Law Commons^™

The Black-White Paradigm’S Continuing Erasure Of Latinas: See Women Law Deans Of Color, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

The Black-white paradigm persists with unintended consequences. For example, there have been only six Latina law deans to date with only four presently serving. This Article provides data about women law deans of color, the dearth of Latina law deans, and explanations for the data. It focuses on the enduring Black-white paradigm, as well as other external and internal forces. This Article suggests how to increase the number of Latina law deans and emphasizes why it matters.

The Intersectional Race And Gender Effects Of The Pandemic In Legal Academia, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic helped to expose the inequities that already existed between students at every level of education based on race and socioeconomic class status, it has exposed existing inequities among faculty based on gender and the intersection of gender and race. The legal academy has been no exception to this reality. The widespread loss of childcare and the closing of both public and private primary and secondary schools have disproportionately harmed women law faculty, who are more likely than their male peers to work a “second shift” in terms of childcare and household responsibilities. Similarly, women law …

The Racial Architecture Of Criminal Justice, Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

One of the pleasures of contributing to symposia—especially symposia where each contribution is brief—is the ability to engage in new explorations, test new ideas, and offer new provocations. I do that now in this essay about race, architecture, and criminal justice. I begin by discussing how race is imbricated in the architecture of courthouses, the quintessential place of supposed justice. I then take race and architecture a step further. If we think of architecture expansively—Lawrence Lessig’s definition of architecture as “the physical world as we find it” comes to mind—then it becomes clear that race is also imbricated in the …

Teaching Social Justice Through “Hip Hop And The Law”, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Faculty Scholarship

This article queries whether it is possible to teach law students about social justice through a course on hip hop and its connection to and critique of the law. We argue, in these dedicated pages of the North Carolina Central Law Review, that yes, hip hop and the law offer an excellent opportunity to teach law students about social justice. But, why publish an article advocating that national law schools offer a legal education course on Hip Hop and the Law, or more specifically, Hip Hop & the American Constitution? Of what benefit might a course be that explores hip …

The Culturally Proficient Law Professor: Beginning The Journey, Anastasia M. Boles

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Living Up To Our Ideals: What Race Means In Higher Education Now, Frank H. Wu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Measuring The Racial Unevenness Of Law School, Jonathan Feingold, Doug Souza

Faculty Scholarship

In "Measuring the Racial Unevenness of Law School," Jonathan Feingold and Doug Souza introduce and analyze the concept of racial unevenness, which refers to the particularized burdens an individual encounters as a result of her race. These burdens, which often arise because an individual falls outside of the racial norm, manifest across a spectrum. At one end lie obvious forms of overt and invidious racial discrimination. At the other end, racial unevenness arises from environmental factors and institutional culture independent from any identifiable perpetrator. As the authors detail, race-dependent burdens can arise in institutions and communities that expressly promote racial …

Racing Towards Colorblindness: Stereotype Threat And The Myth Of Meritocracy, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

Education law and policy debates often focus on whether college and graduate school admissions offices should take race into account. Those who advocate for a strictly merits-based regime emphasize the importance of colorblindness. The call for colorblind admissions relies on the assumption that our current admissions criteria are fair measures, which accurately capture talent and ability. Recent social science research into standardized testing suggests that this is not the case.

Part I of this Article explores the psychological phenomenon of stereotype threat. Stereotype threat has been shown to detrimentally impact the performance of individuals from negatively stereotyped groups when performing …

Setting The Record Straight: Maryland's First Black Women Law Graduates, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Latcrit Praxis To Heal Fractured Communities, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores LatCrit praxis as a healing tool. Before turning to LatCrit practice, let me offer a preliminary observation that many Latinos are troubled by leading divided lives in fractured communities. This is exacerbated by social conditioning which encourages Latinos, as well as other outsiders, to fragment their identities. One of the benefits of LatCrit theory is that it encourages the process of working toward wholeness. At a recent conference which looked at the courage of those who have decided to live lives divided no more, Parker Palmer, the plenary speaker, suggested that the spark which causes people to …

A Field Trip To Benetton And Beyond: Some Thoughts On Outsider Narrative In A Law School Clinic, Carolyn Grose

Faculty Scholarship

This essay explores the process of teaching students—and ourselves—to listen to and accept different versions of reality. Such exploration results in a proposition that is easy to state but difficult to accomplish: that in order to achieve this goal, we must challenge the students' "common sense”—their sense that they "know" how people act—by offering examples of behaviors that differ from that knowledge, without triggering the very "common sense" we are trying to combat. Toward this end, the first section of the essay presents a hypothetical initial interview with a client, and the student interviewer's reactions to her, which reflect the …