Owning Our Values: Supplementing Our Textbooks for Those Engaged in Social Justice
Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series with Professor Natasha N. Varyani
Roger Williams University School of Law Professor Natasha N. Varyani discusses and shares insights from her new book, "Owning Our Values." Professor Varyani’s book connects doctrine in the first year property law curriculum with systemic racism and discriminatory practices. This conversation will go beyond property law and give concrete examples of culturally responsive materials and practices for law professors and law students alike.
This event is co-sponsored by Roger Williams University School of Law, City University of New York School of Law, George Washington University Law School, Berkeley Law, JURIST, and Antiracist Development Institute.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST
Register - October 23 - Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series
In 2021, RWU Law began sponsoring an ongoing Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series in collaboration with CUNY School of Law and JURIST. Each previous installment has been attended by hundreds of legal education professionals from across the country.
View Previous Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Sessions Here
Meet the Speaker
Natasha Varyani is an Associate Professor at Roger Williams University School of Law. Natasha came to academia from practice in 2012 and she teaches in the area of contracts, property, wills, and critical race theory. Though her focus is doctrinal teaching, she has a strong interest in educational psychology and helped to establish the Academic Enrichment Program at Boston University School of Law.
In her teaching and writing, she seeks to uncover those areas in which systems and structures that may appear to be value neutral may have embedded in them collective values and biases. Professor Varyani recently co-authored an amicus brief in the litigation filed by the Attorney General against the town of Milton, Massachusetts in the matter of the MBTA Communities Act in which a Town refused to amend their zoning laws to comply with a state statute aimed and promoting racial equity and access to housing. Additionally, Natasha has been appointed by the Governor to serve on the Tax Expenditure Review Commission, a statutorily defined body comprised of elected officials whose aim is to review tax expenditures to ensure they are consistent with the stated goals and values of the Commonwealth.
Affinity Bar work has been important to Natasha throughout her career, whether in practice or in Academia. She has served as President of the Board of the South Asian Bar Association of Greater Boston and on the Executive Committee of the National South Asian Bar Association. In addition, Natasha is a member of the Boston Bar Associations Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Steering Committee, and considers herself fortunate to have more informal mentoring relationships (in both directions) than she can count.
Meet the Moderator
Nicole P. Dyszlewski is one of the editors of Integrating Doctrine and Diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom. She currently serves as Assistant Dean of Academic Innovation at Roger Williams University School of Law. She received a B.A. from Hofstra University, a J.D. from Boston University School of Law, and an M.L.I.S. from the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. She is a member of the Massachusetts State Bar and the Rhode Island State Bar. Her areas of interest are mass incarceration, access to justice, and systems of race and gender inequality in law. Nicole was the 2020 recipient of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Volunteer Service Award and the 2015 recipient of the AALL Emerging Leader Award.