Integrating Doctrine and Diversity Speaker Series: When Law School Classroom Discussions of Diversity Issues Go Wrong
This event is co-sponsored by City University of New York School of Law and Roger Williams University School of Law.
Drawing upon the experience of faculty from across the country, Integrating Doctrine and Diversity is a collection of essays with practical advice, written by faculty for faculty, on specific ways to integrate diversity, equity and inclusion into the law school curriculum. Chapters will focus on subjects traditionally taught in the first-year curriculum (Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Legal Writing, Legal Research, Property, Torts) and each chapter will also include a short annotated bibliography curated by a law librarian. With submissions from over 40 scholars, the collection is the first of its kind to offer reflections, advice and specific instruction on how to integrate issues of diversity and inclusions into first-year doctrinal courses.
Part of the Integrating Doctrine and Diversity Speaker Series, this session will feature a discussion among book contributors about one of the biggest challenges to incorporating issues of race, gender, social justice, class, and diversity in the law school doctrinal classroom: the fear that some professors have that they won’t know how to react when something goes wrong with the discussion. Sometimes discussions about diversity can go in unexpected and surprising ways. Sometimes these discussions can be harmful, even when managed by faculty who are experts in managing difficult discussions. This conversation, led by professors who are doing this work successfully, will be an open and frank discussion of strategies to employ when the classroom conversation is contentious/problematic/harmful.
Meet the Speakers
Dean Alena Allen teaches family law, health law, public health law, professional responsibility, and torts. Allen previously taught at the Cecil C. Humphreys University of Memphis School of Law where she won Professor of Year in 2013, the Farris Bobango Faculty Scholarship Award in 2019, and the MLK 50 Faculty Service Award in 2021.
Allen’s work has appeared in the North Carolina Law Review, the Fordham Law Review, the Ohio State Law Journal, and the Cardozo Law Review. Allen’s research focuses on the intersection of health policy and feminist theory. Allen currently serves on the University Research Council, the Executive Committee for the AALS Section on Scholarship, the Peer Review Committee for the Food & Drug Law Institute, and as a reviewer for the Association for Prevention and Teaching Research’s Prevention and Population Health Education Grant Program.
Allen received her B.A. in psychology from Loyola New Orleans in 1999 and graduated from the Yale Law School in 2003. She clerked for the Honorable Samuel Hardy Mays Jr. and the Honorable Paulette Delk in the Western District of Tennessee. She also worked at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC and Baker Botts in Houston, Texas.
Todd Brower is a professor of law at Western State University College of Law and serves as the Judicial Education director of the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. He specializes in constitutional law and real property. He received his A.B from Princeton University, his J.D. from Stanford Law School and his LL.M. from Yale Law School. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Grenoble. Professor Brower was an academic visitor at the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London from 2001-2002 and a visiting professor at Golden Gate University School of Law. He also served as a visiting instructor at the University of Hawaii School of Business. Professor Brower served on the California Judicial Council - Access and Fairness Advisory Committee and is the author of various law review articles, research studies and publications on the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons in the courts of the United Kingdom, California and New Jersey. He has worked with the courts of several nations in Europe, Africa, and North and South America, with many US states and federal agencies on judicial education programs, and with international and national judicial organizations.
Frank Deale is Professor of Law at Cuny Law School. He received a B.A. from Antioch College and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has taught on the faculty of Rutgers Law School, Newark, and for 14 years was a member of the staff of the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he served successively as staff attorney, Associate Legal Director, and Legal Director. He has published articles in the New York University Review of Law and Social Change, New York Law School Journal of Human Rights, Socialist Review, International Policy Review, and in books and articles dealing with voting rights, employment discrimination and international labor rights, including human rights, labor rights, and international trade. He received the Jack Wasserman Memorial Award from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Carol King Award of the National Lawyers Guild Immigration Project, the Certificate of Honor from the City and County Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco, and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, all for his work on cases of public significance. His Howard Law Review article, “The Unhappy History of Economic Rights in the United States and Prospects for Their Creation and Renewal,” reflects his ongoing concern with social and economic rights. He has twice received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the CUNY School of Law graduating classes and teaches courses in Voting Rights, Constitutional Law, and Civil Procedure.
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 the Head of Reference, Instruction, and Engagement at the RWU Law Library and as an adjunct professor. 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.
Twitter:@LibrariaNicole