Race and indigeneity and the law as “required reading”: can curricular reform lead to greater access to justice for all?

Cindy Thomas Archer

Chapter 16 in Research Handbook on Global Legal Education, 2026, pp 323-342 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter asks what it would mean to treat Race & the Law as required reading rather than an optional specialization and argues that meaningful access to justice demands an explicitly antiracist, justice-oriented curriculum. Drawing on the post-2020 “racial reckoning” and the uneven institutional responses that followed, the chapter critically evaluates three dominant approaches to antiracist pedagogy in US legal education: stand-alone voluntary electives and concentrations; “race across the curriculum” initiatives; and Race & Indigeneity course graduation requirements. Using the experience of UC Irvine School of Law's Race & Indigeneity Requirement as a case study, it shows how clearly articulated learning outcomes—focused on the construction of race and Indigeneity, histories of migration, critical theory, and practical application—can anchor curricular reform, support professional identity formation, and equip students with a bifocal lens that sees both “ordinary” doctrinal questions and the racialized structures beneath them. The chapter also foregrounds the distinctive stakes of Indigeneity, sovereignty, and settler colonialism, and highlights the risks of their continued marginalization even within race-focused reforms. Attending to student, faculty, and administrative concerns, it acknowledges the burdens and political risks of such reforms, especially for minoritized faculty, while demonstrating that required courses can shift student perceptions from skepticism to appreciation and deepen engagement over time. Ultimately, the chapter contends that combining a Race & Indigeneity requirement with robust elective offerings and serious across-the-curriculum integration is essential to forming lawyers capable of recognizing and contesting structural inequities in any area of practice.

Keywords: Race and Indigeneity Requirement in Legal Education; Anti-racist Legal Pedagogy; Post-2020 Racial Reckoning in US Law Schools; CRT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781788117005
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