Utah Symposium: #IncludeTheirStories — Rethinking, Reimagining, And Reshaping Legal Education

Utah Law Review symposium, #IncludeTheirStories: Rethinking, Reimagining, and Reshaping Legal Education:

The entire world was shaken by the events of 2020, a year which the history books will pen with infamy. Along with a global health pandemic that tested both human frailties and social infrastructures, the world witnessed the devastation of George Floyd, an African American man, dying under the knee of Derek Chauvin, a white male police officer. The nation erupted. As 2020 ended, many organizations and institutions clamored both to process ethnic divides and injustices, and gain tools and skills to create meaningful change and lasting impact. Legal education was one such institution.

This event will gather scholars and practitioners who have been deeply engaged in this work to determine how law faculty might best prepare today’s law students through teaching racism and related inequities in the classroom. A few law schools have grappled with race-silent neutrality within the 1L curriculum and diversity reading lists have been created, but, however elusive a goal, we have not yet arrived at an inclusive curriculum. So the conversation must continue. We are excited to bring together academics and practitioners to offer practical and pedagogical steps toward rethinking, reimagining, and reshaping the legal education curriculum in efforts to #IncludeTheirStories.

Friday, November 5

Session 1: Grappling with Our Legal History of Exclusion
Tom Romero (Denver), Joann Thach (Snell & Wilmer), Angela Winfield (LSAC)

Session 2: Overcoming the Resistance to DEI
Robin Boylorn (Alabama), Thomas Donnelly (Jones Day), Robert Razzante (Western Washington University)

Keynote Address: Danielle Conway (Dean, Penn State-Dickinson)

Saturday, November 6

Opening Address: Meera Deo (Southwestern)

Session 1: Legal Academia & Publishing: Representation Matters
Hannah Brenner Johnson (California-Western), Steven Dean (Brooklyn), Sara Ochs (Louisville)

Session 2: 1L Curriculum
Nantiya Ruan (Denver), Phyllis Taite (Oklahoma City), Danielle Tully (Brooklyn)

Session 3: Upper-level Curriculum
Anastasia Boles (Arkansas-Little Rock), Bridget Crawford (Pace), Stacy Leeds (Arizona State)