race justice resources – The Blackacre Times

The Center for Law, Health, and Society and the Law Library are excited to bring you Bioethics: Inclusive Voices, a series of short, high-quality videos exploring the diversity of the bioethics field.

Professor Leslie Wolf organized the project, which was funded by the Greenwall Foundation. Like so many of us, she had to adapt to the changing circumstances of Covid-19, turning what had first been conceived as a series of speakers into an innovative series of 6-12 minute videos on important yet under-discussed issues within bioethics.

_{Professor Leslie Wolf was the principal investigator for the project.}

The videos fall into two distinct groups: ‘Career Journeys’ and ‘Diverse Scholars’. The former relay the personal stories of diverse scholars who pursued bioethics from different starting points, such as student activism or the practice of medicine. According to Wolf, the goal here was “to encourage more students form diverse background to consider bioethics as a career.”

In comparison, the “Diverse Scholars’ videos address a wide variety of diversity-related bioethics topics. Some are filled with highly practical insights, such as Fordham Professor Kimini Paul-Emile’s Dealing with Racist Patients, while others focus on vital big-picture issues, such as Professor Anderson’s Health Injustices Caused by Segregation and Housing.

A still from Professor Anderson's Health Injustice Caused by Segregation and Housing video. — _{A still from Professor Courtney Anderson’s Health Injustices Caused by Segregation and Housing video.}

Although many different audiences will find these videos intriguing and useful, they are primarily intended as resources for teachers, at both the graduate and undergraduate level. As such, each features a set of discussion questions, as well as a list of resources for further exploration. Moreover, the high production quality on display here–in the form of the appealing visual aids that accompany each speaker and the professional sound throughout the series–will help ensure that students are fully engaged.

Bioethics: Inclusive Voices is one of the many great resources you’ll find in the Law Library’s “Reading Room,” our home for faculty scholarship, video recordings of important GSU Law events, historical law school materials, and much more. Check it out!

Law schools across the country have responded to the mass protests of the past year with renewed efforts to better integrate issues of race and racism into the law school curriculum. To this end, the GSU College of Law Library has published Racial Justice Resources, a new research guide dedicated to furthering discussions of race in the law school classroom.

GSU Law’s Center for Access to Justice worked with the law library to create this valuable resource. It is meant to help law faculty incorporate race into their teaching, filling a major gap in legal education. As A2J Assistant Director Darcy Meals explained, “law faculty are often race-avoidant in teaching, despite the role race has played in the construction and maintenance of the legal system in the United States.” By placing materials that highlight this critical role at their fingertips, the guide encourages faculty to engage students in conversations about race across the law school curriculum.

So far, it appears to be succeeding in this endeavor. In a short period of time, Racial Justice Resources has become one of the law library’s most frequently used research guides. Law faculty across the country have also praised the guide. Writing for the Best Practices for Legal Education blog, Penn State Professor of Clinical Law Jill Engle called it “a true gem” and described how the guide introduced her to materials that facilitated the creation of a popular new course.

The guide collects a wide range of resources that address race and legal pedagogy. They fit into two overarching categories, one focused on specific courses and the other on anti-racism materials with more general applicability. Within each category, the guide offers a curated list of teaching guides, podcasts, legal scholarship, and more. And whether it’s a scholarly article that develops a pedagogical framework, an assessment tool that gauges implicit bias, or a seminal essay that shaped the zeitgeist, each resource was specifically chosen for its capacity to help law faculty incorporate issues of race and racism into their courses.

While the guide is primarily designed for law teachers, other audiences will also find that it contains much that is of interest. For some researchers, the guide’s practical orientation will complement other resources dedicated to specific schools, theories, and ideas. For law students, in particular, the materials could broaden their understanding of how race has shaped the legal doctrines they are learning, preparing them for their role in these important classroom conversations.