December 5, 2015

Two fabulous articles by HLS students, both written in response to Randall Kennedy’s op-ed.

First a piece by Bianca Tylek in the Huffington Post (who also wrote this article in the Boston Globe in response to the taping). She writes about connection between HLS and the pervasive racism in our society:

We need only to watch the daily news to see the pervasive racism in our society. And when you wonder what that has to do with Harvard Law School, ask yourself this–who drafted the legislation, regulations, and policies in America that have and continue to entrench the racial disparities in incarceration, educational achievement, and economic opportunity? Among others, many of our graduates. So, as long as racism persists in our nation, it’s our ethical duty as one of its leading academic institutions to not be dismissive, but rather vigilant in addressing its reality.

Bianca emphasizes the importance of questioning pedagogical strategies:

With that said, the opposing arguments he presents are hardly novel. We aren’t oblivious to them. For example, we know that professors must make individual decisions about their pedagogical strategies, but is it not pertinent to address why those decisions on the whole continue to steer in favor of the majority? We’ve heard it all before and there are answers to each argument that nevertheless support the reform students are calling for.

She powerfully demonstrates the bind  in which students find themselves:

the real irony comes in the fact that we are condemned for not having valid and concrete examples of racism and, yet, when we attempt to present any, we are accused of overplaying the victim card. Which is it–do you want to hear about our strife or want us to ignore it?

Meanwhile, Coby Loup writes on similar themes in the Harvard Crimson, calling on Harvard to

 

finally and fully embrace the difficult task of understanding and reckoning with our history. We must acknowledge the magnitude of American racism—including the way it poisons our own community—and recognize the urgency of pulling it down.

He wonders whether

students, with their unique sets of experiences informed by their own reading of history, are more closely attuned than he realizes to some truly deep obstacles to change?

He also critiques the effects of focusing on “dry technical issues”:

Issues of race are inextricably woven into the broad blanket of American law. The ideology of white supremacy and racial difference was at the epicenter of this society’s birth and upbringing. And it has settled deep in this country’s blood and bones, including in the gigantic, complex bundle of laws and court cases and customs that determine how we govern ourselves.

So when law schools presented with roomfuls of pliant young minds acquiesce in reducing major areas of law to “dry, technical issues,” they play a role in entrenching a system with racism in its marrow.

And suggests that even a seeming neutral, rational argument

often reflects a documented tendency of societies to legitimize the structures that have long secured dominant-group entitlements. Social psychologists call this tendency system justification theory. If this impulse to preserve the status quo drives much of the opposition to affirmative action, then it too is a formidable obstacle to change.

Coby conludes:

Harvard Law School vows in its mission statement “to educate leaders who contribute to the advancement of justice and the well-being of society.” To advance justice in our particular society, where the methodical administration of racial injustice has reigned for centuries, we must commit to uncovering the roots of the ideology of racial difference and breaking them out of the stubborn, hard-packed ground so many of us have comfortably trod for so long.

Read Bianca’s full article here and Coby’s here.