Inclusive Curriculum

This podcast features interviews with legal experts on some of the most important legal topics of our time. Each episode takes you through the law in action, beyond courtrooms and casebooks. Whether you are a legal scholar or a concerned citizen, this examination of the relationship between our laws and our society will leave you with a better understanding of how we got here and what we should consider as we forge ahead.

This 5-page article shares three strategies that law professors can implement in their classrooms to actively promote inclusion, especially BIPOC, women, and introverts. Strategy One discusses how to directly amplify minority voices in the classroom. Strategy Two introduces the concept of windows and mirrors—the notion that “education needs to enable the student to look through window frames in order to see the realities of others, and into mirrors in order to see her/his own reality reflected.” Strategy Three discusses using classroom technology to encourage participation.

This YouTube video features a discussion of how Penn State Dickinson Law faculty developed a new law course based on anti-racist pedagogy called “Race and the Equal Protection of the Laws,” that is now a requirement for first-year students. Penn State Law Dean, Danielle Conway, and professors of law discuss how and why the course was created, how to make 1L curriculums more inclusive and how to get students to critically reflect on race in the law.

This blog post offers concrete tips on creating an inclusive and supportive environment in socially distanced, hybrid, or remote classrooms, e.g. using universal design principles, nudging, built-in breaks, and more.

This list of resources by the University of Washington School of Law Gallagher Law Library contains a list of publications and articles that cover diversity-related topics in Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property, Torts, Legal Analysis/Research/Writing, and Transnational Law.

This article discusses the minority classroom experience, including the problem of objectification, subjectivity and the problem of minority "testifying," alienation of minorities in the classroom, the problem of "perspectivelessness" in antidiscrimination law, and the construction of a critical and collective pedagogy.

This list of resources by the University of Tennessee Knoxville lists a collection of scholarly articles that discuss inclusive teaching pedagogy and offer strategies and best practices for incorporating diversity issues into legal education.

This article aims to encourage others to raise discussion of diversity issues for the right and important reasons. Part I addresses why these discussions belong in law school. Part III provides feedback from students. Part IV is devoted to a discussion of the principal conditions that a law professor should be concerned with if planning to raise diversity issues in the classroom, specifically the ability to listen and demonstrating respect for students.

A list of resources created by The Association of American Law Schools after the 2020 antiracist protests breaks down how law schools can become anti-racist institutions in 5 phases: listening, learning, leading, auditing, iteration. Phases include a list of books, studies and articles that address systemic racism and lived experiences, statements of solidarity by Black and indigenous law school deans, and more. It also provides resources for active engagement with Antiracist principles, including links to law school faculty resolutions and law school solidarity and antiracism statements.

Of particular value might be the questions listed under "The Audit Reporting Phase." These questions are designed to assist deans periodically evaluate if the school is failing to be or successful in being anti-racist.

8 video lectures hosted by law schools on effectuating racial justice in and through legal education (Boston University,
Howard University, Penn State Dickinson, Rutgers, UC Irvine, University of Cincinnati, Washburn University).

Sessions include: Becoming an Antiracist Lawyer, Black Lawyers Matter, Building a Faculty-wide Race and Equal Protection of the Law Curriculum for 1Ls, Building an Antiracist Law School, Implicit Bias in Bankruptcy and Law Practice, Race and Contract Law, Race Matters, Water Justice in Indian Country.

In this article, Part IV recommends 25 ways in which law professors can diversify their teaching methods to assist students with Attention Deficit Disorder, as well as their classmates.

This YouTube video features a conversation with Sherrilyn Ifill '87, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and NYU Law Professor Kenji Yoshino on how to protect the integrity of civil-rights narratives in the age of “alternative facts, from their vantage points in the racial justice and LGBT rights movements. Speakers explore the distorted narratives that impede progress on issues of race, sexuality, and gender identity; the power of law and litigation to establish facts; and the role of legal and non-legal actors in embedding stories of justice into our culture and history.

This post denotes how after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, Penn State Dickinson Law faculty developed a new law course called “Race and the Equal Protection of the Laws,” that is now a requirement for first-year students.

Includes two videos, which features (1) Dean Conway, Professor of Law Dermot Groome, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Amy C. Gaudion, and Professor of Law Michael Mogill, to learn how this course came to fruition; and (2) a detailed look at the background and pedagogical methodology of the “Race and the Equal Protection of the Laws” course.

This article begins by "examining the need for culturally proficient instruction in legal education through the lens of Harvard Law School’s experience with and response to a needed cultural shift—the November 2015 vandalism of the portraits of black law professors." It argues that law schools must engage in "similar cultural shifts to become more culturally proficient," and that legal educators must take on the work of becoming "culturally proficient in our administrative policies, curriculum, instruction, and interaction with students."

In this YouTube video, University of California Irvine presents a Teach-In for Racial Justice, called Scholar Strike. The conversation discusses how scholars must address the role that law has played and continues to play in supporting anti-Blackness and racism, and the law's role in dismantling it. Presented by the UCI Law Dean, Song Richardson; Mehrsa Baradaran (Professor of Law); and others.

This YouTube video features Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky hosting a panel discussion with professors and students to discuss issues concerning race and legal education.

At 3:20, Abbye Atkinson, Assistant Professor of Law discusses the first year curriculum and the erasure of race in the formal development of the American legal doctrine. She emphasizes the need for race to be actively addressed in 1L contract law and tort law. She provides specific examples of moments in which race plays a key role in the development of contract doctrine. Rather than treating race as a mere diversion of so-called proper study of law Atkinson encourages legal education to recognize, introduce, and analyze race as central to the formal study of law and the development of American legal doctrine."

This podcast features experts in the CRT field discuss how different CRT and the Law & Economics legal frameworks really are—and what they have in common.

Critical race theory and law and economics: A clash of titans, or an emergent alliance? Hosts: Adam Hassanein and Deb Malamud Guests: William H.J. Hubbard (U. Chicago Law) & Jonathan Feingold (Boston U. Law).

This article navigates how as the law of employment discrimination evolves, the author discusses how culturally proficient instruction has improved the inclusivity of her learning environment in her Employment Discrimination course. The author discusses how to prepare to be a culturally proficient professor, managing conflict, structuring classroom discussions, responses and revisiting discussions, acknowledging mistakes and privilege, incentivizing students to engage in cultural differences, and more.

This article maintains that White Privilege Awareness (WPA) among white law professors, who mentor students of color and then leverage their white privilege to open professional doors for these students, will reduce implicit bias and may ultimately increase the retention of diverse attorneys. Part IV addresses mentoring and fostering interethnic relationships both within and outside of the classroom.