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- Title
Courageous classrooms: Embracing antiracist legal pedagogy.
- Abstract
Law schools have a tremendous responsibility to train lawyers who will be well‐positioned to challenge the racial disparities and systemic inequities created and perpetuated by the legal system. This article offers a pedagogical approach to creating an antiracist classroom space that equips students with the skills attorneys need to work in cross‐cultural, antiracist solidarity with a diverse population of clients to address critical legal issues and dismantle oppressive legal systems. It draws from a law school course that teaches essential lawyering skills to first‐year law students through social justice work on behalf of public interest organizations. The article introduces concrete experiential exercises that can be used to support faculty in any clinical or doctrinal law school classroom in furthering antiracist pedagogical goals and their own antiracist development. These exercises are designed to help students (1) build a collective understanding of racial justice terminology; (2) co‐construct powerful, client‐centered stories that counter harmful, stereotypical narratives; and (3) make critical connections between their lived experiences and the structures and systems they are critiquing to help shape their professional identities. Key points: Law schools have a tremendous responsibility to train lawyers who will be well‐positioned to challenge the racial disparities and systemic inequities created and perpetuated by the legal system.It is essential for law professors to move with alacrity to incorporate antiracist pedagogy into their courses. Concrete experiential exercises can be used to support faculty in any clinical or doctrinal law school classroom in furthering antiracist pedagogical goals and their own antiracist development.Specific strategies can be used for adopting a growth mindset to facilitate the learning partnership; exploring professor and student positionality to help work collaboratively across difference; amplifying the voices of BIPOC students to reduce stereotype threat; and engaging in trauma‐informed teaching to honor students' lived experiences. These pedagogical strategies serve the additional purpose of modeling principles of antiracist lawyering students may use with future clients.Suggested exercises help students (1) build a collective understanding of racial justice terminology; (2) co‐construct powerful, client‐centered stories that counter harmful, stereotypical narratives; and (3) make critical connections between their lived experiences and the structures and systems they are critiquing to help shape their professional identities.Using experiential exercises as drivers of the law school curriculum helps students envision themselves as practicing lawyers who will partner with a diverse group of cross‐cultural clients to address critical legal issues, dismantle oppressive legal systems, and spark societal change.
- Subjects
RACE discrimination in justice administration; PEOPLE of color; LAW schools; CHILD advocacy (Law); LEGAL education; PRACTICE of law
- Publication
Family Court Review, 2022, Vol 60, Issue 4, p630
- ISSN
1531-2445
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/fcre.12667