They’re shutting down a law school that they don’t think is valuable because it’s full of minority students. And they’re shutting down a law school that is no longer valuable to them because the only piece of value they attributed to the law school was the land, which they’ve now sold. Now that their money grab is over, they’re ready to shut it down.

— Hanna Chandoo, an attorney at Stris & Maher, who is representing a group of faculty who hope to stop the closure of Whittier Law School, offering her thoughts on why the Board of Trustees decided to close the school. Chandoo graduated from Whittier Law in 2015, and attended the emergency meeting called by the Board where the news of the law school’s imminent closure was announced. “It was very heartbreaking,” she said. Chandoo went on to note that “[s]tudents are outraged” because of the poor timing of the announcement; after all, “[t]hey have finals in the next two weeks.” Whittier’s professors and students are continuing to explore all of their legal options at this time.

About 59 percent of Whittier Law’s students are minorities, and U.S. News listed the school as the second-most diverse law school in the nation in the latest edition of its rankings.

Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. She’d love to hear from you, so feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.