Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many Black women law deans stayed connected on Zoom and discussed their academic work and the challenges of remote instruction.
However, after the death of George Floyd due to police brutality, they started talking about how to confront racism at colleges and universities.
During one such discussion, Danielle Conway, dean and Donald J. Farage Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson Law, juxtaposed photographs of police brutality victims alongside pictures of Black deans.
“Any one of us on the Black deans’ side could be over there in the murdered pictures,” she said.
To inform allies on ways to offer support without drowning out Black experiences, Conway — alongside Howard University School of Law Dean Danielle Holley-Walker, Rutgers Law School Co-Dean Kimberly Mutcherson, Boston University School of Law Dean Dr. Angela Onwuachi-Willig and Washburn University School of Law Dean Carla D. Pratt — curated the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project.
“Being a Black woman, knowing the perils of that identity in America really led us to think about how in our positions of leadership as deans, we could bring a voice to the harms that we have routinely experienced from these many stories of police brutality against Black people,” said Conway. “Both physical and psyche harm.”
The Association of American Law Schools’ website hosts the project which provides anti-racism resources and information. It offers five educational sections: the listening phase, learning phase, leading phase, the audit reporting phase and the iterative phase. They hope higher education will use the resources to address racialized hierarchy in law school admissions, said Pratt.
