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NYU Law Review Sued for White Discrimination

By George Khoury, Esq. on October 10, 2018 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

For law reviews across the country, a recently filed lawsuit could be cause for concern ... or not.

A Texas non-profit organization is suing the NYU Law Review because, get this, it encourages diversity.

No, the non-profit doesn't encourage diversity. It's suing because the law review considers, among the many factors, the racial and ethnic backgrounds, as well as the gender and sexual orientation, of the students selected for the school's law review, and the review's authors. The non-profit alleges that this discriminates against its members who "are white and male."

Claiming Diversity Injures White Males

In addition to making the claim that the NYU Law Review discriminates against white males by not employing a 100% merit based article selection process, it also claims that it discriminates against white males because the racial and ethnic background, as well as the gender and sexual orientation, of student editors is considered in that selection process. That's not hyperbole either, this is the actual factual allegation from the complaint:

"Those who have their articles accepted by the journal must submit to a student-run editing process, and the Law Review's use of race and sex preferences dilutes the quality of the students who edit an author's piece."

Not doing themselves any more favors, this NPO's lawsuit also claims that the diversity of the student editors serves to "diminish the prestige" of the law review. Curiously, they claim that the diminished prestige works both ways too. Not only are the white male authors forced to endure injury, but so are the female and minority authors and editors. It's alleged that the non-white males that are accepted as student editors or authors will have the prestige "tainted" because people won't believe they "would have earned their way on to Law Review without help from the Diversity Committee."

In case you were blissfully unaware and wondering just why in the world lawsuits pushing for "colorblind" policies could be bad, in short, colorblindness is now understood as its own kind of racism, according to Psychology Today.

Not Just NYU

Fortunately for NYU, they won't be alone in this fight. The same group has also sued Harvard and its law review as well. And as you may be aware, Harvard is already facing another anti-diversity case that is actually slated for trial very soon.

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