Research Guides: Teaching Tools for Law School Faculty: Incorporating Racial &amp; Social Justice Issues

Introduction

This section focuses on practical resources providing background about and tips for integrating race and social justice issues into the law school curriculum. It also includes materials addressing such integration in specific courses, as well as selected resources for use in courses. For guidance on inclusive pedagogy, see the separate section on Inclusive Teaching.

Getting Started

Duke Law School, Race in the 1L Curriculum (video series) (2020-2021)
A yearlong series examining race in the context of the first-year curriculum, which will include torts, criminal law, civil procedure, contracts, property law, and constitutional law.
Harvard Law School, Diversity and Social Justice in First Year Classes (public lecture series) (2017)
Videos from a public lecture series, presented as part of a 2017 Harvard Law School seminar, “Diversity and Social Justice in First Year Classes,” examining how issues of diversity and social justice can be integrated into the core 1L classes.
Laura P. Graham, "Safe Spaces" And "Brave Spaces": The Case for Creating Law School Classrooms That Are Both, 76 U. Miami L. Rev. 84 (2021).
"This Article provides one context within which law schools can examine how best to create an environment, both in and out of the classroom, that maximizes student learningin an age where it is more important than ever that difficult racial, social, and global issues be raisedand dis- cussed."
Anna P. Hemingway, Intentionally and Systematically Integrating Diversity Discussions and Lessons in the Law School Classroom During A Race-Conscious Era, 73 Rutgers U.L. Rev. 33 (2020)
"In Part III, the Article explains the reasons and methodologies for incorporating lessons on diversity in traditional law school courses. The Article provides explicit ideas for teaching racially sensitive topics; but because it questions whether everyone is equipped to handle diversity issues openly, it also makes suggestions on how to do so quietly and even silently."

Integrating Doctrine and Diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom by Nicole P. Dyszlewski, Raquel J. Gabriel, et al. (Editors)
Call Number: KF273 .I58 2021
ISBN: 9781531017019
Publication Date: 2021
Includes submissions from over 40 scholars offering advice and instruction on the integration of diversity issues into first-year doctrinal courses.

Lewis & Clark Law School, Diversity Work Group, Ruminations on Stimulating Robust Discussions of Race in the Law School Classroom (Mar. 2, 2011)
Includes ideas on how to discuss race in the law school classroom; suggests casebooks for various law school doctrinal courses that incorporate cases related to racial justice; and suggests ways in which race can be discussed in specific law school courses.
Vernellia R. Randall, Teaching Diversity Skills in Law School, 54 Saint Louis University Law Journal 795 (Spring 2010)
An interview with University of Dayton School of Law Professor Vernellia Randall, who discusses discuss the importance of teaching diversity skills in traditional courses, and ways in which professors can do so.
Sonia M. Gipson Rankin, What’s (Race in) the Law Got to Do With It: Incorporating Race in Legal Curriculum, 54 Connecticut Law Review 923 (2022)
"This Essay outlines cognitive dissonance theory, color blindness ideology, and its relationship to racial inequality, while providing classroom techniques that encourage dialogue related to conversations on equity and race. These classroom strategies will help professors’ awareness of equity in the legal profession and the justice system."

Roger Williams University Law School and CUNY Law School, Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series

Scroll down for videos of the following sessions:

Law Integrating Doctrine and Diversity (Sept. 15, 2021)
When Law School Classroom Discussions on Diversity Go Wrong (Oct. 26, 2021)
Making Space, Taking Space (Nov. 16, 2021)
Making Changes, Making Mistakes (Mar. 2, 2022)
Auditing Your Syllabus and Classroom Materials (Apr. 26, 2022)
Making Changes, Making Mistakes (Part 2) (Sept. 14, 2022)

Sandra Simpson, “As easy as '1, 2, buckle my shoe,' 10 Steps for Addressing Race Intentionally and Facilitating Unplanned Racial Discussions in Doctrinal Classes,” Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, Law Teaching Blog (May 16, 2019)

Integrating into Specific Courses

Resources for Multiple Courses

Integrating Doctrine and Diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom by Nicole P. Dyszlewski, Raquel J. Gabriel, et al. (Editors)
Call Number: KF273 .I58 2021
ISBN: 9781531017019
Publication Date: 2021
Includes submissions from over 40 scholars offering advice and instruction on the integration of diversity issues into first-year doctrinal courses.
Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader by Society of American Law Teachers, Golden Gate University School of Law, eds.
Call Number: KF336 .V85 2011
ISBN: 9781594609497
Publication Date: 2011
Contributors offer a variety of roadmaps for incorporating issues of race, gender, sexual identity, nationality, disability, and poverty into the law school curriculum, both inside the classroom as well as in clinical and externship settings, study abroad, and social activism.

Antitrust

Alfred Dennis Mathewson, Race in Ordinary Course: Utilizing the Racial Background in Antitrust and Corporate Law Courses, 23 St. John's J. Legal Comment. 667 (2008)

Business and Corporate Law

Civil Procedure

Kevin R. Johnson, Integrating Racial Justice into the Civil Procedure Survey Course, 54 J. Legal Educ. 242 (2004)
Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb, The Law School Curriculum and the Movement for Black Lives, 31 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 27 (2020)
See Part III. A.: Integrating the Movement for Black Lives into Civil Procedure: Re-Framing Iqbal & Twombly.
Shirin Sinnar, The Lost Story of Iqbal, 105 Geo. L.J. 379 (2017)

Clinical Education

Commercial Law

Carliss Chatman, Teaching Slavery in Commercial Law (September 19, 2021) (available at SSRN)

Constitutional Law

Paul Finkelman, Teaching Slavery in American Constitutional Law, 34 Akron L. Rev. 261 (2001)
Cheryl Hanna, Gender As A Core Value in Teaching Constitutional Law, 36 Okla. City U. L. Rev. 513 (2011)
Juan F. Perea, Race and Constitutional Law Casebooks: Recognizing the Proslavery Constitution, 110 Mich. L. Rev. 1123 (2012)
Kathryn R.L. Rand & Steven Andrew Light, Teaching Race Without A Critical Mass: Reflections on Affirmative Action and the Diversity Rationale, 54 J. Legal Educ. 316 (2004)
In Part III, the authors describe their “approach to teaching affirmative action in our Constitutional Law courses as an adaptable module designed to help students challenge common assumptions and ‘problematize’ the issue.”

Contracts

ContractsProfBlog series on introducing critical perspectives, including critical race perspectives into contracts teaching.

Criminal Law & Procedure

Evidence

Marsha Griggs, Race, Rules, and Disregarded Reality, 82 Ohio State Law Journal 931 (2021)
"Part III explores the text, theory, and application of the Federal Rules of Evidence and the extent to which they confound and indoctrinate racial and societal biases....Part IV addresses the obligation to view and teach core doctrinal rules from a lens that incorporates diverse experiences."

Labor & Employment Law

Legal Research & Writing

Property

Integrating Spaces: Property Law and Race by Alfred L. Brophy, Alberto Lopez, et al.
Call Number: Reserve KF5740 .B76 2011
ISBN: 9780735569973
Publication Date: 2010
Available in print in the Law Library's collection. Intended to supplement a traditional property law casebook and "integrate historical and contemporary issues of race and ethnicity into your Property syllabus."

Tax

Torts

Course Materials

Critical Race Judgments: Rewritten U.S. Court Opinions on Race and the Law by Bennett Capers, Devon Carbado, et al. (Editors)
Call Number: KF4755 .C748 2022 (Available online see below)
ISBN: 9781107164529
Publication Date: 2022
Critical Race Judgments rewrites key judicial decisions with a racial justice perspective. "Specific issues covered in these cases include the death penalty, employment, voting, policing, education, the environment, justice, housing, immigration, sexual orientation, segregation, and mass incarceration."
Also available via Cambridge Core online access.
Critical Race Theory: Cases, Materials, and Problems by Dorothy Brown
Call Number: KF4755 .B76 2014
ISBN: 9780314287519
Publication Date: 3d ed., 2014
Available in print in the Law Library’s collection. This casebook—including chapters on torts, contracts, criminal procedure, criminal law and sentencing, property, and civil procedure—examines cases through the analytical framework of critical race theory.

Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights (CLIHHR) at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Confronting Structural Violence: Law Teaching Guides
“CLIHHR’s Law Teaching Guides help professors incorporate today’s legal issues into the courses they teach, tapping into students’ passions while training them to recognize and respond to structural violence and human and civil rights violations across practice areas. The 10 Law Teaching Guides are grounded in cases many professors already teach and include learning objectives, questions that can be used for in-class discussion or exams, and useful background. The Law Teaching Guides serve as a flexible resource professors can easily adapt for introductory survey courses or upper-level seminars to plan or update syllabi, individual lessons, exams and more.“
• Module 1: Federal Plenary Power & Judicial Deference
• Module 2: Citizenship & Race
• Module 3: U.S. Constitutional Due Process & Immigration Law
• Module 4: Establishment of Religion
• Module 5: Religious Equality and Nondiscrimination
• Module 6: Voting Rights
• Module 7: Corporations & Human Rights
• Module 8: Mass Incarceration
• Module 9: Cultural Property, Traditional Knowledge & Trademark Law
• Module 10: The International Criminal Court
• Module 11: Reparations

Feminist Judgment Series: Rewritten Judicial Opinions (Cambridge University Press)

The Feminist Judgment series "rewrites key judicial decisions through a social justice lens. Using a broad approach to feminist methods and theories that highlights traditionally marginalized perspectives such as gender, race and class, these rewritten opinions provide an alternative history of United States law. These feminist judgments directly challenge the idea that the law is neutral and objective by suggesting how cases could have been decided differently if guided by concerns about justice for all people, even with the same facts and precedent as the original judgment. Because the rewritten judgments straddle theory and practice, they provide clear, practical illustrations of how theory can be used to change the law."

Feminist Judgments in International Law (Loveday Hodson & Troy Lavers eds., Hart Publishing, 2019)
Takes a similar approach to the titles in the Feminist Judgments series (above).
Law Stories Series (West Academic)
Volumes on specific topics, taught in a variety of law school courses, provide background information and commentary on cases. Many volumes address issues relating to racial and social justice. (See, e.g., Laura J. Cooper & Catherine L. Fisk, Labor Law Stories (2005), which includes the following chapters: The Story of Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad: White Unions, Black Unions, and the Struggle for Racial Justice on the Rails; The Story of First National Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB: Eliminating Bargaining for Low-Wage Service Workers; and The Story of Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB: Labor Rights Without Remedies for Undocumented Immigrants.)

Teaching Tools for Law School Faculty

Introduction

Getting Started

Integrating into Specific Courses

Course Materials

Additional Resource Guides