Teaching Law Students to Address Issues of Race and Privilege as Part of Professional Competence

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Yosemite B

Floor: Ballroom Level

As clinicians training the next generation of lawyers, it is important for us to recognize that issues of race and privilege pervade our profession and the systems in which we work. Given this reality, law students and lawyers need to deal with these issues as a part of professional competence. This requires explicitly making time in our clinic seminar classes to discuss race and privilege, consistently integrating a critical lens when discussing the systems in which our students work, and being ready to address these issues when they organically arise in class discussions or during student’s client, case, and project work. Further, many law students were motivated to attend law school specifically because of their personal experiences with racism, gender discrimination, anti-immigrant policies and other trauma. This trauma has been exacerbated in the current political moment, and as teachers we must develop strategies to support students and help them develop strategies to confront racism and other trauma while also exercising self-care. Additionally, in the current environment, our classrooms are often composed of students with very different backgrounds and/or students who approach these issues in drastically different ways. Clinicians may need to deal with situations involving students organizing/protesting events or actions taken by other students in the class or responding to language choices made by colleagues that offend.
We will engage participants in a discussion around a specific example of how issues can arise in the classroom. Working in small groups, we will use the example to discuss how to teach and have conversations about race and privilege and how to support students who are dealing with vicarious trauma. Participants should leave the workshop with some concrete strategies for incorporating discussion of race and privilege into the traditional clinic curriculum and increased confidence for doing so.