Law professors are an opinionated group of people. In this program, panelists will discuss whether and to what extent law professors should bring those opinions into class.
As we teach in a partisan time, in institutions that are ostensibly intended to support the pillars of democracy, professors are forced to question their supposedly neutral role in the classroom. The subjects they teach or the clients they represent sit at the center of incredibly important societal issues of inclusion and exclusion, including mass incarceration, poverty, race, gender, religion, and immigration – issues that are the center of the ideological divide. Some clinical faculty in particular witness that the fair application of law is not available for all clients and that the law fails to uphold a democracy that protects many clients. Other faculty also face similar questions, inquiries, and challenges in other academic contexts. Scholars and practitioners are left asking if the system is broken or working as designed but for a flawed purpose?
In the face of these observations, some hear and want to answer a call to rebellious lawyering – lawyering and teaching toward radical social change. Others feel inclined to take up these questions in our varied classrooms in order to give voice to critical legal theory, debate, and activism. But we must acknowledge the power that we are given in the front of the classroom and the risk of forcing our political points of view on our students. With our obligation and commitment to maintaining a classroom that is hospitable to students with all viewpoints, how can we engage in a discussion about the critical challenges to our democracy without leaving some students out? How can we responsibly express our own views in class? Are we capable of noticing our own biases and then naming that bias for our students? Can we weigh in on the pillars of democracy while leaving our own politics and preferences at the door, or is the opposite true, that we must be open about our orientation if we are going to ask our students to do the same?