FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Arkansas School of Law is included among the “most diverse law schools in the country” as ranked by U.S. News and World Report's 2007 edition of America's Best Graduate Schools. According to the report, African American students make up 16 percent of the School of Law’s student body - that’s the fifth highest percentage of African Americans at any law school in the nation.

“We are most proud of the fact that our largest minority community in the law school is African Americans,” said Carol Goforth, associate dean of the School of Law. “They are historically underrepresented in the legal profession.”

U.S. News and World Report started this category for diversity in law schools in 2006, and in both consecutive years, the UA School of Law has been ranked among the most diverse law schools in the country.

“The law school is so much more diverse than it was 25 years ago,” said interim Dean Howard W. Brill, who has taught at the School of Law since the mid 1970s. “Diversity brings a richness to education. We are all indebted - it makes us better faculty, staff, administrators and educators as a result.”

While the percentage of minority students in the entering class has increased from 18.9 percent in 2001 to 25.9 percent in 2005, the average LSAT scores and grade point averages of these students have increased dramatically, says Goforth.

The School of Law is indebted to the efforts of not only the School of Law’s associate dean of students, Jim Miller, who earned the Henry J. Ramsey Jr. Award for the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association, but to students, faculty, alumni and community members who donate their time and commitment to prospective students.

“The law school makes room for everyone,” Goforth said.