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Law schools are generally supportive of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and employees—at least on paper.

That's the takeaway from the National LGBT Bar Association's inaugural Law School Climate Survey-2019. The 30-year-old organization that works to promote diversity and inclusion throughout the legal industry queried all 203 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association on 19 different issues, ranging from LGBTQ+ student recruiting efforts to the availability of gender inclusive restrooms. (LGBTQ+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer identifying.) Only 66 schools participated, but their responses indicate that, on the whole, schools have many policies in place to support the inclusion of LGBTQ+ students and resources available to help them navigate their legal education.

Among the results:

• All but one school reported that counseling and therapy services are available. (Southern University Law Center was the only respondent to answer no to that question.)
• More than 80 percent of the respondent schools reported that they seek out LGBTQ+ students.
• Just five schools reported that they do not have an active LGBTQ+ law student group.
• All but a handful of law schools allows transgender students to use the name of their choice.

“I feel heartened by what I'm seeing law schools having an increased awareness of the need for them to support their students,” said Judi O'Kelley, the bar association's chief program officer. “I see, particularly in admissions and career services, a genuine interest and desire to do more targeted recruitment of LGBTQ+ students and to make sure they are well supported in finding jobs as they get out of law school.”

But other questions yielded mixed results. For instance, more than half of the responding schools said they do not provide annual scholarships for LGBTQ+ students. Similarly, less than a third of responding schools said that LGBTQ+ diversity and inclusion training is mandatory for faculty and staff. And while nearly every law school reported extending equal health care benefits to the same-sex partners of faculty, fewer schools do so for same-sex partners of students, according to the survey.

The LGBT Bar decided to launch the national survey last year with the dual goal of better informing LGBTQ+ prospective law students and prompting law school administrators to take a comprehensive look at their existing policies, O'Kelley said. The bar plans to share the results with LGBTQ+ undergraduates groups and aims to conduct the survey annually.

“Part of what we're trying to do here is call administrative attention to the concerns that we hear from our students,” O'Kelley said. “For some, it might be the lack of a gender-inclusive bathroom. For others, it might be that they're being misgendered in the classroom, either unintentionally or intentionally. For some, it's just that they'd really like to have an annual LGBTQ+ course offering at their school, and they don't have one.”

In conjunction with the survey, the LGBT Bar has released its “Campus Climate Toolkit,” which is a set of best practices for law schools to ensure equity for LGBTQ+ employees and students. Among the best practices are for schools to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in their nondiscrimination policies.

Law schools should also appoint an “LGBTQ+ Point Person,” develop LGBTQ+ student recruiting materials, and offer a course on LGBTQ+ issues. (According to the survey, most law campuses already offer at least one such class.)

The campus climate survey data was less clear when it comes to the prevalence of LGBTQ+ faculty. Many of the responding schools said they do not collect data on the sexual orientation of their faculty members.

Among the schools that did provide numbers, the City University of New York School of Law reported the highest number of LGBTQ+ faculty, at 11. Santa Clara University School of Law was next with 10. (The University of California at Los Angeles School of Law reported that it does not track the sexual orientation of faculty, but said its LGBTQ+ students group has identified 14 such professors.)

Increasing the available data on LGBTQ+ faculty is yet another goal for the bar, O'Kelley said.

“A number of schools are hesitant to count their out LGBTQ+ faculty and administrators,” she said. “I've been talking to them about, 'It's OK to do that. It's OK to do what's known as a self-ID survey, as long as it's a voluntary process and there are protections taken so the information can be confidential if the people want it to be.' It's absolutely legal and it's fine. We collect that data on the basis of race, ethnicity and gender.”