2020 Anti-Racism Steering Committee Report

Diverse Learning at VLS

This concept captures the strong shared desire that the VLS curriculum and co-curricular activities reflect a dynamic and diverse range of learning opportunities, with particular strength in the many intersections between race and law. The teaching and scholarly excellence on which VLS prides itself requires that we embrace the profound significance of law to the lived experience of race and racial injustice—both historical and in the present day—as part of our core educational mission. That mission includes the doctrinal and clinical classes we offer and how we teach them, as well as the co-curricular offerings that form such an important part of our learning community.

We believe the following are important steps toward fostering that diverse learning environment.

Creation of new curricular offerings

Offer a Race and the Law class in every academic year, preferably taught by resident VLS faculty. This class should be considered for inclusion on the roster of 1L electives, preferably starting in the Spring 2021 semester.
Significantly expand the range of other courses exploring intersections between law, race, and other sites of subordination, as well as the frequency with which these courses are taught. While resident VLS faculty should be encouraged and supported in developing such courses, VLS should also seek to bring in a diverse range of others—for example, visitors and professors of the practice, particularly persons of color—to build that curricular vibrancy.
Consider a “one book”-style program for incoming 1Ls, and potentially LLMs and upper-class JD students as well. Students and faculty would read a book of high relevance to the intersection of law and race or other sites of subordination and meet in at least one small discussion group at the start of the academic year. This program could also include an ongoing discussion component for those who want it.
Integrate substantive issues of race and the law into the first educational experiences of incoming JD and LLM students, perhaps in Life of the Law, preferably starting in the Fall 2020 semester.
Invite the Legal Writing program to work toward inclusion of one assignment that teaches JD and LLM students to research and write about an issue at the intersection of race and the law.
Actively encourage and support all faculty in integrating issues of race into their existing courses, particularly those in the 1L curriculum. Faculty who already achieve such integration should be incentivized and rewarded for helping their colleagues do the same, preferably beginning in the 2020-21 academic year.
Create syllabus banks, training modules, working groups, and other resources to continually equip all faculty to weave race into their teachings.
Highlight current clinical offerings in which students are engaged in direct client representation, policy efforts, systemic litigation and action directed towards combatting racism and other forms of discrimination in Nashville, nationwide, and globally.
Engage with the Legal Clinic and the Vanderbilt public relations team to engage in targeted outreach to reach a wide variety of audiences, including BIPOC students.
Seek creative ways in which to champion and reward clinical faculty whose teaching and scholarship advance racial justice.
Assertively highlight the efforts of the George Barrett Social Justice Program, such as its relevant short courses, invited scholarly workshops and lectures (including the annual Barrett lecture), Social Justice Fellow program, reading group, and Practicing Public Interest Law in the South conference. Increase institutional support for such efforts, such that the Barrett Program can grow both its leadership in racial justice and the prestige and visibility of that leadership.
Encourage faculty and administrators who administer all existing lecture series to ensure that lawyers and scholars of color, and substantive issues of race and subordination, are robustly represented in these events.
Encourage or facilitate collaboration of the George Barrett Social Justice Program, the Public Interest Office, and the Legal Clinic to highlight synergistic programming.

Integration of race into existing curricular offerings

Integrate substantive issues of race and the law into the first educational experiences of incoming JD and LLM students, perhaps in Life of the Law, preferably starting in the Fall 2020 semester.
Invite the Legal Writing program to work toward inclusion of one assignment that teaches JD and LLM students to research and write about an issue at the intersection of race and the law.
Actively encourage and support all faculty in integrating issues of race into their existing courses, particularly those in the 1L curriculum. Faculty who already achieve such integration should be incentivized and rewarded for helping their colleagues do the same, preferably beginning in the 2020-21 academic year.
Create syllabus banks, training modules, working groups, and other resources to continually equip all faculty to weave race into their teachings.

Strengthening and championing existing structures that promote diverse learning

Highlight current clinical offerings in which students are engaged in direct client representation, policy efforts, systemic litigation and action directed towards combatting racism and other forms of discrimination in Nashville, nationwide, and globally.
Engage with the Legal Clinic and the Vanderbilt public relations team to engage in targeted outreach to reach a wide variety of audiences, including BIPOC students.
Seek creative ways in which to champion and reward clinical faculty whose teaching and scholarship advance racial justice.
Assertively highlight the efforts of the George Barrett Social Justice Program, such as its relevant short courses, invited scholarly workshops and lectures (including the annual Barrett lecture), Social Justice Fellow program, reading group, and Practicing Public Interest Law in the South conference. Increase institutional support for such efforts, such that the Barrett Program can grow both its leadership in racial justice and the prestige and visibility of that leadership.
Encourage faculty and administrators who administer all existing lecture series to ensure that lawyers and scholars of color, and substantive issues of race and subordination, are robustly represented in these events.
Encourage or facilitate collaboration of the George Barrett Social Justice Program, the Public Interest Office, and the Legal Clinic to highlight synergistic programming.

Structural investments in diverse learning, teaching, and scholarship

Convene a group to examine the feasibility and desirability of certain significant alterations to our academic environment. That group would explore:
- Instituting a VLS graduation requirement that students take at least one class that is focused on some intersection of the law and race, and/or other sites of subordination such as gender, sexual orientation, or immigration status.
- Creating a permanent center to focus and champion this diversity of learning, perhaps along the lines of a Center for Race and Social Justice in the South. Such exploration should include review of the centers housed at various of our peer law schools; focusing on what would distinguish such a center at VLS, as a premiere legal institution in the South with our own legacy of both racism and resistance; and cultivating donors to establish and endow such a center.
- Establishing an annual endowed lecture or residency on race and law, or that is otherwise intended to advance diversity. Such a lecture or residency could be housed within the newly formed Center for Race and Social Justice in the South or made part of the Barrett Social Justice Program or Legal Clinic.
- Creating a Chair to honor the late Professor Robert Belton, to be awarded to a faculty member whose work honors his legacy of fighting racism and its effects, and cultivation of donors to endow that Chair.
- Establishing a graduation Certificate program akin to that of the Law and Business program, and cultivation of donors to endow that program.

Journal diversity

Support all journals in instituting a diversity plan for their membership, preferably in the 2020-21 academic year, with the goal of meaningfully addressing the notable underrepresentation of BIPOC students in our academic journals.
Support all journals in instituting a plan to foster, publish, and highlight excellent scholarship speaking to issues of law, race, and other sites of subordination. One element of such a plan, for example, could be a regular Law Review symposium on race in the law, and/or journals’ commitment to regularly devote a portion of their publications to issues of race.
Convene, in the 2020-21 academic year, a stakeholder group to evaluate the feasibility and desirability of creating a new journal with a substantive focus on race and law, perhaps within a broader social justice frame.
Seek creative mechanisms for encouraging BIPOC students to consider whether journal membership advances their goals, and if so, to participate in the write-on competition. One such effort, for example, could be to provide a collective space for students to work during write-on.

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