 Hi, everyone. Thank you for being here today. My name is Cassandra Feeney. I am the President of the Women's Bar Association. This is a CLE we're doing together with the Roger Williams School of Law, and we are so excited to be doing that. It's our last CLE of the year. What I'm going to do is, is introduce to you, Nicole Jyszlowski, who is the Director of Special Programs and Academic Affairs. She is also this year's Aida Sawyer recipient from the Rhode Island Women's Bar Association. She will receive the award at our annual dinner, which is June 15th at 6pm at the Providence Marriott. So please mark your calendar. Go to our website, riwa.com, to register. And I don't want to take up too much time because we have such a great CLE today, but Nicole, she was instrumental in identifying the first women attorneys in Rhode Island. She put all of that work into two law review articles that were published. She is teaching diversity in the law school and she's also published a book integrating doctrine and diversity, inclusion and equity in the law school classroom. So I will turn it over to Nicole. Thank you so much. Thanks, Cassie. That was like the warmest welcome ever. I am going to start by reading a land and labor acknowledgement. Before we begin, 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 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 I want to acknowledge and honor the Narragansett and Poconocha people, and so on, the original name of the land upon which our campus resides. We also acknowledge that this country would not exist if it wasn't for the free enslaved labor of black people. And we recognize that the town of Bristol and the very land our campus resides have benefited significantly from the trade of enslaved people from Africa. The economy of New England, Rhode Island, and more specifically the town of Bristol was built from wealth generated through the triangle trade of human lives. During this time of 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 knowledge and skills stolen due to violence and white supremacy. While the movement for justice and liberation is ever building and we're witnessing the power of the people, many are still being met with violence and even being killed. As the upholders of justice, our hope is to become agents of change for members of our society who have been met with violence, physical, mental and emotional violence through our privilege. And as the holders of justice, we believe that our students who will soon be practitioners of law can be and already are agents of change as well. And for those who are not familiar with this practice. Why do we do land and labor acknowledgments. I want to share with you a statement from Northwestern University is Native American indigenous initiatives. It is important to understand the longstanding history that has brought you to reside on the land, and to seek to understand your place within that history. Land and labor acknowledgments do not exist in a past tense or historical context. Colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation. I want to introduce our moderator for today, Professor Monica Sarah de Sousa, Monica take it away. Well hello everyone it's wonderful to be here with all of you today. And I wanted to tell you just a little bit about how we're going to start this conversation. My role is as moderator and I really want to introduce you to a number of people here at Roger Williams University Law School, who have put together this course on race and the American foundations of the law. And I want to tell you just a little bit about how each of them participated in shaping this course. And also we want to convey to you how this really was what the origin story is of this course at our law school. So my role, not only as moderator today but also to tell you a little bit about what I do as it relates to this class. I'm one of the teachers, one of the instructors in the course, and typically I teach property law I teach family education law, but I'm also teaching in this race and the foundations of the American law course. But with that, I want to tell you a little bit about what happened at the law school in the summer of 2020 and so as many of you who are here today know this of course was the summer where Americans all across the country saw the murder of George Floyd. In what has somewhat become cliched. This really did ignite historic series of protests and law schools were not immune to those protests, and one of the consequences that Roger Williams was that students began to discuss these issues much more openly, not only with one semester but also with faculty but also with administration, and in particular, our black law students Association and brought their concerns to the faculty and to the administration. At our W law, we have a mission as a law school and our mission is to provide an excellent legal education that is focused on the development of students analytical, ethical and other practice skills through the exploration of legal doctrine, policy, history and theory, including the relationship between law and social inequality. And so in response and in order to address this mission and the requests of our students are W law faculty approved a class titled race and the foundations of law. And so as we discuss the class will learn from our panelists, how the class relates to the work that we do as lawyers and that we are training our students to do as attorneys, and also how we envision this class as potentially hopefully having an impact on the practice of law in Rhode Island. So with that, I want to ask all our panelists to turn on their video so that we can all see each other. And I'm going to turn to our first speaker for today, who is Dean Lorraine Lally. And Dean Lally, what I'd like to ask you to do first is tell us a little bit about your role at the law school, particularly your role in this summer of 2020. And tell us a little bit about this history that I briefly mentioned here at the law school in other words, what was the impetus what was the drive for creating this class at the law school. And, you know, acknowledging that this was a largely a student driven effort and why is that fact important for us to keep in mind. Great. Thank you, Monica. I think it's first important to acknowledge that this was because of student advocacy in June 2020 and the advocacy had started earlier in the year. I'm Dean of Students at the law school and so I work directly to support students in the professional and career goals and part of what I do is listen to the students and make sure that the community that we're building here is responsive to the students needs and supports their full development as future lawyers. So that academic year so we'll say 19. Sorry, 2019 to 2020, we were already going through a racial reckoning within the school building so we had had a couple of town halls and this is the opportunity for students to address members of the faculty and members of the administration, and they were sharing stories not just about what was happening in the classroom, but what their overall experience was in Bristol and in Rhode Island. It's very important that this was student led and that we give that we acknowledge the work that the students did because they were speaking about their primary experiences. And it was the first time that it wasn't just about what was happening in the building but also even broader about what was happening happening in the community. And the murder of George Floyd really enabled students to speak loudly and speak speak collectively that the status quo was no longer okay. And so they issued a series of demands in July in June 2020, and the demands was a call to action that their presence within the legal Academy was not sufficient. And that what they were asking us for was a deeper analysis of what was required by the legal community. So that was both administration, as well as the faculty. And in June 2020 they issued a series of demands and so the initial demands had 17 demands, and I categorize them in four categories and I think it's important for us to acknowledge what exactly they were asking for. So first they were asking for a series of changes regarding the curriculum. Second, they were asking for academic support and the tools that they needed to succeed. Third, they were specifically asking the law school to use its power and influence within the state of Rhode Island and within the town of Bristol to address housing and police discrimination that they were experiencing on a regular basis. So they wanted accountability within our environment. So they wanted a system specifically to address harms and biases within the school of law community. Today we're focusing primarily on the course, what they wanted to curricularly. And there they had a series of demands. First they wanted critical race theory to be a universal course and required for all students. They also wanted all classes within the school of law to be taught with a racial lens. They were very dissatisfied with coming to class, but still listening to lectures that might have been prepared before, you know, before the law school had more racial diversity. They wanted to be present in the curriculum and acknowledged and for the instruction to acknowledge their place in history. Discussions of intersectionality and race and law. And they also wanted a classroom climate where teachers and their fellow students were better equipped to handle comments relating to that created harm that related to diversity and bias. In other words, they wanted specific instruction so that if someone said something that wasn't well informed or wasn't it wasn't about political correctness but was insensitive or uninformed or not grounded in the law they wanted a mechanism to address that and they wanted faculty that were comfortable addressing that. So, it's critical that this came from balsa. Because we've been working on diversity I see Siobhan Stevens Katala one of the instructors in the course is on the call and she started working on diversity at the law school as an employee 20 years ago. Just about 20 years ago and so it's work that we've been continuing to do. But the students voices are what enabled us to really implement changes so thank you. Thank you so much Dean Lally that was incredibly helpful and useful so we can understand exactly how this was organized and how it was put together and one of the interesting things that you talked about in terms of how the students were feeling about their classroom experience really leads us to our next panelist was Professor Diana Hassel, because really looking at how some of this information and some of their concerns could then be brought to the forefront in the classroom and the experience is incredibly important so Professor Hassel, if you would tell us first just a little bit about your history here at the school, how long you've been here what courses you teach, and then how you were responsive and being able to integrate these requests into your class and leading from that to some of the themes of this new class that you were integral in creating and also if you could just talking a little bit about the pedagogical approach that you took in putting forth this material to the students. Thank you Monica and I'm very excited to have this opportunity to share what we've been doing with the larger community so thank you all for attending. So I've been teaching at Roger Williams for a very long time about 25 years and teaching in the areas of constitutional law and civil rights, and more recently in the past several years race in the law and critical race theory. So when the opportunity arose to create this course in response to student requests and also in response to faculty interest and requests also I was part of the team that helped put together the the essential structure of the class. So what we wanted to do is both give our students an insight or some information about how racial hierarchy is incredibly embedded in American law and starting with the first arrival of Europeans to North America. So let's start with sort of a history of colonialism enslavement as it was practiced here in North America, the reconstruction era the Jim pro era, looking at the rate at the legal framework that created the systems and and upheld them. So along the way of looking how race became such a factor in the creation of law. We also look at the historic opportunities for rebellion and resistance and transformation, as they has also also happened throughout our history. What has been the response what has been the pushback, what has been the response of the community, who is being oppressed, how have those things also determined the structure of our law. So we move on to the middle section of the course where we look at how some of these historic historic events have still echoes in our current legal system. So looking at things like mass incarceration and housing discrimination and voter suppression, and seeing the echoes of the earlier, more explicitly race based law, how that is still with us in various forms. So looking at what the law has accomplished what it hasn't where the limits have been throughout this whole project. We're trying to help the students have a sense of what is the particular responsibility of lawyers in this system, in this legal system that supports racial injustice, what as being part of that system what is our role. And then the last third of the class is about repair reparations going forward what are some of the ideas people have to transform the system again. What's the particular role of the lawyers what's effective what's not effective, what kind of ideas might be helpful in trying to undo some of the damage that has been done through this this kind of the system of law that we have. So we do an arc of where we came from where we are, where can we go. And I guess I want to say something a little bit about we asked the students to participate in several different ways. There's they have to, there's discussion in class in large groups and small groups, there's written assignments, there's reflections on their work. We're asking the students to do some things that are a little untraditional in the in the law school setting to have various ways for them to absorb and integrate this information. So I think that's the basic structure and as we go forward we've taught it one year now as a required course, and as we go forward we refine it, we, you know, make some changes but I think that basic structure of how we got here where we are where we're going, and what do what is our role what is our responsibilities as as members of the legal community is one that we will keep. Thank you so much Professor Hassel and I really love the point that you made about how we as law professors lawyers law students we are uniquely situated, not only to examine these issues but to hopefully prevent further complications of some of these same problems from taking place again in the future and so, as we think about the work that you have done, other of your colleagues have done in putting this class together. I want to turn the discussion discussion over to our next panelist who is Professor Bernard Freeman and Professor Freeman, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about your role as well here at the law school, but also following Professor Hassel was mentioning in terms of, again how law schools are uniquely situated to help students understand these issues. What are you seeing in legal education across the country in terms of whether or not our class here at Roger Williams is unique. Is it part of a trend that other schools are also engaged in our other law schools developing similar classes, anything that you can share with us about about that would be extremely helpful as well. Thank you very much, Professor de Souza. It's a pleasure for me to be here and honor and privilege to be here I was hired as a result of the initiative that the balsa initiative and the faculty resolution that Dean lolly and Professor Hassel talked about I was hired to direct this course, which is kind of a daunting task actually but I think I'm up to it. I have five sections of the course. The entire second year class is required to take the course. You cannot graduate from Roger Williams Law School, unless you have had this course, and it's a graduation requirement and we have now eight members of the faculty who are involved in presenting the course, and we are forging ahead we've had one year's kind of a maiden voyage. And now we're right now in the process of revising and tweaking and figuring out what worked what didn't work. So that we can make a better presentation this coming fall it's generally offered in the fall on each section about 35 students in each section. Where Roger Williams fits in this in terms of legal education is important. There, I thought about this a little bit there are basically three models that law schools have used. First of all, everyone should know that the American bar association many institutions after the murder of George Floyd, both government institutions and private institutions went through a period of introspection as to what they could do in terms of racism, and the presence of racism, and white supremacy in institutions that they were involved with the American Bar Association actually went through that. And it adopted it accredits law schools. Roger Williams is an American Bar Association accredited law school, and there are accreditation standards. And so, about a year ago a little over a year ago now the American Bar Association Association amended accreditation standards to require law schools to not offer a mandatory course, but to offer at least twice during the law students career, a three year generally a three years sometimes four year career in the law school, an opportunity to engage and learn about the problems of racism, discrimination, and bias in the administration of the law once at the beginning of the law school career and then once more during the course of the law students educational sojourn. So there have been three models, based on that standard accreditation standard that law schools have adopted. One is I would call the UCLA model, which is kind of where the law school creates a center or not a center but a group of faculty that would focus particularly on these issues, and then cease to attract scholars cease to attract students that are interested in maybe offer an LLM, or some specialty certificate in terms of race and the law and the like, and the law school sets itself up as a kind of a beacon for that kind of study. And that's pretty much led by UCLA, they have a good number of scholars of critical race theory, who have been attracted to UCLA, but that's just one model. The second model is I would call the Virginia model with the University of Virginia established a center for the study of race and the law. A student at the University of Virginia may not necessarily have to take a mandatory course, the presence of that center would create courses, again attract faculty, and there would be like a sort of department or institution within the law school that would formally deal with the issue of white supremacy and racial hierarchy in the law, and what could be done about it. And so then the third model is really what Roger Williams is doing, only one of the law school as far as we can determine. There are a few around but the other leading law school is also Penn State at Dickens, formerly Dickinson Law School in Pennsylvania, where you have a mandatory course. A student must take that course. There's an effort by the faculty to incorporate issues with respect to racial hierarchy and white supremacy in doctrine, as anyone who has studied law would know their right supremacy issues that come up in property, in evidence, in criminal procedure, in constitutional law, in torts. And so part of the bulk of demands was that they would sometimes I've heard students say, I recognize my uncle in this criminal procedure case, because this is what happened to me, and those kinds of things should be discussed more in class, so that people are aware of how the law impacts on traditionally marginalized, underrepresented and oppressed communities in our society. So that's how Roger Williams sees itself as approaching this problem, one with a mandatory course for all students to take, and to have faculty be more cognizant and concerned about issues in the doctrinal courses that come up. But another model actually, if I could talk a little bit more, Georgetown has an interesting approach. They asterisk courses, various courses on particular topics like mass incarceration, or immigration, or civil rights, and then they will interpret the course and say, in order to satisfy the ABA standard, you must take one of these courses and satisfy the accreditation standard by having enrolled in one or more of the courses without having a center or any kind of a definite focus and then there are variations on those things. I'm very pleased to be here because Roger Williams is leading the charge in terms of one of the major approaches to this topic. And I think 20 years from now, many more law schools will be doing what Roger Williams is now doing. Thank you so much, Professor Freeman. And it's interesting that you talked about the mandatory nature of the course and I think it's important for everyone to know that so much of law school is mandatory right I teach property that's a 1L class students are not always right I hope they are but they're are always delighted to take property but they have to. And so this is very similar where we're taking the approach that listen we think you need this class in order to graduate from law school and be prepared to practice in our world and to, and to do an excellent practicing attorney. So with that, I actually want to turn it over to Nicole Dyshlefsky Professor Nicole Dyshlefsky, who is going to talk to us a little bit about the impact that this course is having on our students, and what she's been able to observe. And if you wouldn't mind, Professor Dyshlefsky first just tell us a little bit about your role at the law school. You have enjoyed in a way of proximity to the students because of the variety of roles that you've had an opportunity to hold at the school. And that may be a useful way to begin some of your comments so I'm really happy to be able to turn it over to you next. Thanks. So first of all, I'm really excited to see some of our alumni who are here so when we're talking about the history of our school and how we see ourselves, it's nice that there are people, not just like Siobhan who has taught the class and Simone Tubman who's also taught the class but there are students who have seen the good, bad and the ugly and have seen transformative change, have seen calls for transformative change. And so I just want to say like I'm excited that we get to still be in the community and reach out to you and talk to you about what's going on since you all have left. Before my current job, I was a reference librarian. So, I had a lot of student contact, both by sitting at the reference desk and working with student groups, and then I kind of transitioned into teaching, working with Diana, and developing the race class and then teaching in the race class. So Diana and I have taught the class twice as an elective, and then everyone on the screen, plus others have taught it once as a required class. And every time it's a little bit different. And I would say, as far as what is the impact on students, I think that it is like our students are in a monolith it's not as if they all have it as if the class has the same impact or they all act in the same way. I think a large largely what I can tell impacts to the class are based on students personal experiences, their identities, their openness to learning about some of this material is sometimes their politics. Sometimes where they're from what their educational experiences have been. And I think also how busy they are right, like some of this is really hard, taking hours out of your week to learn about to read slave narratives is particularly difficult amidst the rest of this second year. And so I think it varies a lot. But I would say generally I see sort of a similar arc to what Diana described like the class itself has an arc but I think the reactions of student or the impact on student has an arc. At first I see a lot of disbelief. Like, oh, you're telling me this stuff happened that I never knew happened. Why, why are you telling me this why haven't you taught me this before why hasn't anyone mentioned it, or I can't believe you're telling me this. And at the same time, this is what I already know how do these two things go together. And just like an example is talking about Christopher Columbus. In our second class we talk about colonialism part of that is talking about Christopher Columbus and I think that there is some portion of our students who are like wow. Why do I know this sing songy rhyme about a colonizer, and I don't know any or the nuance that goes with it. And so I think that they're like the first sort of history section is disbelief. Again, although there are some students who are history majors who grew up with this history, whose identity hasn't been able to shield them from it. And so it's not uniform but I think it's disbelief. I think the second part of the class, people seem to sort of fall out of love with the law. If the law has caused all these problems and white supremacy is such a key part of the law, or the Constitution. How can I do this, how can I come to law school and then go be a lawyer knowing all this. And I think the third part of the class brings some hope. I see students really resolved to change the way things are and have been and I think it, it, there's also this sort of awareness over time. I think that as we start to teach these things it sort of sort of dawns on the students. This has been here the whole time and it's everywhere, and they start making connections and seeing things beyond what we're talking about in class. And I think there is another type of student and, and I think that the impact that it has on the student is smaller in that I think that they can't take it in right now. Whether that's they don't want to take it in right now or it's too much with everything else going on. And, you know, I think it's probably unfair for me to call it they're the intractable student, because I think in some ways, this is so hard. And so, I'm not necessarily I think intractable has such a negative connotation but I think there are some students who right now, it is not impacting them. But I think over time we're going to see that you can't know what you've learned. And so that's sort of what I've seen. Thank you. Thank you so much that was incredibly helpful. And, you know, in particular, I'm struck by what you mentioned in terms of how our students are coming into this class and really they've had very different experiences in their lives prior to coming to the law school to this particular classroom and so they do have these very different reactions to the classroom material, and that can segue nicely I think to our next question which is for Professor Diana Hassel because you've been teaching traditional law for a long period of time and law is not an easy class to teach, and certainly is a class that also draws out a lot of emotions and feelings, strong reactions from students. And I'm wondering from that, through that lens as a con law professor, tell us a little bit about what students can gain in doctrinal courses right and other courses but in doctrinal courses such as constitutional law through this lens that you're using also to teach the race and the American foundations of the law course. I had such an interesting experience this year because I taught race and the law in the fall and in the spring I taught constitutional law to which is about individual rights. So, and all of the students of course had taken the race and law because it's a required course for the first semester second year, and students were making you know raising a case would come up and they would say, Oh, this was during the reconstruction you know, are you know like just making these connections, historically and with other areas of law that just it just made me feel like oh my gosh we're doing it. So I think in some in some classes, those connections are more obvious, but I think in all classes what we hope and I think is happening for students is some of the ways we've approached cases or legal doctrine in the race and the law class they're bringing to the other class so one of the things we do when we talk about a case in the race and the law class like Plessie or Dred Scott, very famous well known cases, we don't just talk about what's the rule of law, what does the dissent say, we say who are these people, what are the real consequences on the ground, how did they get to this litigation, what happened after this litigation, what agency did they have as change makers what were they, what political groups and community groups where did they come up, how did this come to be. And, and so I think students bring an issue of, well, don't just tell me the rule of law tell me what really happens on the ground. And, and who is this affecting, and who does this rule help, and who does this rule harm, and let's try to put it in some kind of larger context than just black letter law. And I think that's one of the important, the important things. They bring this idea that the assumptions that are embedded in the law can become more visible. If you look for them, right, if you look for them in terms of who wins these cases who loses these cases who are these people. Where do they come from where do they go to who are they connected to. And again, reiterating throughout this very hard history of racial injustice that that our country has, who's pushing for change who who what when was transformation possible, who was behind it, what were the agency, what kind of agency what kind of community support what kind of political motivation makes change in the law. And that is to set up students for, even though this is a difficult history and a difficult reality, it can be changed has been changed. How do we, how do we do that, what parts of it need to be done, and I think, bringing that critical perspective to any area of law that students are taught is one of the, the most important, the most important goals of this course. Thank you so much. That's incredibly helpful and it also makes me think of what historically some of the law students concerns generally have been about legal education where we tend to segment courses by doctrinal areas and we never really have an opportunity to examine the higher context and in a way, the more we learn about learning science and how students learn and how they can really retain much of this information, even including the information that they're going to need to know for the bar examination, having this context makes that learning, not only more enriching, certainly more empowering as you mentioned for them now as future lawyers, but also it helps them to retain those very doctrinal rules that all of us are teaching in our classes. And with that, moving a little bit from the experience that they're getting in the classroom, and thinking to some of the points that you made Professor Hassel in terms of how this is going to translate into their lives as practicing attorneys. And so if I would, I'm actually going to open this up to all of the panelists. And how do you see this class in terms of the impact that it can have on the practice of law in Rhode Island and so we can think about this in a few different ways. And think about it in terms of what impact it might have on diversity within the bar, the Rhode Island Bar Association for us locally. Also thinking about this in terms of professional identity formation for our students. And also thinking about the impact that this will have ultimately on the clients that our students will serve as attorneys so if it's okay maybe I will turn to Lorraine first to talk a little bit about how you see this having an impact on diversity and particularly even thinking about this locally here in the Rhode Island Bar. Well, first I just want to start with the demographic shift that we're hoping this will, we're hoping it'll have an impact on the Rhode Island Bar. So I pulled statistics for demographics and right now black identified individuals in the US account for over 12% of the population, less than 7% of the attorneys. Looking at Hispanic Latinx, it's 18% of the population less than 6% of attorneys and so Rhode Island has been, excuse me Roger Williams has been engaged for a very long time in diversifying the legal profession and of course diversifying the legal profession here in Rhode Island. Our leaning into our diversity values is going to hopefully continue our demographic shift. In terms of representation of law students and hopefully we work hard to keep them in Rhode Island and judge Melissa DeBose is on our board of directors and works hard to keep lots of talented students in the state and so there's going to be a changing demographic, but also through this course or students have learned that the law is not always true to the values that they have described to it, and that the laws don't just reflect society but the laws have been used to shape society for good and for bad and through this course we we focus on ways that the law was specifically used to discriminate against persons of color, named explicitly and housing law and voting rights law, and it really questions it forces students to really question what the law is how it can be used to shape and so we're training different types of lawyers who will hopefully be using the law as a tool to move closer to their individual and personal values. Thank you so much and those statistics are incredibly enlightening to think about this in terms of just the representation or lack thereof that we currently have in the bar. So if you don't mind Professor Schlafsky I'll turn to you next to talk to us a little bit about how you see this course and maybe others like it as other law schools hopefully begin to also teach a course such as this. What are what is the impact that it might have on professional identity formation for attorneys. Yeah, it's a great question. I think as our students are always trying to figure out what does being a lawyer mean. And I think for many years we have sent the message that lawyers look like older white men. And so one way that I hope that this class and you know our curriculum changing for the better. I think one impact is that hopefully we can change that narrative. I don't think this class alone will do it but I think we're doing a whole lot of work here at Roger Williams, and I'm so glad we're partnering with the women's bar association. To say that that's not the only way that a lawyer can look at the stereotype doesn't need to be real. I think that the course itself are helping students be made aware of how lawyers have failed in the past, whether it's on housing issues, civil rights issues, mass incarceration, slavery. How lawyers have succeeded on how lawyers have successfully advocated for change and how lawyers have stayed silent and allowed the status quo of harm to continue. I think the class provides a way of not just reading and memorizing doctrinal law, but of reflecting on this, not just what is the law but who does it affect. The class does a good job of reinforcing, we don't just need to know what the law is we need to know who it's impacting, who is it designed to impact, who was it explicitly designed to impact, who is it actually impacting, and does that matter. And then I think like sort of going forward how this impacts Rhode Island is that I think that students who graduate from our school or other schools that have similar programming are going to have different expectations of what being a lawyer is and what justice is. And I think that that is going to change the practice of law. I think that is going to change the judiciary. I think that is going to change what law looks like, and I'll just give an example. In our class, in one of the later weeks, we read a story about a judge in Virginia, who accepted a motion by defense counsel to take down the portraits in the courtroom, and I believe it was a portrait of all white men. Thinking that that was going to impact justice. And after that the students walk around the law school, and they need to do sort of an assessment of what message are we sending by the portraits on our walls. We get responses from students who are in their second year so might be in internships or have worked in the summer as clerks or as externs and they say, Wow, I now started to notice what the portraits on the walls meant. What impact. What are we signaling to people and I think when we start graduating students who are no longer willing to accept those signals as what law is I think law itself is going to start changing or I guess I'm hopeful that law itself is in Rhode Island and beyond is going to start changing. Thank you so much, and I like that hopeful note I really do I think we need it in these times right that we're living through. And you mentioned something interesting as well in terms of just some of the substantive areas that we're looking at housing education, and it brings me again to this practical impact because students always want to know. I'm going to help me as a practicing lawyer and so with that I wanted to turn it to Professor Freeman because you you've been involved in doing some of this work in your own life as a practicing lawyer you've handled school funding cases and you've been in the trenches. Tell us a little bit if you would about how you see this class, the way, not just the material but the way that it's being taught to the students. What is the impact that you foresee this having on our students future clients. Yes, Professor that's a very good question. I focus one of the exercises we do in the class is an exercise is actually an old one was very useful involving a story told by a woman who's now a Harvard law professor Lucy white. And she describes a just a representation of a African American woman with, I think five children who has a welfare fraud hearing. And so even though Lucy white is very progressive, very forward thinking liberal legal services lawyer. The story that she tells makes it plain that all the things that really affected the African American client. She just went, it just went over her head for various kinds of reasons. One is because of stereotypes. She had stereotyped the client. She had also stereotyped the decision maker the administrator was going to decide whether the client was guilty of welfare fraud. And there was a small amount of personal injury settlement that the client used to buy Sunday shoes for her daughters, rather than go out and you know spend money in a gambling casino. She bought her daughters needed new shoes, and she bought the shoes with that money. And so, by taking that example. The example was able. I thought it was very good and that the students then when they go into these circumstances, whether it be as the legal services lawyer, as a public defender, or even as a prosecutor, or a lawyer in a civil case. There are skills that are helpful in terms of combating the traditional sort of things that work to further white supremacy racial hierarchy gender discrimination discrimination against people who have children. All those kinds of things that are built into the legal system that lawyers just take for granted. So I think after doing that exercise in class. At least I'm hopeful I'm hopeful like Nicole that many of the lawyers will no longer take the law students when they get out of school and pass the bar and start practicing that they will no longer take those kinds of things for granted, so that they will listen. They will see the relevance of something that the client does that before you would just dismiss as not being relevant. It turns out that it is a relevant thing that the client did and why the client did it. Even though it may look silly at first blush. It's important to the client. And if it's important to the client is probably going to be important in the case. And so it's really just making them as one message we try to get across. It's going to make them better lawyers to be aware of these issues. Because there are good lawyers, but the better lawyer is the one who is really aware of those kinds of issues in representing someone who's traditionally been discriminated against or oppressed, or not given a voice in the legal system. Public defenders. It's another area, you know, and in terms of what's happening in prison, why people go to prison, why judges give African American defendant male defendants usually two or three times the sentence that white defendants get. Why that happens, how you could argue to prevent that from happening. Listening to the client in terms of the kinds of things that the client wants the court to know at sentencing all those kinds of things are important. And the course is able to convey that. So that a student is armed with with weapons that will help break down this this kind of of how you describe it a edifice of white supremacy and racial hierarchy that still exists in our legal system. Thank you so much for that. I wanted to extend another invitation to everyone who's here today, if you wanted to pose a question to our panelists to do so please in the chat. And also, if there are no questions from those who are here today as as participants, perhaps, one of the panelists has any further thoughts that they may want to share with us before we close so I'll open it up to. Oh, sorry Bernard. I was just thinking about the impact this course is going to have on lawyers on a future lawyers and soon to be lawyers. And I just think what a delight. What it is to have this conversation and to have the tools of this conversation, be the common language of lawyers. So when you bring up the issue of, I think there's implicit bias in here or wasn't this law structured in a way to this advantage, people in this conversation. You're not, you're not alone there. We've all, many of us will have learned that now many of us will have the tools to discuss that you wouldn't be looked at as what does that have to do with anything. And I think that that freedom and that conversation in that becomes the common parlance of lawyers will just have a tremendous impact on what's possible on what's acceptable on how things should be done differently. Which can make, if this is always part of what we're thinking about when we're thinking about the impact of law. Thank you so much that's wonderful I love that concept of the lingua franca right we're developing this new lingua franca for all of us, Professor free man yes go right ahead. Oh no I was just going to say there's looks like some questions in the chat. Yes, so we do we have one from Natasha variani. Hello Natasha. So Natasha says hello thank you for doing this very important work. I've been reading and thinking about rest as resistance. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little about the cost of this work on those who are really engaged in it. Have you found some best practices for dealing with it. Community question mark. So question for the panelists there. Anyone would like to respond. Nicole go right ahead. We're all laughing because the answer is like no we haven't found any solutions. We've not best practices. But I think the suggestion of community is the closest that we've come. We have, we don't all agree. In fact, most of us, even among the five of us don't agree about much. But we agree about the importance of the work and we have a tremendous kinship from that. But we are also exhausted. And also this feeling that like, we have the opportunity to change legal education at this school and beyond. We have the opportunity to what Diana just said change like the way the concepts that are sort of understood by everyone. And we, how many times are we going to have that opportunity so let's take advantage of it now and we just run. Because this is so important it needs to be changed. So I think Natasha makes a point that we're not, we're struggling with that amongst ourselves but we're lucky that we have each other. Absolutely nicely said Dean Lally go right ahead. I could just add that you know as a black woman it was really hard to learn, not learn the material, read it and teach it to our students and so I just tried to acknowledge how emotionally impactful it was for me as an individual, and I hope for the students in the class and especially those who identify as students of color to read week after week how your country failed to deliver on its promise to you, or was very strategic in its discrimination, especially post reconstruction and so acknowledging those harms and the impacts on personal education personally but it took a lot of resolve to be able to absorb all of the material and then to work with students in a way that was going to that the materials are going to be helpful for their personal identity formation and their legal practice. Thank you for that. There's another interesting question in the chat from Colleen Colleen Murphy, and Colleen asks, have we considered doing a CLE with some of the substantive content from the course. Yes, I think that would be important. So, in evidence I, we talk about the flight as a relevant fact in terms of consciousness of guilt. I even had an exam question on this. However, if you go to Washington Heights, and the police pull up outside of McDonald's everybody runs away from the police and it's so it's a different. So looking at relevance, whether it turns out that everybody running is not really relevant. And so issues like relevance issues like in criminal procedure, some of the suppression issues in criminal procedure. And all kinds of things like that would make good topic for individual CLE on particular in each person's area of expertise in constitutional law or evidence or property. And we should do that. I think we should do that. That's a good suggestion. Excellent suggestion and Colleen I'm signing you up as the first participant okay. So that we have time for one more question it's going to be from Christopher Patrick, and he asks, are there any other jurisdictions or countries, you can identify as a model, having laws that are fair to all races, as opposed to the US and Rhode Island. Want to answer this one thinks is a difficult one, Christopher you may have. The only thing I could think about is South Africa. The history of apartheid resulted in a very progressive constitution being adopted. And then also progressive principles of a criminal procedure law and the like. But I am not sure if those progressive policies that were adopted by the national African national Congress after the overthrow of the apartheid government whether they have come down on the ground. I just don't know. And they also know that affirmative action, for example in South Africa now is an important fact, either universities which were privileged, and all white are now open to Africans. South Africa is 90% African and only 10% or less people of European descent. And so what that impact has been in terms of university administration would be a good question. That's the only place I can think where you might say that there's at least some effort to be fair in terms of racial discrimination and white supremacy because South Africa prior to the election of Nelson Mandela, the release of Nelson Mandela and his election as president, South Africa was the pinnacle of white supremacy. And so the effort of the South African government to overcome the legacy of white supremacy would be important for a place like Rhode Island to look at. Thank you so much for that and Dean Lally go right ahead. I guess I would answer the question a little bit differently and instead of focusing on a model country that's doing this better. I think it's so important that this course really investigates the role of the US and having chattel slavery, codified in law, and racial supremacy codified in law. And so before we look to the model, I think it's really important that we have a racial reckoning in terms of what the legacy and impacts of those of those laws are, especially as we look at Jim Crow and pre civil rights that it's still just one generation away. Thank you. Thank you so much. That's a very important point and I think it's a point we can, and I see Professor the Schlefsky's hand as well go right ahead. Sure. I would say, look, look, looking to Connecticut I'm specifically talking about the issue of equity. So Connecticut last year passed a law that says the governor's bill has to have an equity statement they can't propose a budget without knowing how it adjusts how it addresses racial and socio economic qualities, and it is to people who have historically been discriminated against. And so that is an example of something equitable that is being done in a different state and that there is currently a bill being proposed in Rhode Island. There's a big advocacy day on Thursday about that bill. That would have the same thing it would have the governor's budget bill require equity statements. There's another bill that would require all legislation in Rhode Island to have equity statements. So I think that you know there are models for this and then there are ways where these discussions are happening right now and as Morgan put in the chat. There's a lot of law, but if you're looking for ways to support some of this work are the Rhode Island courts are seeking public comment on the amendments to rule for article four rule three, the MCLE rules to specifically require a diversity, diversity credit every year. And so that is another way that we are changing and the hope is that our state continues to change and our profession continues to change. I would add to that also the adoption by the ABA of a model rule 8.4 G, which makes it professional misconduct to engage in harassment or discrimination in the practice of law. So most rules before that had said you had to have a finding by an agency employment discrimination agency, or some other agency before a lawyer could be charged with harassing or discriminating someone on the basis of race sex, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation as a long list. But now the rule has been the model rule has been changed to make that professional misconduct. So that also may have an impact on how people practice those states that are adopting the new model rule. Thank you so much. I am want to be respectful of everybody's time so I think we should close but I wanted to say just before we leave that I hope one of the things we were able to convey is just how excited we are as a community to be doing this work. We really want to bring in as many people as possible from the community into the work that we are doing. So we hope that this is just the beginning of a dialogue that we're having with all of you out there, and that you'll reach out to us if you're interested in this and we'll find ways, such as a substantive CLE or other opportunities to really bring you in to the work that the law school is doing on this work. So with that, I want to thank you all again for being here today on this beautiful day, but spending time with us choosing to spend time with us. And we're glad we were able to get you this credit as well CLE credit very important okay so everybody so listen thank you to all our fabulous panelists, and everyone have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you for coming.