The Integration of the UCLA School of Law, 1966—1978

This book examines UCLA’s Legal Education Opportunity Program, one of the earliest and most expansive affirmative action programs. From its creation in 1966 to its partial demise at the hands of a divided U.S. Supreme Court in 1978, the program dramatically reshaped the legal arena and provides powerful support for race-conscious admissions today.

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In 1966, a group of UCLA law school professors sparked the era of affirmative action by creating one of the earliest and most expansive race-conscious admissions programs in higher education. The Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP) served to integrate the legal profession by admitting large cohorts of minority students under non-traditional standards, and sending them into the world as emissaries of integration upon graduation. Together, these students bent the arc of educational equality, and the LEOP served as a model for similar programs around the country. Drawing upon rich historical archives and interviews with dozens of students and professors who helped integrate UCLA, this book argues that such programs should be reinstituted— and with haste— because affirmative action worked.