Clinic Program Hosts Cross-Clinics Class, “Doing the Work of Anti-Racism”

August 31, 2020

participants of the cross clinics class
Cross-clinic class faculty and students.

On Friday, Aug. 28, the Clinical Program held its first cross-clinics class, inviting students and professors across all 12 clinics to come together in one large Zoom gathering.

The class, which was organized under the theme “Doing the Work of Anti-Racism,” featured a welcome address from Associate Dean for Experiential Education Jayesh Rathod, and a talk from guest speaker, Dorcas Gilmore, principal at Gilmore Khandhar, LLC.

“I went to law school to get certain tools because that is what was needed for my community,” Gilmore told the law students in an interview format with Professor Margaret Barry, director of the Re-Entry Clinic. “Movement lawyering places those tools in the service of social justice, racial justice, gender justice. It is understanding the role of the law and lawyers to create positive shifts in power.”

Associate Dean for Experiential Education Jayesh Rathod.
Associate Dean for Experiential Education Jayesh Rathod.


Students then divided into Zoom break out rooms for discussions on justice and equity. Questions formulated around class assignments that included listening to interviews with How to be an Antiracist author Professor Ibram X. Kendi and the Equal Justice Initiative’s Bryan Stevenson.

The goal was to, as a group, acknowledge and discuss the role that race has played in the circumstances faced by Clinic clients, and consider what the term antiracist means in relation to the work they will be doing this semester and beyond.