Starting Points: Read

Titles to help establish foundational knowledge

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Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader

Citation: Carolina Academic Press, Soc’y of Am. Law Tchrs., Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader. Carolina Academic Press, Soc’y of Am. Law Tchrs. & Golden Gate University School of Law, eds. (2011).

Summary from Carolina Academic Press: “The essays included in this volume began as presentations at the March 19–20, 2010 “Vulnerable Populations and Economic Realities” teaching conference organized and hosted by Golden Gate University School of Law and co-sponsored by the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT). That conference, generously funded by a grant from The Elfenworks Foundation, brought together law faculty, practitioners, and students to reexamine how issues of race, gender, sexual identity, nationality, disability, and generally—outsider status—are linked to poverty. Contributors have transformed their presentations into essays, offering a variety of roadmaps for incorporating these issues into the law school curriculum, both inside the classroom as well as in clinical and externship settings, study abroad, and social activism. These essays provide glimpses into “teaching moments,” both intentional and organic, to help trigger opportunities for students and faculty to question their own perceptions and experiences about who creates and interprets law, and who has access to power and the force of law.

This book expands the parameters of law teaching so that this next generation of attorneys will be dedicated to their roles as public citizens, broadening the availability of justice.

Contributors include: John Payton; Richard Delgado; Steven W. Bender; Sarah Valentine; Deborah Post and Deborah Zalesne; Gilbert Paul Carrasco; Michael L. Perlin and Deborah Dorfman; Robin R. Runge; Cynthia D. Bond; Florence Wagman Roisman; Doug Simpson; Anne Marie Harkins and Robin Clark; Douglas Colbert; Raquel Aldana and Leticia Saucedo, Marci Seville; Deirdre Bowen, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Colin Crawford, and James Forman, Jr.; Susan Rutberg; Mary B. Culbert and Sara Campos; MaryBeth Musumeci, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, and Brutrinia D. Arellano; Libby Adler; and Paulette J. Williams.”

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Integrating Doctrine and Diversity : Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom

Citation: Nicole Dyszlewski et al., Integrating doctrine and diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom (2021).

Cover of Integrating Doctrine and Diversity bookSummary from Carolina Academic Press: “Drawing upon the experience of faculty from across the country, Integrating Doctrine and Diversity is a collection of essays with practical advice, written by faculty for faculty, on specific ways to integrate diversity, equity and inclusion into the law school curriculum. Chapters will focus on subjects traditionally taught in the first-year curriculum (Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Legal Writing, Legal Research, Property, Torts) and each chapter will also include a short annotated bibliography curated by a law librarian. With submissions from over 40 scholars, the collection is the first of its kind to offer reflections, advice and specific instruction on how to integrate issues of diversity and inclusions into first-year doctrinal courses.”

Volume Two, Integrating Doctrine & Diversity: Inclusion and Equity Beyond the First Year is forthcoming.

Find this title at a library near you through WorldCat! WorldCat: Integrating doctrine and diversity : inclusion and equity in the law school classroom

The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming our Communities Through Mindfulness

Citation: Rhonda V. Magee, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Out Communities Through Mindfulness (2021)

Cover of The Inner Work of Racial Justice

Summary by Penguin Random House: “In a society where unconscious bias, microaggressions, institutionalized racism, and systemic injustices are so deeply ingrained, healing is an ongoing process. When conflict and division are everyday realities, our instincts tell us to close ranks, to find the safety of those like us, and to blame others. This book profoundly shows that in order to have the difficult conversations required for working toward racial justice, inner work is essential. Through the practice of embodied mindfulness–paying attention to our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations in an open, nonjudgmental way–we increase our emotional resilience, recognize our own biases, and become less reactive when triggered.
 
As Sharon Salzberg, New York Times-bestselling author of Real Happiness writes, “Rhonda Magee is a significant new voice I’ve wanted to hear for a long time—a voice both unabashedly powerful and deeply loving in looking at race and racism.” Magee shows that embodied mindfulness calms our fears and helps us to exercise self-compassion. These practices help us to slow down and reflect on microaggressions–to hold them with some objectivity and distance–rather than bury unpleasant experiences so they have a cumulative effect over time. Magee helps us develop the capacity to address the fears and anxieties that would otherwise lead us to re-create patterns of separation and division.
 
It is only by healing from injustices and dissolving our personal barriers to connection that we develop the ability to view others with compassion and to live in community with people of vastly different backgrounds and viewpoints. Incorporating mindfulness exercises, research, and Magee’s hard-won insights, The Inner Work of Racial Justice offers a road map to a more peaceful world.”

Listen to a sample of the book from PRH Audio on SoundCloud: The Inner Work of Racial Justice by Rhonda V. Magee, read by Rhonda V. Magee, Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Watch Rhonda Magee discuss this topic in their 2020 TED Talk: The inner work of racial justice | Rhonda Magee | TEDxMarin

Find this title at Zief Law Library in print or eBook, and at a library near you through WorldCat! 

Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World

Citation: Deborah Maranville, et al., Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World (2015)

Cover of Building on Best Practices

Summary by Carolina Academic Press: Building on Best Practices is a follow-up to Best Practices for Legal Education, a project of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), authored primarily by Roy Stuckey. With contributions from more than 50 legal educators, this new volume is not a second edition, but is intended to be used in conjunction with the original volume, as the core content of Best Practices remains just as useful as when it was originally published. In the wake of new ABA Accreditation Standards, the MacCrate Report, and other changes, legal education is called upon today to respond to a broader view of what lawyers must be trained to do. Building on Best Practices identifies ten such areas and provides guidance on what and how to teach them. The demand to teach a broader range of knowledge, skills, and values presents difficult trade-offs, however, that are also considered.

Find this title at a library near you through WorldCat! WorldCat: Building on best practices : transforming legal education in a changing world

Strategies & Techniques for Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into the Core Law Curriculum

Citation: Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb, Strategies and Techniques for Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into the Core Law Curriculum: A Comprehensive Guide to DEI Pedagogy, Course Planning, and Classroom Practice (2022).

Cover of Strategies and Techniques for Integrating Diversity book.

Summary by Wolters Kluwer: “Prominent critical-race-and-gender scholar Associate Dean Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb has published a new, comprehensive pedagogical how-to on diversity, equity and inclusion teaching methods. Strategies & Techniques for Integrating DEI into the Core Law Curriculum: A Comprehensive Guide to DEI Pedagogy, Course Planning, and Classroom Practice, published by Wolters Kluwer Legal Education, is now available to legal academics online as a free download. Strategies & Techniques for Integrating DEI into the Core Law Curriculum offers law professors an array of teaching strategies and supplemental materials to fully integrate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) education into their core law courses. This first-of-its-kind book defines and outlines DEI learning outcomes and teaching approaches that integrate with included assessments, course-planning templates and other tools.”

This eBook and additional supplemental materials are part of Wolter Kluwer’s “Strategies and Techniques” series, featuring books on teaching various law school courses, and are available online for free from Wolters Kluwer’s Law School Faculty Resources – Teaching Guides website.

Find this title at a library near you through WorldCat! Strategies and techniques for integrating diversity, equity and inclusion into the core law curriculum : comprehensive guide to DEI pedagogy, course planning, and classroom practice

Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools and Beyond

Citation: Glenn E. Singleton, Courageous Conversations About Race, Third Edition (2021).

Book Cover of Courageous Conversations About Race Third Edition

Summary by Corwin Publishing Company: Schools, like all organizations, face a nearly insurmountable hurdle when addressing racial inequities—the inability to talk candidly about race. In this timely update, author Glenn Singleton enables you to break the silence and open an authentic dialogue that forges a path to progress for racial equity. The third edition offers new coverage of the structural inequities in schools and society that have been exposed by the pandemic as well as heightened public awareness of racial injustice.

Courageous Conversations about Race allows you to deepen your personal understanding of race and its impact on all students. You will discover how to apply the strategy and protocol to

  • Embrace the four agreements—stay engaged, speak your truth, experience discomfort and accept non-closure—to deepen interracial dialogue

  • Build a foundation for advancing equity using the Six Conditions of Courageous Conversation

  • Examine the role of race in your life using the Courageous Conversation Compass to understand and guide your actions

  • Expand your capacity to lead others on the journey in addressing institutional racism disparities

This guide empowers you with practical tools and insights to successfully challenge racist policies and practice in schools and beyond. It is your call to leadership—one that will impact student achievement and drive systemic transformation.”

Find this title at a library near you through WorldCat!