Posted on: Friday, May 6, 2005
ISLAND VOICES
Law school program serving Hawai'i well
By Chris Iijima, Shirley N. Garcia and Aviam Soifer
For the past 30 years, a unique program at the William S. Richardson School of Law has quietly, and literally, changed the face of the Hawai'i Bar.
The state Legislature established the PreAdmission program in 1975, one year after the law school first opened its doors. The founder and first director of the program, George M. Johnson, was a well-known international civil rights pioneer and a former dean of the Howard Law School.
From the start, the primary mission of the PreAd program was, and continues to be, representation of and service to communities in Hawai'i and other Pacific Islands that have been traditionally underrepresented in the Hawai'i Bar and underserved by the legal system.
The PreAd program has had noteworthy success in bringing to the legal community, and to the educational process at the law school as well, the rich diversity of Hawai'i residents.
Along with grade-point average and law school admission test scores and overall background, the school's admissions committee considers the following factors for admission to the PreAd program: commitment to public service, history with or connection to an underrepresented or underserved community in Hawai'i or elsewhere in the Pacific, overcoming social or economic obstacles, and the ability to be a leader, a role model, to communicate with the poor, and to bring diverse experiences and perspectives to the law school and bar.
No one applies directly to the PreAd program. Every year, 12 students are selected from the general pool of applicants to be a part of the program. During their first year, these students work in various ways to create a supportive learning environment such as carrying a slightly lighter course load during their first semester, taking an intensive innovative class, and participating in small group learning and intra-group community building.
Over the past 30 years, PreAd students have been very successful students who also have made innumerable substantial contributions to the law school. They have been law review editors, national and regional championship moot court team members, student bar association presidents and vice presidents, high-grade honor recipients in courses ranging from civil procedure to corporations to Native Hawaiian rights.
PreAd students have been active in the leadership of the Native Hawaiian Law Student Organization, the Filipino Law Student Association, the Black Law Student Association, the Hispanic Law Student Association, the Gay and Lesbian Law Student Association, as well as other student organizations such as Advocates for Public Interest Law, the Environmental Law Society and the hula halau.
They have been consistently successful in obtaining grants for public interest work, and the first three recipients of the Patsy T. Mink Fellowship, a congressional fellowship in Washington, D.C., have all been PreAd students.
Graduates of the program have gone on to serve as judges, legislators and members of the executive branch, including the current lieutenant governor. Dozens of others are lawyers making important contributions throughout the public and private sectors.
PreAd students also have gone on to earn further academic degrees at a number of leading American universities.
Professor Chris Iijima, a tenured member of the faculty and the program's present director, summarizes the program this way: "The kind of lawyer one creates is very much influenced by the kind of person one admits to the law school. We should want people who are smart and effective, but also those who are motivated by a sense of social justice.
"The effectiveness of the justice system depends ultimately on whether people of all kinds believe the justice system serves and reflects them. We hope and believe that the PreAd program contributes toward this vitally important goal."
The law school faculty and staff and the PreAd students themselves put considerable effort and resources into a program that is not replicated anywhere else.
Its noteworthy success rate should make it a national model. In contrast to the seemingly endless, bitter debate about "affirmative action" admissions, Hawai'i's innovative PreAd program serves as an example of how to enhance and celebrate diversity successfully. It thereby makes a major contribution to the law school, Hawai'i, the United States and the entire Pacific region.
"It's been a great 30-year run. We are very optimistic about the future and, along with many others, I have immense pride in being a part of the program," Iijima said.
Chris Iijima is the director of the PreAdmission Program at the William S. Richardson Law School at the University of Hawai'i; Shirley N. Garcia graduated from the law school in 2004; Aviam Soifer is dean of the law school.
