On Thursday, Alan Levine, vice chair of the State University System (SUS) Board of Governors, issued a stern warning to FAMU officials regarding the performance of their law program. Levine expressed his readiness to vote for removing the law school from FAMU if bar-passage rates do not show significant improvement soon.
“I’m prepared to vote to take these programs away if we can’t do it the right way,” Levine stated. “This is a disservice to those students and to the taxpayers who are paying for this, and the result they are getting is they can’t pass their boards to go practice what they went to school for.”
Levine highlighted a troubling trend: the FAMU law program has not scored within 20% of its approved goal in the past five years.
FAMU President Larry Robinson responded by noting that the university submitted “a fairly intensive or comprehensive improvement plan” for the law program in 2023. Despite some progress, the scores remain below the thresholds, partly due COVID.
Robinson added that “FAMU has been collaborating with other universities on best practices to improve bar exam outcomes. Efforts include addressing at-risk students and adjusting the curriculum to better prepare them for the exam."
“We have begun to review the curriculum to ensure that it correlates more closely with what students might experience or be questioned about on the bar examination itself,” Robinson said.
The national average for the bar exam first-attempt pass rate in 2023 was 86%, whereas FAMU's rate was 7% lower.
“I’m a huge fan of the work that’s been done at FAMU, you know that,” Levine remarked. “And I’ve been a huge advocate for giving everybody the opportunity to correct these things. But not hitting our threshold for pass rates is completely unacceptable — it’s table stakes; this is a must-do.”
Levine also questioned whether FAMU's admission standards might be contributing to the problem, suggesting that some admitted students may not be adequately prepared for the rigors of the program.
Late last year, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona addressed funding inequities affecting FAMU and other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in a letter to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Data shows that FAMU has been denied (underfunded) nearly $2 billion since 1987 by the state of Florida.
Cardona emphasized that inadequate resources have hampered HBCUs' ability to make critical investments, including those necessary for student support services and research and development.
The FAMU Law School, which reopened in 2001 in Orlando, has a history of challenges. The original FAMU Law School was defunded in 1968, and its closure lasted until the recent revival. The latest scrutiny over its bar-passage rates highlights ongoing struggles despite efforts to enhance the program and provide better outcomes for its students.
I seen on Twitter, you left a comment saying FAMU needs money to raise standards. I don't understand how they need funding to increase the GPA to 3.5 and the LSAT score to the national average. More students will likely apply once they see FAMU Law raise their standards and improve their bar passage rates. If I'm not mistaken, the majority of HBCU law schools have been threatened with closure.
ReplyDeleteyou misunderstood my tweet. Let me break it down for you, more funding would allow FAMU law to offer more scholarships to Black students seeking a law degree and be competitive in recruiting the best and brightest. Scholarship support will also allow FAMU Law to better retain promising students who transfer out to more prestigious law schools after the first year. --RN Editor
DeleteWasn’t FAMU scores higher that fsu scores the last go around . Mr Levine needs to understand he doesn’t pay for FAMU law school and neither do parents whose kids score great on tests. All citizens pay taxes in Florida and he should be concerned that only around 5% of the students at UofFL are African American. Nobody ever gave me a tax break for being African American so our taxes go towards financing 100% of the student body and our athletes bring in about 60 - 75 million dollars a year to support the 95% percent non African American student population. I have seen some great lawyers who were not the greatest law students and may not have passed the bar the first time around.
ReplyDeleteOur 1st time passing rates must improve. Find a way.
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