For sessions and speaker details, please see the listing under daylong programs for the Section on Student Services.
Recently, the nation’s mismanagement and
neglect of its diverse human resources (evident in everything ranging from
incarceration rates to childhood poverty rates) has splashed across the
headlines, as events from Ferguson, Orlando, Dallas, and Baton Rouge, among
other locales, have captured America’s attention. American law schools are not
immune from these social realities. In fact, as law schools face enhanced
economic pressure, issues relating to diversity in the legal academy will
likely increase over time.
This workshop will address the issues facing
law schools that seek to manage diversity as productively as possible in the
current challenging environment. Through presented papers and discussion,
participants will examine the best learning for creating an optimized law school
environment for superior pedagogical outcomes and student growth in terms of
managing the challenges of an increasingly diverse legal environment. Questions addressed include:
What are the best practices today for a law school that wishes to
bring the full breadth of cultural perspectives and experiences into the
classroom, both within the student body and at the faculty level? Should the
legal academy articulate new metrics of merit that comprehend these diverse
perspectives and experiences, and perhaps deemphasize traditional notions of
merit such as the LSAT exam, or institutional pedigree? Once a law school achieves some level of
institutional diversity, how best can such diversity be managed to avoid
unnecessary conflict and to achieve the full range of diversity benefits? What
is the best means of teaching racially sensitive topics across the curriculum?
What can the legal academy learn from the world of business, the military and
other parts of American society in terms of capturing the benefits of diversity
and avoiding the inevitable cultural clash implicit in diversity? What legal
constraints do law schools face in the pursuit of diversity benefits, now and
in the near future?
Papers will be published in the UC Davis Law Review.