Antonin Scalia Law School, previously George Mason University School of Law, is the law school of George Mason University, a state university in Virginia, United States. The law school is located in Arlington, roughly fifteen miles east-northeast of the university's main campus in Fairfax.George Mason University School of Law was authorized by the Virginia General Assembly in March 1979 and was founded on July 1, 1979. The American Bar Association provisionally approved the school in the fall of 1980 and granted full approval in 1986.As of 2016, the school had 518 students in its J.D., LL.M., JD/MBA, and JD/MPP programs. The median LSAT score among those offered admission to the full-time program for the fall 2016 entering J.D. class was 162 and the median GPA was 3.66. Students in the first-year class hold 26 advanced degrees including Ph.D.s. The passage rate for first-time takers of the Virginia bar exam in February 2017 was 100%, tying for first among Virginia's eight law schools.On March 31, 2016, the Board of Visitors approved renaming the school after the late United States Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. The name change followed gifts of $20 million from an anonymous donor and an additional $10 million from the Charles Koch Foundation conditioned on the renaming, and was announced as requiring approval by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. The name change became effective on May 17, 2016.
