Abstract
The failure of the legal academy to create professional law school environments embracing the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) sustains racial assault on Black Bodies. Embracing the tenets of CRT can help to improve law school environments, because CRT examines systemic racism and causes individuals to rethink policies and procedures with an antiracist mindset. Further, law school is the most common foundation for all legal training. If the right environment is established in law schools, it can lead to a positive cultural change within the legal profession.
This essay urges the legal academy to create efficient rules to help eliminate race-based unprofessional attacks in the law school environment. For the purposes of this essay, racial assault refers to “Race- based unprofessionalism” or “Race-based unprofessional attacks”—synonymous terms introduced and defined in this essay as—targeted acts toward Black attorneys by non-Black attorneys that white colleagues would not be subjected to in the law school environment. These acts are best reflected in moments where Black attorneys say, “This never would have happened to a white attorney.”
“Professionalism as a Social Construct” by Leah Goodridge, highlighted how professionalism is used to control Black attorneys in practice. Building on Goodridge’s work, this Essay focuses on the issue of unprofessionalism toward Black attorneys in legal academia. If the right environment is established in law schools, it can lead to a positive cultural change within the legal profession.
