of the entire study for classes in which white students took dispro-
portionately more time; in the remaining white-dominated classes, the dispropor-
tions ranged from 34% (Class #3) to a whopping 289% (Class #1). Note that if there
is a positive effect on student participation from the presence of a professor of color
in these classes, it is unlikely to be the product of professorial ideologies regarding
race-conscious attempts to remedy any effects of past discrimination, as these two
professors differed in their attitudes in that regard. We are left with the interesting
question of whether any such positive effect might simply result from the encour-
aging impact of diversity itself: that the mere presence of professors of color might
create an environment that feels less closed or segregated, sending the message that
all kinds of people are prototypical and highly competent inhabitants of the legal
profession, as well as authorities on legal knowledge. It is also worth noting that
both of these classes were taught at elite law schools, so that at least in these cases
it does not appear that the elite setting had a dampening effect.
It is also important to note that when we break down further the umbrella
category of “students of color,” it appears that the 15% disproportion in Class #2
resulted largely from the lack of participation by Asian American students, who