In the past few decades, law schools have striven to increase student and faculty diversity, with some success. Less well studied, however, is the “second generation” issue of institutional climate.
How can academic leaders ensure that faculty and students of color not only survive, but thrive in law school and that the benefits of “diversity” are real and felt across the law school community? These questions are more pressing as academic leaders respond to the economic recession by considering policies such as abolishing tenure, decreasing the time to J.D., and adopting a "customer service" approach to legal education that places greater emphasis on student teaching evaluations to assess faculty performance. How might these reforms affect the project of sustaining a diverse faculty and student body? The recently-published book PRESUMED INCOMPETENT: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia has triggered an overdue conversation about these issues across academia.
This program is designed to prompt reflection among academic leaders about the climate that students and faculty of color encounter at the nation’s law schools, and to provide a forum for identifying concrete and proactive measures to maintain our gains and underscore our commitment to inclusive legal education.