Editor,
Students contemplating UNM Law School should be leery of the UBE.
In February 2015, the New Mexico Board of Bar Examiners (BBE), without apparent authorization at the time, instituted the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), a nationalized, standardized bar exam questions pushed by a Wisconsin corporation, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). Reflecting a national trend, post-UBE test results have been devastating on test-takers in New Mexico. Pass rates plummeting 30 percent for UNM Law School graduates post-UBE prompted the UNM Law School deans to state, “The low passage rate is related to the adoption of the UBE...”
Acknowledging the eviscerating consequences of the UBE, the school committed to “adjusting resources and approaches” in an effort to raise scores. However, results of the February 2017 bar exam, the first exam after implementation of UBE mentorship programs and the fifth post-UBE, are disheartening. The overall post-UBE downward trend for all groups continued or did not improve. The February 2017 UNM pass rate was 64 percent, no real improvement over the 62 percent UNM pass rate in July 2016, despite the mentorship program. This followed a 58 percent pass rate in February 2016.
Five black examinees took the 2/17 bar exam. For African-Americans and American Indians, a 20 percent and 38 percent pass rate, respectively, are absolutely abysmal. Black test-takers, at a mid-range average prior to the UBE, trending upward, had achieved 80 percent passage in July 2014, prior to the UBE. Post-UBE results are tragic overall, horrific for blacks. No African-Americans passed the February 2015 UBE or the February 2016 exam, unprecedented during the author’s ten-year data analysis period. UBE is an apt acronym for Uniform Black Exclusion. In July of 2016, a large contingent of Native Americans took the UBE. Twenty self-identified “American Indians” took it, 19 failed. Of the “First Time” examinees, usually an indicator of success, 14 of 14 Native Americans failed.
The deans noted, “Bar rates have dropped dramatically across the country...” Because the UBE is a nationally standardized product, results should be expected to conform nationally. After adoption of the UBE, the July 2016 New York state post-UBE results show an overall pass rate of 65 percent, practically identical to the NM overall pass rate of 64 percent in the same month and year. The NCBE boasts the UBE is a “national” test and is designed to produce the same “uniform” results anywhere, it may therefore lock in a national 65 percent +/- pass rate, and thus the disproportionate effect on minorities is perpetual. This dismal thesis can be tested if the NCBE will collect post-UBE pass rate demographic data in the 24 UBE states. Affirming that ignorance is bliss, the NCBE has refused the author’s request to collect post-UBE pass rate demographic data.
“Institutional Racism” by Knowles and Prewitt, defines institutional racism as an institutionalized interaction that produces unintended disparate outcomes, an important feature of which is that it cannot be reduced to prejudice. The UBE exemplifies the doctrine. After 5 post-UBE cycles, it is past time to re-examine the flawed UBE experiment.
Raymond Hamilton
Attorney
UNM Class of ‘68
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