Diversity & Inclusion at UT Law
The College of Law is committed to promoting and cultivating diversity, which is expressed in myriad forms, including race, color, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, military status, socio-economic status and viewpoint.
Our immediate aim is to foster a more inclusive learning and working environment for our entire community – one that succeeds and thrives because of its diversity.
Our broader aim is to learn, teach and practice the principles of equity and justice to ensure that all people have the opportunity to grow, contribute and achieve their aspirations. We commit to pursuing deliberate efforts to ensure that our college welcomes differences and is a place where different perspectives are heard and every individual feels a sense of belonging.
To ensure equity, we also commit to challenge and respond to bias, harassment, and discrimination, and to provide equal opportunities for our students, faculty and staff.
THIS MONTH
Pride Month
- Vol means all! During the month of June, and each day throughout the year, we celebrate and support the members of the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies. If you’re looking for ways to get involved during Pride Month and beyond, University of Tennessee’s Pride Center is an excellent resource. The mission of the Pride Center is to provide academic and social support for the LGBTQIA+ community at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The Pride Center strives to be a space for all members of the UT community to engage with and explore issues relating to gender and sexuality. Learn more about the Pride Center, Lambda Student Organization, Knox Pride, and more below.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Annual Julian Blackshear Scholarship Gala
The annual Julian Blackshear Jr. Scholarship Gala celebrates students and alumni who have positively impacted the University of Tennessee College of Law through their commitment to diversity and inclusion.
The event, presented annually by the College of Law in partnership with the Black Law Students Association (BLSA), helps the College of Law fund scholarships for diverse students.
College of Law Legal Clinic
Our Legal Clinic works extensively with our neighboring communities to offer a variety of legal services. Students in the Expungement Clinic assist residents of underserved communities by expunging charges from their juvenile or adult criminal records.
Students in the Transactions Clinic interact with local, state and federal agencies on behalf of underrepresented clients to draft contracts and governance documents; conduct regulatory research and provide compliance advice; and give legal presentations to the community.
LEARN MORE ABOUT DIVERSITY AT THE COLLEGE OF LAW...
Our curriculum exposes law students to a variety of perspectives and diversity and inclusion issues within the legal profession.
The following courses feature diversity-focused components:
- Advocacy Clinic
- Bioethics and Public Health Law Seminar
- Disability Law
- Domestic Violence Clinic
- Employment Discrimination
- Gender and Justice
- Human Rights and Environment
- Immigration Law Clinic
- International Human Rights
- International Religious Freedom
- Lawyers as Leaders Seminar
- Lawyering and Professionalism
- Poverty, Race, Gender and the Law
- Sex, Gender and Justice
- Women and the Law
- Wrongful Convictions/Innocence Clinic
Faculty scholarship and research in the areas of diversity, inclusion and civil rights
The faculty of the UT College of Law are engaged in a wide variety of research that crosses cultures and appeals to those with multiple interests. Their work spans a wide range of fields including human rights, civil rights, international law and criminal law.
Student organizations offer our students support, community and advocacy.
Our organizations represent some of the diversity of culture at the University of Tennessee College of Law.
These include:
- Black Law Students Association
- Latino Law Student Association
- Lambda Law
- Law Women
- Native American Law Students Association
- Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender and Social Justice
- Gennie Hope-Davian
- Charisse Heath
- Becky Jacobs
- Lucy Jewel
- Michelle Kwon (Chair)
- Brad Morgan
- Nathan Preuss
- Val Vojdik
- Carlos Yunsan
- Corey Lee (2L)
NEWS & STORIES
Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice to host symposium exploring legislation affecting the LGTBQ+ population
The Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice, a student-run and edited publication, will host a symposium on March
College hosts discussion on policing challenges within the Knoxville community
Revising policing in the city of Knoxville is a costly endeavor that requires honest policy assessment, additional manpower, understanding from
College of Law students become mentors, coaches to high school mock trial team
When a team from Knoxville’s Fulton High School earned high scores last month in a district-level high school mock trial
LITERATURE
- Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
- Carol Anderson, One Person, No Vote
- Jerold S. Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America
- Wendy A. Bach, Prosecuting Poverty: Criminalizing Care
Mehrsa Baradaran, The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap - Benjamin H. Barton, The Credentialed Court: Inside the Cloistered, Elite World of American Justice
- Ari Berman, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
- Devon Carbado, Unreasonable: Black Lives, Police Power, and the Fourth Amendment
- Dale Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas
- Stephen L. Carter, Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster
- Adam Cohen, Supreme Inequality
- Scott L. Cummings, Lawyers and Movements: Legal Mobilization in Transformative Times
- Dána-Ain Davis, Reproductive Injustice
- Meera E. Deo, Unequal Profession: Race and Gender in Legal Academia
- Samuel Estreicher and Joy Radice (Eds), Beyond Elite Law: Access to Civil Justice in America
- Scott Fruehwald, A Guide to Help Lawyers, Law Students, and Business Professionals Develop Cross-Cultural Competence
- Laura Gómez, Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism
Gabriela Gutiérrez y Muhs, Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia - Angela Han, Tatia Gordon-Troy, et al., Women in Law: Discovering the True Meaning of Success
- Ian Haney López, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race
- John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me
- Sherrilyn Ifill; Loretta Lynch; Bryan Stevenson; Anthony C. Thompson, A Perilous Path: Talking Race, Inequality, and the Law
- Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die
- Rhonda V. Magee, The Inner Work of Racial Justice
- Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States
- Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race
- Sarah Redfield, The Education Pipeline to the Professions: Programs That Work to Increase Diversity
- Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to do About it
- Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
- Joanna Schwartz, Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable
- Danielle Sered, Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair
- Michelle Silverthorn, Authentic Diversity
- J. Clay Smith, Jr., Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944
- Claude M. Steele, Whistling Vivaldi
- Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy
- Cornell West, Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Racism in America
- Craig Steven Wilder, Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities
- Patricia J. Williams, Alchemy of Race and Rights
How Did We Get Here?
After the killing of George Floyd, College of Law faculty produced and launched this series to examine how the U.S. legal system evolved to what is has become and how our legal system institutionalizes racism and allows such tragedies to happen.