 Good afternoon, and welcome to today's event to our doctor and diversity speakers series event on making mistakes. My name is Gregory Bowman, he, him, his, and I have the honor and privilege of serving as the Dean of Roger Williams University School of Law. And I'm very pleased to make some introductory remarks at today's program, which is a very important. I'll turn the program over in a moment to my colleague at Roger Williams University School of Law, but before I do that, I would like to read our land and labor acknowledgement to begin this program. I want to take a moment to reflect on the lands on which we reside. We are coming from many places physically and remotely and we want to acknowledge the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of indigenous and native peoples who have been here since time immemorial and to recognize that we must continue to build our solidarity and our kinship with native peoples across the Americas and across the globe. Roger Williams University School of Law is located in Bristol Rhode Island. And so we acknowledge and honor the Narragansett and the Poconoke people and so on the original name of the land that our campus resides on. We also acknowledge that this country would not exist if it were not for the free enslaved labor of black people. And we recognize that the town of Bristol and the very land our campus resides on have benefited significantly from the trade of enslaved people from Africa. The economy of New England, Rhode Island and more specifically of Bristol was built from wealth generated through the triangle trade of human lives. And during this time of ongoing national reckoning with our history of slavery and the disparate treatment of black people, we honor the legacy of the African diaspora and the black lives and knowledge and skills stolen due to violence and white supremacy. While the movement for justice and liberation is building and we are witnessing the power of the people, many are still being met with violence and even being killed. As upholders of justice, our hope is to become agents of change for members of our society who have been met with violence, physical, mental, emotional, through our privilege. And as upholders of justice, we believe that our students who soon will be practitioners of law can be and already are agents of change as well. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with this practice of reading a land and labor acknowledgement. Why do we do this. I want to share with you a statement from Northwestern University is Native American and indigenous initiatives which explains it much better than I could. And I quote, it is important to understand the long standing history history that has brought you to reside on the land and to seek to understand your place within that history. Land acknowledgements and labor acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense or an historical context. Colonialism is a current and ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation. So thank you again for being here I really look forward to today's program we have an excellent slate of speakers and commentators lined up. I am very pleased to turn it over to my colleague at Roger Williams University School of Law, Nicole. Nicole. Thank you all for being here today to kick off our second year of the integrating doctrine and diversity speaker series. Thank you especially to the team at Roger Williams, that makes these events happen. And thank you to this year's co sponsors, CUNY law jurist, Berkeley law and George Washington law. The good news is that we are busy editing the second volume of integrating doctrine and diversity, which is specifically focused on upper level classes. The bad news is that we were in the middle of editing the second volume of integrating doctrine and diversity, and Genevieve tongue is beset on all sides with correcting all of our citation mistakes. Our conversation today is the follow up to one of our events last year about what to do when you as a law teacher make a mistake. It was wildly popular and we got far more questions than we could answer. So we're starting today by trying to answer some of the questions we never got to last time. We're also taking some questions in the q amp a or in the chat, whichever way you feel comfortable that will try to answer throughout. Mistakes happen mistakes happen, especially in this area because we're pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones, because we're challenging ourselves to teach diversity skills, and to integrate the content into our classes mistakes happen because we're tired. We have a diversity of students who don't have the same experiences and identities that we have mistakes happen because we have biases, many of which we're not aware of mistakes happen because just fight our passion for teaching and our passion for the subject matter we're teaching. We make mistakes mistakes happen because we are human. Today we're going to discuss common mistakes and talk a little bit about how to meaningfully handle them in an after class. Today's panelists come from different places and have different backgrounds, but they all have some experience making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. The panelists generally also have expertise in law school in the law school DEI B space and have some practical advice to share with everyone. My hope is we can learn from each other and that you at home feel comfortable asking for advice and listening to our panelists. Please feel free to chat in questions and I'll try to ask them where I can I've already seen one come in which I'm excited about. So today I'm going to start today with Dylan Dylan is the associate dean for faculty research and development and professor of law at Charleston school of law. The newest edition of this casebook with Robin Paul Malloy is now available land use and zoning law planning for accessible communities, which focuses on accessibility issues and a variety of contacts, and how the law can be can be used to break down those barriers. Dylan I'm going to start with you because you are a panelist on the first version of the session, and you survived. In that session you stated, when you make comments in class, they are not only being delivered by you, but they are being received by an entire audience of students. So there might be students who receive the information in ways that are not necessarily how you intended it, but really, but it really is offensive or they took it negatively. I think about this a lot when I'm teaching and how my identity informs how my comments are stated how they're formulated and also how they're received. Can you talk a bit about what advice you might have to professors who make a comment they believe to be innocent or well intentioned, but is received negatively by students. So thank you Nicole and thank you for that warm introduction. I think that that's true. Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that we're not just teaching but we're, we're teaching the student right so it's not just the law that we have to get across we have to make sure that we're getting the law across to the student and every now and then the student might receive the information we're trying to convey in a way that is different than intended. And so when those mistakes happen. My best advice is to use it as an opportunity to open discussion about why that information was maybe misunderstood or miscommunicated between the professor and the student. Professor I try to show a sincere willingness to learn from the student as well I think that there's more buy in and what I'm trying to teach the students when I show willingness to learn from them. I think students in this in my classrooms today not only expect us to acknowledge that they know things but to also expect us to build on the things that they know already and so being open to the idea that you can use the as an opportunity to communicate with your students maybe learn a little bit more about the societal context of what you're trying to say the maybe teach some of the other students some cultural competency. The key though is that it needs to come across sincere. It's not just checking a box. I think you build a little bit of that good will with your students if you right from the start have already built the kinds of relationships with the students know what kind of professor you are and that you're, you know really passionate about what you do and that you're on teams student for them to learn. But when these mistakes happen you can use it as an opportunity to listen to them and learn from them. They might feel much better about it if they're given the opportunity to speak and be heard on their impressions. It's hard to not be defensive in those moments. It's maybe hard to not be obstinate in your approach to teaching the material. But I do think that it's our job to figure out how best to reach the student because we do need to realize that it's that we're teaching the law to the student. So, specifically ways in which you can do that is maybe as the student is expressing their concerns you can repeat the words. I think it's really important to have others in the class can hear what the student is saying so that you can make sure that their voice is heard from everyone it also shows them that you were listening because you're repeating what they're saying to you. And yeah, take it from there where you're maybe using it as an opportunity to learn. Thanks Dylan. I'm going to turn to Ralph and Karmia with this next question. Ralph Tavares is the managing associate equity and inclusive excellence at store back search. Previously he was a DEI be administrator here at Roger Williams law, and was foundational to the start of us having the series in the first place so a shout out to Ralph. Karmia is the associate dean for justice equity diversity and inclusion at George Washington University Law School. Karmia in whichever order you choose, both of you have had experience counseling professors and students in different institutions and situations, where a student is impacted or offended by comments that a professor has made in a way which they did not intend to hurt or offend but did in fact hurt or offend. Can you both talk a bit about your experiences and share what advice you have given to professors in the situation. I'll start. You know it's interesting I've been at two large PWIs I've been in a small HPCU law school. And so I let those experiences and form how I responded or thought about thought about this topic and what was really interesting when I went back and looked at the webinars from last year is that everything that I felt and thought is echoed and has already been said and and underscoring all of that is that all advice that I can give is that you already know right speaking to faculty, you already know the answer. If you offend someone say something for the love of all things Holy, say something right if we step on someone's foot, we say oh my goodness I'm so sorry, are you okay. In a classroom, are you okay could be a step too far right because all any student wants to do when an in a setting where they feel uncomfortable, not any student but many times they want to disappear. So I think that quick acknowledgement I think as as Frank said last year, just apologize back away and apologize again. There is always time after class whatever happens in class will exist in zoom chats will exist in all of the group chats will have a life, all of its own. So the most that as you can do as an instructor is acknowledge that you have messed up. And in so doing you are modeling how to manage a mistake, you are modeling that we is perfect well a mistake in a professional setting, we are modeling for students that how to how to be uncomfortable. Right because often these mistakes are around uncomfortable topics, and we are also modeling that relationships survive the uncomfortable conversation. Right the first thing that Dylan spoke about just now was relationships right the climate that we build when we are in a classroom, the relationships that we develop will be the things that butchers us in these difficult conversations. And just to amplify what you said, I agree with everyone it's the idea of a relationship. Let's not run away from that. Let's run towards it. I think that that's going to help us when things go wrong. I think it's going to make learning more meaningful when things go right. I do think like leaning into the relationship can be really important. Ralph. Yes, and nice to see you Nicole and nice to see so many familiar faces in the chat and on the panel participant list. So, I guess sort of an umbrella way of that I have approached this is at the law school and several other colleges and universities that I've worked at is to try and get professors and students to center empathy as much as possible, which sounds easy but isn't as easy as you would think. There was a situation I dealt with past tense, where a student had been misnamed in the classroom multiple times by a white professor I'm just going to give an example. To the point where the misnaming almost became a joke amongst the other students, and the student that was being misnamed was incredibly embarrassed incredibly angry, and was asking like how can this professor continue to call me the wrong name. And from the lens of the professor, a lot of things were shared. And the professor said I have a student chart. I make sure I call the same students and the student move their seat. The other thing was the student changed their hairstyle. The student, then they said, you know, I have a cognitive challenge with remembering names specifically and all these things were true. And they were authentic to that professor, and this professor's intentions were not malicious. In fact, this particular professor is one of the kind of people I had ever met in my professional career. Not but the impact on this young woman of color was profound. The student talked about what it felt like to have the magnifying glass on them for the remainder of the semester by other students and after naming it to the professor by the professor. The student had spoken up about it in class at one point. If, and I'm trying to remember it correctly but it caused the magnifying glass to be cast on them even more and as the weeks go on it became this thing. They were nervous before every single class like who's going to say it am I going to be called the same name heightened anxiety lack of focus. Other students were chittering about them and it became this sort of running joke. The student the impact on that student is that they felt invisible because they were misnamed, and then the distance they also felt like they were the subject of hyper focus weird duality. By the end of the semester, the student had reflected that they didn't learn anything in the class because they were so focused on the harm that was caused. And this was a clear example of impact versus intention. The harm was not intentional but impactful. Nevertheless, so how did we deal with it. I ended up calling upon the student and asked, I put the student in the position of power and asked how they wanted to handle this and how I could be of service. And they agreed to meet with the professor to have a conversation about it. And it almost was set up like a mediation. I tried again the center empathy and put myself in the shoes of the students. If we're student center you center the student and if the students felt invisible disrespected unheard. I tried to model this sort of conversation with them in a way that made them feel feel heard and seen and respected, and I ended up asking each of them these three prompts and if Dean Lolly is on on the call somewhere Dean Lolly was here with me and asked the student and this professor to answer these three questions. What I heard you say is blank. What I didn't hear you say is blank. What I need you to hear is blank. And we did three rounds of that where I had the student share out and the professor listen and then I had the professor share out and the student listened and then we did it again. And after the two rounds with each person the hope was that the student heard and felt seen and respected, and was able to share what the impact was of what the professor had done. Was it perfect. No, but were they able to move forward from that point I'd like to think so so again it's it was a lot to prepare for it and get into that space but I again we just centered humanity center empathy as much as you can for both parties. Thanks Ralph, I'm going to bring Natalie into the conversation. Natalie M chin is an associate professor of law at the University of New York where she teaches classes and admin law and disability rights and justice. She's also the co director of the disability and aging justice clinic. I want to shift the focus a bit to language specifically. Natalie specifically in your role as co director of the clinic which represents low income New Yorkers in a range of issues, including prisoners rights securing due process protections in areas that include sexual rights, alternatives to guardianship and prisoner rights and disability based discrimination under state local and federal law. The work seems fraught for professors and students making mistakes about using the correct terminology of conditions disorders and and and identities. Do you counsel students to use people first language. Has there been a time when you were someone in the clinic made a mistake. And can you talk a bit about how you approach a situation where someone a professor a student a client has used an incorrect outdated and or offensive term and reference to work at your clinic or in the classroom. Oh sure. Hi everyone is great to see you can you hear me okay. All right. So, those are all really wonderful questions I think with language. I think it's really helpful for students so when I teach the class to understand sort of the power and the history of language. Because at times, you know, let's redirect your language and some students think well this is so PC. Like why are we focusing so much on different ways of saying things or how to identify people. So I haven't done this exercise but it made me think about it when I was thinking about this question. And there's so many people participating today this is just so cool. So maybe give five seconds after I asked each question just to think. So think of all the derogatory harmful words for a gay person. Think back in history present path. Now think about all the derogatory words for women. Now think about all the derogatory and harmful words for black people. And now think about all the derogatory harmful words for people with disabilities. And now think about all the derogatory words for white cis hetero men. Now think about that. So somebody did this exercise with me and it like blew my mind, because there really aren't a lot of derogatory harmful words for the power structure. And so this simple exercise really illustrates that the power of language as a tool that really gets sharpened through the years and becomes a system of oppression, and that language evolves over time. So in the question of person first language or identity first language of some folks here might not know person versus for example, I'm a person with a disability and identity first language is I'm a disabled person. So as practitioners and advocates the idea is to be respectful to language to those who represent particularly if you do disability rights and justice. So I'm a movement away from saying, I'm writing about people with disabilities to I'm running about disabled people or autistic people, because by not centering disability. The idea of, you know, why are we pushing disability under the rug or why are we putting that identity under the rug is it something to be ashamed of. And so there was this there's been this movement really driven by autistic people to say, my identity is first, I'm an I am an autistic person. Even though person first language is designed to respect that there are two sides to how folks want to be identified. So as a practitioner and as my students, there's no right or wrong answer. You defer to the person that you're representing. And if you know as it comes up or if you're writing a brief or if you're talking to the court. And how would you prefer that I call you how would you, you know, what what is your purpose what would you like. And really you're empowering the client or the person to let you know and they're going to be driving the show. So mistakes are made all the time in class myself making them included. And so just by example, a student might, you know, use a phrase handicapped or use another phrase that really is outdated. But at the same time, I know as a professor I'm here I need to read, correct this language and use it as a teaching moment. I get so nervous. Like my whole body gets really hot. And it has to be done in the right moment, or it's over. You know you can't like wait. And so what I do is I let the student finish the thought and I say, I just want to redirect the language that you are using to this to this because, and just give a little bit of motivation and move on. And so that's more language that's used that is derogatory which perhaps changed over time that students, you know, haven't been exposed to or aren't aware of so it's a little bit easier. We talked about language at the very beginning of the semester is like a living breathing evolving thing that has power as power to take away somebody's power, right now has power to harm, and also has power to give somebody the strength to feel that they're in the So it's not just using what words to say. So these are the you know the way I talked about it is more from a historical perspective, how language has changed over time, and as advocates, you know by recognizing that and respecting our client understanding the power of our language and the power of oppression as it relates to language it helps us be stronger advocates. I hope I answered at least one or two of those questions. That was great. It's very tricky when a situation comes up, because on one hand, the students are there to learn. And you want to give them some room to learn and grow. On the other hand, you don't want the thing that they said in a wrong way to hurt another student, or your client. It's just sort of balancing act where it's not going to help if you shame someone. However, it also might not help if you just let it sit there and don't correct it. And so, I, as you were describing your feelings, I know exactly what you're saying and feel like I have the I just want to quickly add, I'm just real quick, that for professors to, you know, gently redirect students language, others, other students are so appreciative. I can't tell you how many times after class. I've had students say you know I've had I've been in law school three years, and I've never had a professor actually like kind of call out. And I don't think it was in a negative way but and redirect language and I just want to say thank you that I'm really grateful. So it really impacts not just, and I think you're right, Nicole, you don't want to put the students that using the language in the face of feeling thrown under the bus and so it's really artful. Yeah, there's no it's very, you know, they're different ways to do it and you do your you do your best. Thanks, I want to follow up in sort of the same vein what advice do you have to professors who make mistakes with terminology in a classroom setting. This for me. Okay. Like the professor themselves is making a mistake. So I just call ourselves out immediately. I've done this before I've made for positive me mistake. And I, and I just call myself out and say that we're you know and then I reinforce that, you know we're always learning in this learned environment. And I just said I've made a mistake that did a harm a student. It's more like with life so I haven't been in that position itself, but I certainly have used language. Maybe that was that have been better expressed or was the wrong term or I made assumptions in my language, and I do my best to call my, my, and I think one, one students see the professor, calling themselves out and being human about mistakes. And that's the message right starts in the top. It kind of sends the message to the whole class that it's okay. You know, we're learning together on this and becoming better because of it. Thanks. And now I'm going to bring Eden into the conversation. Eden is a current Roger Williams University School of Law student class of 2023 almost done her journey with us. She spent a significant amount of time in law school advocating on behalf of diverse students in his passionate about diversity and inclusion and serves on the DEI steering committee, as well as the LGBTQ plus subcommittee at the law school. I'm grateful for you being here so we can learn more from a student perspective. Can you talk a bit about when professors make a mistake from the point of view of a student. Specifically, can you share any advice for us about how you have seen professor successfully handle a mistake with pronouns or with terminology. Yeah, of course, so something that's not in my bio that probably will give a little context to this question I'm an openly transgender student. So, I, in preparation for this spoke to other transgender students and just members of the transgender and gender non conforming community to kind of put together essentially like four points for this for professors. So point one, if you're a professor, don't freak out. If you've made the mistake, don't panic, because if you panic you're going to start going into this grand apology. And you're going to put so much more focus on the student and the student is going to want to disappear in that moment. So stuff one is, don't panic mistakes happen. And you just have to breathe for a second in process because if you don't do that you're going to make it so much more like worse for the student than what you might have not intentionally meant to make it in the first place. Step two, kind of like everyone else has been saying quickly correct whatever the mistake was. So if you use the wrong pronouns or use the wrong name. If you quickly correct it and do a quick apology and just say oh I apologize I know that your name is this or your pronouns are this and then just continue forward. And that is so much better for the student because you're addressing it in the moment, but you're trying to minimize how quickly how grand of an error it is in front of the rest of the class. And number three, give the student a little grace and whatever question it was that you were asking them about, because if you're cold calling them, and you're asking them about some sort of holding of a case. And this happens. They're probably not going to be able to think about the holding of the case right in that moment. They're going to be thinking about other things. So get them a little grace in a moment to answer. And if they're a little flustered. Just keep it moving. Don't let people continue to look at the student, because they, again, are just going to want to kind of sink away in the corner. And then finally, make sure that you apologize afterwards. So whether it be something after class you just pull them aside really quick to talk to them, send them an email. I don't remember who it was but someone said that you have all the time after class to apologize and talk to them that's something that goes a very long way with addressing these issues. So if you take the time to actually reach out to the student, do the formal apology, don't do it in the public setting of the classroom. It goes a lot further that way. Thanks, Eden. I don't mean to hog the student perspective which isn't mine anymore but the thing I would say is don't be defensive. Our initial knee jerk reaction, even if we've done the wrong thing is to explain why we've done the wrong thing. And like for me it's like fight with all you can to not be defensive in this space. Okay, my next question is for Natalie and Dylan. Moving from accidental mistakes to overt use of objectionable words and phrases. At the last session we got quite a few questions from faculty about how professors do and should handle cases laws or historical material which uses offensive language. Should you choose not to use the language with offensive. Should you choose not to use the material with offensive language or topics. Should you read the material have students read them in class directly is written edited in some way. Do you address this at the beginning of the semester. I just wanted to hear your both of your thoughts on how this issue should be treated I'll start with Dylan. Well, thank you, Nicole. I guess first I want to say it. I mean, in my opinion, it is really unnecessary to use offensive language in class as part of the class discussion and how we as professors are preparing our materials. I do think is a bit more challenging is when there's potentially offensive language in the source of law, when it's an opinion that's really old that we're teaching from or a statute that is still really operative but it uses an obsolete word. I think as professors, our job is to come to class prepared. And as I believe it was Karmia who said it earlier, acknowledge that that word might have to come up if we're looking at the case, or the statute. It's within our abilities to steer the conversation in a way that doesn't use the offensive language but we can still use the information to either have an opportunity to teach the student not just the law but the context within the, in which the law came into being. And why we don't use that word anymore because we've evolved to a point where that word now has acknowledged negative connotations. And so I think it just, you know, it becomes a challenge when the word is in the source of law but as professors that's just part of our job and coming to class prepared and I would recommend acknowledging it will go a long way with the students who would maybe be upset at that word or those words being used in class. I think Natalie do thanks period Natalie. Yeah, no I don't have a lot to add I think that's exactly on point what Dylan said. And also I think in addition to language it could be concepts in that case that relate to language or things of that nature sometimes I put content warnings with my syllabus to kind of let students know. You know that there's some there's there's some material that might some might find you know I find different language that works for that particular assignment. I agree that I don't think it's necessary to of course use the offensive language the outdated language, but I think it's a rich the conversation is talking about what's behind it. Every court case is driven by racism bias, capitalism and ableism. And so if you have this language that we no longer use anymore it informed the statute know ableism. And when I say ableism, I teach this in my class and I just a quick definition I'm reading Lydia Browns very short definition of systemic institutional devaluing of bodies and mind seem deviant of normal defective subhuman and language is ableist it is ableist. So I think, you know one strategy is, if you assign you to this statute, it's really talk about why it's important to think about the language, and what was driving the opinion what is driving the statute and how that has actually evolved or not, or evolved in different ways over time. I think that background isn't taught enough in law school to kind of help give context to the work that we're doing, especially just balancing these older cases these older statutes and I think that context really is a lot of breath to understanding the complexity and the political nature of the system that we have that we're all working in that's like a box. And I think the students want it. I don't feel the field that they are opposed to hearing it I think once you get started on that the students find that really enriching and rewarding to see how some of these. Some of the historical context and background on what they're learning and not just focusing on the holding in the case. Carmia my next question is for you. Language is constantly changing and we're getting older, or at least you're getting older. We have gotten many questions about how professors can balance their job demands and area of expertise, while staying current with language. Do you have any particular advice on readings trainings or other practices for faculty and administrators looking to make sure they're doing the work to keep current before they make a mistake before they step into the classroom and it's brought up. Yes and no, and I'll start with no and the know is that you're going to get it wrong. No is that you're out of date. No is that you if you are 16 and a camp counselor you are uncooled at the 13 year olds and I can guarantee you if you are a law professor you are out of touch with the law students. I was thinking about this the issue of vocabulary I reached out to a former colleague who when we practice together was just out of law school, and I was already approaching middle age, and he was talking about the importance of an anti racist organization. Now that's a term I haven't used really or like what is, and that was more than 15 years ago. But more than 15 years ago is when the language was fully in the classrooms but certainly not in my ears and I was just coming out of a law school setting. I reached out to him because he's now a clinician his comment was well gosh my students correct me. And I think we have to be open and ready for those corrections I think when you mess up you take the L, and you take the correction. Right. It's just, we have these tools right we're an adversarial system right think about athletics which is the exact parallel for an adversarial system. What happens, there's a foul, it is called it is acknowledged. I mean, the student doesn't get a foul shot like an extra five points, but they do get the acknowledgement of I made that mistake right what we're. And Ralph's questions what should I have said how should I have called you in the romance languages we introduce ourselves by saying I call myself. Right, I'm right. I'm right. Right. In the United States we just say well this is my name. But, but, but, but we should listen to that structure, right we love Latin so much in the law, the structure of I call myself matters and I think that goes for across across the board. The experience of approaching a professor because I'd received feedback in my capacity as an administrator which is how I've been existed in all my law school spaces about terminology and when I approached the professor I was met with a no. Just won't do it. And the logic was couched in a statutory reasoning, but as the conversation progressed was very much of a, I don't know how do I balance academic freedom with these requests. I think for each instructor, there is that personal balance that they must take on of where does my academic freedom meet with these people to whom our institution owes a fiduciary duty to have the capacity to learn uninhibited. So that is what happens when we pull someone out of the conversation right as even said earlier that student can't answer, because they are so pulled out of the game by the hard foul of whatever it is the instructor said. So, if they cannot learn, then we aren't even we are not carrying out our mission. And I think as teachers as people who are committed to the education of lawyers have law students. There has to be some consistent drive to safeguard that that North Star of we want them to learn. And is what I'm doing teaching them am I toughening them up, so that they are better instructors, or am I completely am I possibly getting in the way. I will also make a plug for the terminology list on the Roger Williams site, because it is, I think nine pages that you all have posted that are so useful. I think if you have a starting space, a starting point that these are all terms that you should know and they can all change but at least know these nine pages as a start. That is where I would direct someone. And the last quick thing I'll say with respect to language and its capacity to trigger I think we just have to make sure that we turn things in both directions. In 2020, Sean, oh say, oh, so if I'm pronouncing his name correctly wrote a short piece in the ABA law journal titled for minority students learning the law can be intellectually violent. I think it's just important that when we look at an issue or language, and, and look at triggers as coming in one direction that we turn the legal doctrine on all sides, and we think about the capacity for all parties to be impacted. I think that's my perspective as an inclusion person is our, which way are things going, who are we protecting and at whose expense. Thanks. I really liked what she said, I really like that quote, I tend to think of things in terms of trauma. And then I sort of get to the, but academic freedom part. I realized that that's real, but academic freedom at the cost of traumatizing or re traumatizing our students. When I'm balancing this, the answer is easy for me, and, but I realized that I'm, I'm one person, but I just think that if you're going to be using the academic freedom argument, can you at least consider the retraumatization of our students as a real effect to some of your behavior in the classroom, whoever we are. I actually want to ask a question from the chat, which is, what advice would you give law schools to distinguish between unintentional and intentional mistakes by faculty. In other words, when should they assume goodwill and mediate mistakes and or administrator penalties on a professor in a way that does not tremble free speech. Does anyone want to jump in on that. My responses, you're asking us to jump on a third rail. I think I, I don't know how you can know someone's intent. I don't. If, if we are all from communities if we are all concerned with relationships and educating our students, then I would hate to imagine that it is someone's intent to do harm. I don't know how, and sort of the trier of like who is the trier of fact and how does that person determine the intent sometimes the impact is so great that it has to be addressed from that perspective and so I think that we can address collectively. So, this person is being harmed. I'm going to need you to take your, you know, the proverbial weapon out of their out of their body. Or I need you to stop doing this thing that is inhibiting the swath of the people to whom we owe a fiduciary duty. And I would add, I would just add to that. Absolutely. I'm just rereading the question. I think maybe the person's asking here also you read this already but just to repeat. In other words, when should they assume goodwill and mediate mistakes and or administer penalties. Okay. Oh, sorry. Distinguishing between unintentional and intentional mistakes. I think really intent impact. Just what Carmina is from me is saying, sometimes the intent has to be put aside for a little bit, because the impact is so great. And I think that's where the defensiveness and professors, you know, earn all of us as human beings comes in right like our intent wasn't supposed to be so harmful but this impact is real. And so I think this question, we have to step aside and put the goodwill somewhere else, you know, it's there, but then that impact. And that should really be the focus and these, I mean, you know, I'm not an expert, but just in this, there's so many different variables here, because every situation is different. And putting the goodwill and the intent aside and focusing on the impact is probably the first place to start. And then you go from there to answer to answer, you know, to investigate and ask more questions. I mean, I do think that the emergence of DEI offices is that there is someone who can facilitate these issues right that it's not. It doesn't need to be in the paradigm that the person put in the chat of, when do you punish them and when do you help them? Well, I guess the question is, well, why do we need to, why would we start there? Right, I mean, I think the first rule is probably to always get more information. And so then it's how can who and how can the institution be a resource for its instructors. You know, as law students, right, the two sets of rock stars in the building. Right, assuming that, you know, as administrators we have sort of a roadie sound tech and lighting role for the for the whole show that is a law school academic year. And I think that's a really important role. I think that we have to foster the community that allows that allows bad things to be managed. Thanks. I think Ralph, if you want to jump in on that question, or we can go to your next question, which is right up the same alley about community. One of the best sources for understanding what's going on in the school and how I can grow and change in my pedagogy is to get direct feedback from my colleagues about these issues at Roger Williams, we have something called the Friday group. And Ralph, you were there when it all started. So can you talk a little bit about the Friday group and how engaging with other faculty and really having a community can be helpful in this in areas when you are making a mistake. So what do you do in the Friday group. Oh, that's awesome. Answer to that and also something that was mentioned earlier. It's, it's thinking about, you know, the question about when we have to go after a faculty member, etc. I think that that's a valid question it's also prompting and me to think about the containers that we create within the classroom, because our reactive approach is just like this happened and now I need you to do something about it versus if we really embody inclusion and belonging as a value of an institution. It's like form follows function you have to see how your classrooms are set up and what ways you build in dialogue and facilitation and being able to name things to professors and classmates, etc. So that it doesn't have to get escalated all the way to that other end of it. So if you it form follows function if we have classrooms set up the same way that we always do. We'll see the same outcomes but if you are really embodying the values of inclusion and belonging then you have to think about everything from the, from the beginning differently, because otherwise you're going to keep getting the same output, if that makes sense. So, the Friday group, leaning into that was this wonderful space that came, you know, unfortunately from the pandemic and it was also in response to the outcry for justice during the red hot summer of 2020. There's currently happening with that on the national stage there's a lot of stuff happening on our campus as well there were students who are being harassed by local police claims of housing discrimination. And, you know, just like it was named at the beginning of the hour with our land and labor acknowledgement there was a long history of white supremacy and slavery in the town of Bristol. And that had that past tense but that has modern day implications so there was a group of faculty members that had had enough and wanted to create a space to do better by our students and by our law school. And if I'm not mistaken, I'm taking no credit for it because I believe it was Debbie Gonzalez, who created that she's associate professor and the director of our immigration law clinic. Laurie Baron, who is the director of clinical externship and the Feinstein Center for pro bono. Essentially they sent out this school law school wide invitation for faculty to join in an open, authentic vulnerable conversation about how to better serve and live towards our commitments to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at the law school. These were good meetings and they were difficult meetings, what was good about them. Good, it was an opportunity for all faculty to come together, along with me as the director of diversity and outreach. I wasn't a professor but I got to sort of sit in with the professors. And it was an opportunity to ask troubleshoot discuss challenges happening in the classroom and in the law school community. Another plus it serves as a really great think tank for our faculty to talk out and work through problems together, collectively, I, I think there is value in having be I leads within organizations and especially within law schools. I don't think that the work solely resides on that person so I love the fact that this space was a way for folks across the board to think and problem solved together. It also serves as a safe space for team members to come together when things were happening on the national stage so while this was all going on there were shootings horrible things storming of the capital. And it was a great place for folks to come together process and support each other so those were all the pluses. Some of the challenges from what I remember, it became a very heavy lift for the folks of color on the call and a lot of the conversations centered on racial tensions and I remember some weeks, not having the face to even be on the call because it was heavy, and some of the weeks felt like ask a black dude what to do and which you know what was awesome though is that I felt pressured or ashamed when I didn't attend. And I think folks got it and they understood truly some of the best people I have ever worked with who I miss a whole damn lot. Other challenges, something that was noticeable was that this was a predominantly white space. And I guess a side effect of this meeting was the acknowledgement that we needed to do better with faculty hiring and retention of faculty of color. So it was sort of it was a prompt for us to say, oh, look at the faces in the room and maybe we need to think about this a little bit differently. Lastly, it unintentionally created an us versus them space. And as I shared at the beginning, this invitation went out to all faculty members. And you best believe not all faculty members were there, most of them, which is great, but the folks that needed to be there magically never showed up. And that's not new. This is like age old DEI challenges of preaching to the choir and how do you encourage other folks to show up and listen and understand. And yet, the few faculty who didn't attend these meetings would almost weaponize the gathering with zero context about what we were gathering about. And it was used as fodder and faculty meetings. It was sad. The good news, it was very few people. The sadly though like those few voices yielded a lot of power or perceived power within faculty senate and tenure and other spaces. It got ugly when it didn't have to. It was really just an open, authentic vulnerable safe space. And I think so many people would have been better served if folks just shown up and talk and listen. So I'm glad to hear that the group is still meeting and I know that a lot of actual action items regarding our faculty from hiring to courses to curriculum. You know, even how we engage students in the classroom, those were direct results of conversations that happened in that very safe, vulnerable, invaluable phase. Thank you so much, Ralph. Yeah, the Friday group still happens and it's amazing. And I can't say that it's not that the conversations aren't difficult. I can't say we don't sometimes have conversations. That that that are repeated because some of the same issues persist but I can say it's this amazing growing learning space where we can come with who we really are and our full cells and grow and learn from that. Just to answer a question in the chat. Do we use a facilitator with the Friday group or talk about best practices. What was the opportunity for the group or was the group an opportunity for the faculty share experiences happening in the classroom. We do not have a facilitator. We, it was organic that this happened. And so right now we're changing facilitators every month so we sort of everybody volunteers to do a month or a few weeks at a time and we switch that way. We don't have a community agreement. And there is an opportunity to share what you're doing. There's also an opportunity to talk about hey what went wrong this week, or we might have like a team conversation somebody will send out an article about like growth mindset. And we'll spend an hour and a half talking about you know how does article hit us what do we think we need to do with the school. If you have specific questions please feel free to reach out to me. I also would say that a plug for Vermont law. So me and one of my coworkers and co editors on the book integrating doctrine and diversity Suzanne Harrington step in. We went to Vermont law last year and talked about the Friday group, and they came up with like a model for their own version of the Friday group. They do have a community agreement. I believe their meeting schedule is they meet once a month, and they do it over lunchtime, but the same sort of idea has taken hold, and it really is like this great community of the willing, where we're all there together. And I know that we're running out of time but this is a great question I'd love someone to weigh in on which is, would you say that faculty of color and other minority faculty have to develop specific strategies to address mistakes in the classroom. I am thinking about the usual challenge of being seen as legitimate knowledgeable and expert that we tend to face in classrooms. For me I've had to develop a combined approach of making sure I'm respected and still communicated openness to learn from students. So, this came up in a previous broadcast, and really we talked about the issue of vulnerability and how our identity and the privilege that comes from our identity may impact the level of vulnerability we are able to have or feel we are able to have in the classroom. I think it's a really rich discussion, but if anyone on the call sort of really wanted to dig into whether people of color have to have a different approach or could have a different approach. I think it's worthy of a full conversation, like a full hour. I mean it's worthy of a whole lot more. I'm just saying, since we have an hour, I'd say that it's worth a dedication for that topic. Okay, well thank you. There's a lot here to dig into thank you all. If I want to especially thank our co sponsors, the event planners behind the scenes that we don't really see and our speakers who give their time and when a random person emails them and says hey I think it'd be great to talk on this thing. Yeah, I just met Natalie today for the first day for the first time. Um, I especially want to thank Eden who's a student and is willing to bravely share her perspective. And our next event in the speaker series is titled integrating content on American Indian law and indigenous identities, and will be held on Wednesday October 19 at 3pm Eastern so I hope to see you all there. Thank you.