Structural racism is deeply rooted in our nation's history and often manifests as discrimination and inequality in critical facets of life in the United States, including education. This Article explores the impact of structural racism and bias on discipline in the K-12 public school setting. Discriminatory bias-based decision-making and school discipline policies have led to the disproportionate punishment of Black children, causing them to be excluded from classroom learning and creating a separate and unequal education structure. US Department of Education data shows that Black K-12 students are 3.8 times as likely to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions as white students in the same grade. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal and therefore violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. When Black students are disciplined more harshly than their white counterparts, this too is inherently unequal and violates the constitutional right to an equal education.

The demographics of law schools are changing and women make up the majority of law students. Yet, the demographics of many law faculties do not reflect these changing demographics with more men occupying faculty seats. In legal education, women predominately occupy skills positions, including legal writing, clinic, academic success, bar preparation, or library. According to a 2010 Association of American Law Schools survey, the percentage of female lecturers and instructors is so high that those positions are stereotypically female.

The term coined for positions typically held by women is “pink ghetto.” According to the Department of Labor, pink-collar-worker describes jobs and career areas historically considered “women’s work,” and included on the list is teaching. However, in legal education, tenured and higher-ranked positions are held primarily by men, while women often enter legal education through non-tenured and non-faculty skills-based teaching pipelines. In a number of these positions, women experience challenges like poor pay, heavy workloads, and lower status such as by contract, nontenure, or at will.

While many may view this as a challenge, looking at these positions solely as a “pink ghetto” diminishes the many contributions women have made to legal education through the skills faculty pipelines. Conversely, we miss the opportunity to examine how legal education has changed and how women have accepted the challenge of being on the front line of educating this new generation of learners while enthusiastically adopting the American Bar Association’s new standards for assessment and student learning. There is an opportunity for women to excel in these positions if we provide them with allies who champion for equal status and provide the requisite support.

This article focuses on the changing gender demographics of legal education, legal education pipelines, and the role and status of women in higher education with an emphasis on legal education. The final section applies feminist pedagogy to address challenges, opportunities, and aspirations for women in legal education.

It is becoming increasingly clear that current law students are seeking more wraparound support than previously provided by legal education, which begs the question, why? The answer is simple - modern law students are different and come to law school with very different expectations and experiences than students from previous years. To aid our students in achieving academic success, it is essential that we understand the complex needs of our students by first examining their previous educational experiences.

Academic advising is commonplace at institutions that serve undergraduate students. In fact, some would argue that academic advising is the cornerstone of student success. Advising at the undergraduate level is viewed as a collaborative relationship between student and advisor that is designed to provide the meaningful support students need to achieve their academic goals throughout matriculation. Professional academic advisors, academic support and academic resource centers are as common to undergraduate students as hornbooks and supplements (or Westlaw and Lexis) are to law students.

Millennials make up the largest population of students currently in law school. Millennials often come to law school with the expectation they will receive academic advising and support similar to their undergraduate academic experience. However, to students’ surprise, law school generally does not provide the level of advising that Millennials are used to receiving. This often leaves law students feeling as though they are lost in the process of academic planning, and far too often results in students relying on their classmates for academic planning advice. In fact, more law students are noting the lack of academic advising and basic course planning assistance in their graduation exit surveys.

Millennials need as much structured guidance and support as possible to fulfill their goal of academic success and passing the bar exam, and a professional academic advisor can be instrumental in that process. Through this two-way relationship between student and advisor, Millennials will know how and where to access accurate information about resources, policies, procedures and requirements- while receiving invaluable individualized guidance to help them along their educational journey. Each of these components is essential to a successful and meaningful law school experience for Millennials.

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” – Chinese Proverb

American Bar Association (“ABA”) Standard 314, Assessment of Student Learning, requires law schools to “utilize both formative and summative assessment methods in its curriculum to measure and improve student learning and provide meaningful feedback to students.” This article will connect multiple formative assessments to Bloom’s taxonomy to demonstrate how law teachers can transform and enhance student learning, while promoting key steps in the self-regulated learning cycle. First, it is imperative law teachers understand the education background and social landscape that our students, mostly Millennials, bring to law school. We can acknowledge that our Millennial students are different, but what does this really mean and how does this affect our teaching and their learning? Next, effective application of ABA Standard 314 requires law teachers to understand self-regulated learning and the connection between the stages of learning and various formative assessments. To ensure that we are meeting this challenge, law teachers must become facilitators of learning. By serving as facilitators, we acknowledge the importance of involving students in the learning process from the very beginning. This will ultimately result in shifting the focus from the instructor’s teaching to student learning. While there are various teaching methods, we will explore contemporary teaching strategies as a means of encouraging a student-centered learning environment. Utilizing contemporary teaching strategies fosters an environment that is ripe for effective formative assessment in our courses.

This article will address contemporary teaching strategies for effectively engaging Millennials across the law school curriculum. Part I will examine the experiences that define Millennials and how they learn best. In Part II, we analyze the impact of ABA Standard 314 on law schools. Part III discusses self-regulated learning and metacognition as tools for lifelong learning. In Part IV, we explore how the student-centered classroom enhances student learning. Finally, Part V demonstrates how Bloom’s taxonomy can serve as a framework for effective formative assessment.

In light of the national decline in bar pass rates, coping with and addressing a law school’s bar passage rate is viewed by some as an insurmountable undertaking. However, I see it as an invaluable opportunity to redefine who are as law professors. Most importantly this challenge provides an opportunity for us as educators to train future attorneys to become self-aware, confident, and component to handle the challenges presented by the legal profession.

The American Bar Association (“ABA”) has made it quite clear to accredited law schools and those seeking accreditation that bar passage is now a paramount factor in retaining and obtaining accreditation. To that end, year after year, proposals are being reviewed by the ABA with the overall goal of defining what is an acceptable bar passage rate for ABA approved law schools. As a result, some law schools find themselves scrambling to implement programming and courses aimed at facilitating success on the bar exam. While some will argue the bar exam itself should be the major focus of a law school’s curriculum, others will argue in the alternative that the bar exam does not accurately assess the worthiness of a law school graduate to practice law. Irrespective of the side of the argument you take, it is undeniable that helping students to acknowledge and conquer their fears associated with the bar exam is a necessary step to assist them in passing the bar exam.

Often bar examinees’ fears are rooted in familial or community pressure to pass, as well as standardized testing anxieties, past failures, self-doubt, or fear of the unknown. For many bar takers, irrespective of their rank at graduation, the bar exam is cloaked in mystery, which in turn perpetuates the “Big Bad Wolf” phobia associated with the exam. While some students are able to turn the fear and anxiety into motivation to pass the bar exam, far too many become paralyzed by it. Ultimately it is that very fear and anxiety that results in students’ failing the bar exam, before they even begin. In addition to the emotional toll on graduates, failure on the bar exam can wreak havoc on a law school’s chances of being in compliance with ABA Standards, and affect both the reputation and rank of the school.