Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues

Many students come to law school because they care about justice. Yet, many first year students become dispirited, feeling that issues of public interest, social justice, and legal ethics get lost in a thicket of technical knowledge. Get re-inspired and remember why you came to law school by coming to "Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues!"

This Center for Social Justice and Public Service discussion series enriches the first year curriculum by providing first-year law students with a forum in which to discuss public interest/ social justice issues of all kinds, alternative perspectives on legal education, and first year subject areas. All first-year students are encouraged to attend. The fall series emphasizes issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and poverty. The spring series focuses on the role of lawyers working with communities.

Short readings will be available on reserve in the library and available through faculty support outside Bergin 214. These readings are interesting; come even if you haven’t had time to read carefully. Discussions will be facilitated by Professor Margalynne J. Armstrong, Associate Academic Director of the Center for Social Justice and Public Service, along with other Santa Clara faculty members.

Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues Reading Lists

Fall Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues Reading List (PDF)

Fall 2009 Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues Flyer (PDF)

Spring Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues Reading List (PDF)

Spring 2010 Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues Flyer (PDF)

Fall 2009 Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues Schedule

The Fall 2009 is held in Bannan 333 at noon on the following Thursdays, and food will be provided.

September 3: Introduction to Legal Education (Part I)
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Foreword: Toward a Race-Conscious Pedagogy in Legal Education, 4 S. CAL. REV. L. & WOMEN’S STUD. 33 (1994) and Jerome McCristal Culp, Autobiography and Legal Scholarship and Teaching: Finding the Me in the Legal Academy, 77 VA. L. REV. 539 (1991).

Facilitators: Margalynne Armstrong and Stephanie M. Wildman

 

October 8: Introduction to Legal Education (Part II) and Tort Law
Stephanie M. Wildman, The Classroom Climate, in LOOKING AT LAW SCHOOL (Stephen Gillers ed. 1997) and Taylor v. Metzger 152 N.J. 490, 706 A.2d 685 New Jersey Supreme Court, 1998..

Facilitator: Jean Love

 

November 5: Criminal Justice
Margaret E. Montoya, Máscaras, Trenzas, y Greñas: Un/masking the Self While Un/braiding Latina Stories and Legal Discourse, 15 CHICANO-LATINO L. REV. 1, 2-26, 17 HARV. WOMEN'S L. J. 185 , 186-209 (1994) and M. Katherine Baird Barmer, Teaching Whren to White Kids, MICH. J. OF RACE & LAW v. 1'5.

Facilitator: Ellen Kreitzberg

   

Spring 2010 Social Justice Thursday Essential Issues Schedule

The Spring 2010 series is held in Bannan 333 at noon on the following Thursdays, and food will be provided.

January 28: Contract/Property Law
Cheryl I. Harris, Whiteness as Property, 106 HARV. L. REV. 1707 (1993).

Facilitator: Margalynne Armstrong

March 18: The Power of Law and Social Change

Sumi Cho and Robert Westley, Critical Race Coalitions: Key Movements That Preformed the Theory, 33 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1377, 1377-80, 1388-99 (2000).

Facilitators: Students from New Orleans Alternative Spring Break

April 8: Social Justice Lawyering and Working with Coalitions

Julie A. Su, Making the Invisible Visible: The Garment Industry's Dirty Laundry, 1 J. GENDER RACE & JUST. 405, 405-17 (1998).

Facilitator: Lynette Parker