Tools for Addressing Implicit Bias with the Next Gen

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Franciscan D

Floor: Ballroom Level

In this time of polarization, clinicians seek to cut through the noise of fake news and alternative facts to give our students the tools they need to challenge artificial divisions and remain unified in our advocacy of justice. Using “implicit bias” as a starting frame, we can provoke students to confront the challenges that we all face to rid ourselves of unconscious beliefs that highlight “differentness” in an increasingly hostile world. We can cultivate deeper engagement around how lawyers should confront implicit bias when representing clients.
This session will draw on our experience developing, teaching, and self-critiquing implicit bias training to all 2L and 3L students at our law school as part of Villanova’s required two-year module on Professional Development. Over four workshops, we honed an instructional plan to introduce implicit bias in an accessible and impactful way to law students, within institutional constraints. At the same time, we came to recognize inherent tensions that result in a de-emphasis on explicit and structural bias as root causes of inequality. This session will share the approach and multi-media set of materials we developed, such that attendees will be prepared to lead such a training and/or introduce this topic in their clinical teaching. Second, through small group discussions, we will formulate a shared set of best practices for addressing implicit bias, for which participating clinicians can advocate within our institutions and incorporate within our clinical curriculum. Finally, attendees will be asked to reflect thoughtfully on critiques of implicit bias training as well as brainstorm new ideas about how it might best be used to help our students to interact with clients, lawyers, and judges, and to understand the larger structural forces at play in the systems within which we work.