Despite Executive branch attempts to illegalize inclusion, there are still accreditation standards in place that require law schools to provide education to law students on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism at the start of the program of legal education, and at least once again before graduation.[1] The populous push to weaponize diversity, race, gender identity, and all forms of “otherness” does not erase the realities of non-conforming identities, nor does it limit their importance. Our role as legal educators is to prepare future generations of lawyers to enter law practice. That preparation must include preparation for the wide array of clients and causes who will seek legal representation.
While leaving the policy battles to the politicians, law school leaders and academic support professionals can rely on the available literature to inform and improve their curricular design and delivery. Here are two articles published in 2024 and 2022 that plainly identify prevailing problems and propose solutions to help law schools meet the dictates of ABA Standard 303 and beyond.
Jennifer M. Fernandez, The Time Is Now: ABA Standard 303(c) As the Impetus For a Truly Inclusive 1L Classroom, 73 WashU J. L. & Pol’y. 78 (2024).
From the Abstract: This fall, law schools were required to implement the American Bar Association’s new Curriculum Standard 303(c), which requires that all law students be educated on bias, cultural competency, and racism. In this Essay, I argue that the American Bar Association’s new Standard is our chance to finally take the steps scholars have advocated for many years and make the law school experience, especially the 1L curriculum, more inclusive. Anything otherwise would be strongly antithetical to the underlying goals of the new standard.
Marsha Griggs, Race, Rules, and Disregarded Reality, 82 Ohio St. L. J. 931 (2022).
From the Abstract: Exploring issues of racial bias and social injustice in the law school classroom is a modern imperative. Yet, important conversations about systemic inequality in the law and legal profession are too often dissociated from core doctrinal courses and woodenly siloed to the periphery of the curriculum. This dissociation creates a paradigm of irrelevancy-by-omission that disregards the realities of the lived experiences of law students and the clients they will ultimately serve. . . . This Article . . . complements the existing discourse on the role of race and the record of racial disparity in the Rules of Evidence by adding the personal narrative of an outgroup insider. We can do more to promote equity and inclusion in the law school classroom. This Article offers a revealing example of why we must.
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[1] ABA Standard 303 (c).
(Marsha Griggs – Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law and she serves as the President of the Association of Academic Support Educators)
