Incorporating Social Justice into the 1L Legal Writing Course: A Tool for Empowering Students of Color and of Historically Marginalized Groups and Improving Learning

Sha-Shana Crichton May, 2019

The media reports of police shootings of unarmed Black men and women; unprovoked attacks on innocent Jews, Muslims, religious minority groups, and LGBTQ persons; and current pervasive, divisive, and misogynistic rhetoric all cause fear and anxiety in impacted communities and frustrate other concerned citizens. Law students, and especially law students of color and of historically marginalized groups, are often directly or indirectly impacted by these reports and discrimination in all its iterations. As a result, they are stressed because they are fearful and anxious. Research shows that stress impairs learning and cognition. Research also shows that beneficial changes are made in the brain, and learning and cognition improve when students are empowered and motivated by their lessons. Incorporating issues of social justice into the first-year legal writing course benefits all students by equipping them with the knowledge and practical skills to address issues of social injustice and to affect social change. Incorporating issues of social justice into the first-year legal writing course has the added benefit of contributing to a learning environment that permits law students of color and of historically marginalized groups to learn more successfully by reducing stress, altering their perception of control over psychosocial stressors, building positive emotions, increasing confidence, and motivating them to learn.

Introduction

Tulsa, Oklahoma. September 16, 2016. Terrence Crutcher, Black male, age 40, shot dead by police while walking to his vehicle with his hands above his head.¹ Charlotte, North Carolina. September 20, 2016. Keith Lamont Scott, Black male, age 43, shot dead by police while exiting his vehicle.²

San Diego, California. September 27, 2016. Alfred Olango, Black male, age 38, shot dead by police while holding a vape smoking device.³ The deceased was suffering from a mental breakdown.

Racial conflict and attacks on diversity permeate our society. In just eleven days, police officers shot and killed three unarmed Black men across the U.S.⁴ This followed on the heels of several similar shootings.⁵ Media reports of police officers shooting unarmed men and women of color exhibit a perpetuation of a U.S. history steeped in racial conflict that results in the continued mistreatment of persons of color.⁶ These reports of police shootings cause fear and anxiety in communities of color and frustrate other concerned citizens.⁷ Law students of color are also fearful and anxious. Terrence, Keith, and Alfred could have been their father, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, cousin, friend, neighbor, or colleague. Their future clients will likely look like Terrence, Keith, and Alfred. Terrence, Keith, and Alfred could have been them. Law students of color are aware that because of an immutable trait—their race—they are not immune nor insulated from such tragedy.⁸ As a cruel reminder of the vulnerability law students of color and of other historically marginalized groups face, on December 4, 2016, a police officer shot and killed 26- year-old Saif Nasser Mubarak Alameri, a law student at Case Western Reserve University School of Law following a traffic incident.⁹ Saif was shot five times.¹⁰ He was unarmed.¹¹

Police shootings are one of the many psychosocial stressors¹² that affect law students of color and cause them to continuously experience fear and anxiety.¹³ Law students are no strangers to anxiety. Law school is fraught with a unique set of stressors that cause all law students, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or religion, to exhibit high levels of anxiety,¹⁴ making them the most anxious of all graduate students.¹⁵ Even more so than their White colleagues, law students of color and of historically marginalized groups are at even greater risk for StressPlus: elevated and sustained stress levels caused by feelings of fear and anxiety because of additional psychosocial stressors associated with belonging to a marginalized group.¹⁶

In our current social climate, StressPlus is more likely the norm than the exception. Traditional and new media platforms alike present constant and ubiquitous reminders of psychosocial stressors associated with belonging to a marginalized group, including discrimination in all of its iterations—stereotype threats, microaggressions, and racial biases.¹⁷ Law students are usually tethered to their computers and mobile devices and are plugged into social media,¹⁸ which make them a captive audience to a constant source of news that reminds law students of color and of historically marginalized groups of their vulnerability. This reminder makes them even more prone to conscious and subconscious feelings of fear and anxiety.¹⁹

Fear and anxiety can cause stress.²⁰ Stress can impair a student’s ability to learn,²¹ and can lead to severe emotional, physical, and cognitive harm.²² Students who continuously experience fear and anxiety are at a learning deficit; they cannot optimally learn new information, nor can they retain or recall old information.²³

A law school’s primary function is to educate all law students.²⁴ The American Bar Association requires law schools to facilitate and to assess student learning.²⁵ While law schools may not have the power to control the sources of psychosocial stressors that cause fear and anxiety in law students of color and of historically marginalized groups, law schools can mitigate the deleterious impact of these psychosocial stressors on law students’ ability to learn by creating learning environments focused on facilitating learning.²⁶

students become more emotionally resilient and “learn more efficiently and at higher levels of cognition” “[w]hen teachers use strategies to reduce stress and build a positive emotional environment.”²⁷

Incorporating issues of social justice into the law school curriculum contributes to a learning environment that builds positive emotions and empowers and motivates law students of color and of historically marginalized groups to learn. Educator Christine Sleeter emphasizes that students become empowered when they learn to address “social issues that have meaning to their lives.”²⁸

There is a growing trend among legal writing professors to incorporate issues of social justice into the legal writing curricula.²⁹ In their seminal article on incorporating social justice into the legal writing curricula, law professors Pamela Edwards and Sheilah Vance highlight the many benefits to all law students when professors incorporate social justice into their teaching.³⁰ For marginalized students, these benefits include creating a positive emotional environment, building students’ confidence by providing an outlet for their voice, and acknowledging that their concerns are important.³¹

Drawing from the works of neuroscientists and educators, this Article extends the call to incorporate issues of social justice as a mandatory component of the first-year law school curriculum, starting with the firstyear legal writing course. The ongoing reports of heightened racial and ethnic conflicts and attacks on diversity, in addition to the surveys indicating that first-year law students experience extraordinarily high stress levels, suggest that first-year law students of color and of historically marginalized groups are at an increased risk for StressPlus. This is an important reason why law schools should introduce issues of social justice early—ideally, in the first-year curriculum. The first-year legal writing course is an excellent place to start because teaching law students legal research, reasoning, and writing skills and teaching them how to use those skills to work on issues of social justice empowers students by imbuing them with the confidence that they can influence legal and social change to help real people.³² The ability to help real people builds interest and motivates law students to learn.³³ Additionally, working on issues of social justice helps law students re-evaluate situations and familiar experiences that are psychosocial stressors, driving them to alter their perception of control over those stressors.³⁴ An enhanced perception of control makes the students less likely to internalize the stressors and become stressed.

Part I of this Article examines fear- and anxiety-induced stress in law students and examines how the pervasiveness of psychosocial stressors in our society impacts law students of color and of historically marginalized groups. Part II looks at how the brain learns and how stress impacts the brain’s ability to learn effectively. This section also analyzes how positive emotions help to manage stress, undo the effects of stress, and help the brain to heal and learn successfully. Part III argues that it is necessary for law schools to incorporate issues of social justice into the first-year legal writing curriculum, as this will 1) create a learning environment that will help all law students to become competent lawyers, and 2) build positive emotions in law students of color and of historically marginalized groups who experience a heightened level of stress because of their status as members of historically marginalized groups. The positive emotions empower these students and motivate them to learn. Part IV concludes by noting that the benefits of creating a learning environment that reduces stress, facilitates learning, and empowers and motivates law students of color and of historically marginalized groups to learn are too important for law schools not to intentionally incorporate issues of social justice into the first-year legal writing curriculum.

I. Fear and Anxiety in Law Students

Law students are the most anxious and stressed of all graduate students.³⁵ Researchers, scholars, and professors have posited an array of both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for the high stress levels among law students. These reasons include stressors uniquely associated with law school,³⁶ such as: 1) the prevailing law school culture of individualism and rivalry³⁷ that underscores a “fierce competition for grades,”³⁸ class rank, and internships;³⁹ 2) the Socratic method of teaching that is new and frightening to many students;⁴⁰ 3) the lack of feedback from professors;⁴¹ 4) the pressure of the heavy workload, that often leads to social isolation;⁴² 5) worry about law school-related debt; 6) the uncertainty of finding a job after graduation;⁴³ and 7) certain personality traits among some law students that lead to unhappiness and pessimism.⁴⁴

Law students responding to a survey revealed that their first year of law school was the most stressful of their law school tenure.⁴⁵ It comes as no surprise, then, that first-year law students comprised the largest group of law students to indicate that stress negatively impacted their law school performance.⁴⁶

In addition to the stress associated with being in law school, law students also deal with the stress associated with daily living. They too are concerned about misplacing their car keys, an inconclusive medical test, the declining health condition of a loved one,⁴⁷ finances, job prospects, and the current social and political climate.⁴⁸ According to The American Psychological Association 2017 Stress in America Survey (“Stress Survey”), Americans now report significant levels of stress when thinking about the future of the country and the current social and political divisiveness.⁴⁹ Whether through news reports or direct experience, law students are exposed to these stressors that cause them to become anxious and stressed. Tethered to their cell phones and media devices, law students are prone to continuously experience anxiety when listening to the news reports of unpredictability regarding key governmental decisions,⁵⁰ the uncertainty regarding the future accessibility of health care,⁵¹ and the prevalence of gun shootings in schools.⁵²

Law students of color and of historically marginalized groups are impacted by yet an additional layer of stressors that makes them prone to StressPlus—discrimination . ⁵³ Evidence of discrimination permeates society and also seeps into the law school environment.⁵⁴ Law students of col- or and of historically marginalized groups are at risk for greater stress, StressPlus, when they listen to news reports of police shootings of unarmed persons of color⁵⁵ and to pervasive racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic rhetoric.⁵⁶ Moreover, these students’ stress levels are likely to increase with the knowledge that because of this rhetoric, some citizens may feel emboldened to harass and carry out acts of violence against persons of color and persons of certain ethnic, religious, and other marginalized identities.⁵⁷ The racial violence in Charlottesville provides a prime example of emboldened citizens causing fear, anxiety, and harm.⁵⁸ Additional examples include recent racial profiling incidents in which some citizens have felt emboldened to call the police on persons of color who were doing nothing more than going about the business of daily living.⁵⁹ Prospective students and students attending educational institutions where they are enrolled were also victims of this dangerous form of harassment.⁶⁰

Large scale negative race-related societal events are macro-stressors, and exposure to these macro-stressors can cause elevated stress levels.⁶¹ A Duke University study on the impact of race-related stressors on the body’s stress responses, “Duke Study,” showed that Black students experienced extreme fear- and anxiety-induced stress when exposed to racerelated macro-stressors even if their exposure was second-hand, such as through news reports.⁶² In 2006, a Black woman accused White members of the Duke University Lacrosse team of “racial derogation, rape and violence.”⁶³ The nation at the time was severely divided on the issues of race, class, and gender.⁶⁴ Not surprisingly, the incident attracted “considerable racially divisive media coverage and rhetoric.”⁶⁵ Duke’s Black students, and in particular the Black women, “experienced high levels of stress and questioned their sense of belonging and safety” for weeks after the incident.⁶⁶ The “Duke Study” showed that Black students, especially Black female students, had higher cortisol levels and were less sharp at responding to an experimental stress task after the incident, suggesting that “recent exposure to race-related stress can have a sustained impact on physiological stress responses.”⁶⁷

A situation does not have to be life-threatening to cause stress. Acts of discrimination, even when non-life-threatening, can cause anxiety, fear, and chronic stress.⁶⁸ For example, while not life-threatening, a law student of color may experience prolonged anxiety after learning about the Nextions Leadership Consulting Group study that indicates that law students of color may not be evaluated equally in the workplace because of an unfounded perception that because of their race, they are inferior writers.⁶⁹

In that study, sixty partners from twenty-two law firms were asked to review and rate a memorandum on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest score.⁷⁰ The partners received the same memorandum, but half were told that Thomas Meyer was Caucasian and the other half were told that he was African American.⁷¹ The memorandum contained twenty-two errors: seven minor spelling errors, six substantive technical writing errors, five factual errors, and four analytical errors.⁷² The “Caucasian” Thomas Meyer received a rating of 4.1 out of 5 and favorable comments such as “generally good writer but needs to work on…”; “has potential”; and “good analytical skills.”⁷³ The “African American” Thomas Meyer, on the other hand, received 3.2 out of 5 and negative comments such as “needs lots of work”; “can’t believe he went to NYU”; “average at best.”⁷⁴ Considering that a law student’s ultimate goal is to find suitable employment, evidence of racial stereotyping and bias such as this is sufficient to cause anxiety and stress.

Navigating daily situations and the everyday discrimination students of color and of historically marginalized groups face or expect to face can also cause chronic stress.⁷⁵ Everyday discrimination includes othering⁷⁶ and the related social exclusion,⁷⁷ and “interpersonal daily hassles and insults such as receiving inferior service and being unfairly followed in stores.”⁷⁸ These stressors follow the students into the classroom. Discrimination outside of the classroom contributes to a perception of discrimination inside the classroom. A student’s past experiences with discrimination can increase his or her vigilance for incidents of future discrimination.⁷⁹ If the evidence of discrimination outside and inside the classroom is ignored, the impact mushrooms, inhibiting the affected student’s ability to learn.⁸⁰

A Northwestern University report further confirmed that race and ethnic-based stressors in the classroom, such as perceived discrimination and stereotype threat, cause stress, impair learning, and result in lower test performance in African-American and Latinx students.⁸¹ Perceived discrimination is “the observation or anticipation of unfair treatment based on race/ethnicity,”⁸² and stereotype threat is “the stress of wanting to perform well to overcome negative expectations of one’s racial/ethnic group.”⁸³ The report revealed that Black and Latinx students who perceived discrimination, or who anticipated future discrimination by their teachers, experienced more stress, resulting in “lower grades, less academic motivation, lower academic success more generally, and less persistence when encountering an academic challenge.”⁸⁴ The report also noted that in trying to dispel the stereotype of academic and intellectual inferiority, Black and Latinx students experienced anxiety, chronic stress, fatigue, and cognitive overload, which adversely impacted their academic performance.⁸⁵

While the Northwestern University report focused on high school students, a study of University of California-Berkeley Law School students⁸⁶ showed similar evidence of perceived discrimination and stereotype threat among law students of color and of historically marginalized groups.⁸⁷ These law students noted that they experienced “stereotyping, implicit and explicit bias, and prejudice.”⁸⁸ They also reported that they felt “their teachers had initially judged their academic capability based on their gender or race,”⁸⁹ they “fear[ed] confirming stereotypes,”⁹⁰ and they felt othered and alienated by the presumption that “high prestige opportunities (such as clerkships, law review membership, and other academic and non-academic distinctions) are not meant for them.”⁹¹

Discrimination inside and outside the classroom lead to a similar result—stress. For example, law students are at risk for StressPlus when they anticipate being treated “differently or unfairly because of their race” or ethnicity, and when they anticipate that others expect them to conform to the negative stereotypes that society, their professors, or their peers hold about the law students’ racial or ethnic group.⁹² Ultimately, this heightened stress can negatively affect the law student’s ability to learn, their overall academic performance, and their health.⁹³

II. The Brain on Fear and Anxiety

A. How the Brain Learns

Neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and educators have recently joined forces to study how the brain learns, with a specific focus on how emotions impact learning.⁹⁴ The consensus is that emotions are critical to learning.⁹⁵ Positive emotions enhance learning, while negative emotions such as fear and anxiety can cause stress, which inhibits learning.⁹⁶ To create learning environments conducive to effective learning, especially when students are affected by psychosocial stressors, it is important to be mindful of the impact of emotions and stress on the brain’s ability to learn.⁹⁷

The brain is made up of billions of nerve cells called neurons.⁹⁸ Neurons carry information around the brain. Each neuron has tiny tentacles called dendrites, a cell body, and an axon.⁹⁹ Dendrites are responsible for receiving information from other neurons and passing it to the cell body.¹⁰⁰ The cell body determines which information should be passed on and sends that information to the axon.¹⁰¹ The axon is a wire-like extension that carries information via electrical impulses “toward the dendrites of neighboring neurons.”¹⁰² The axon of the sending neuron never touches the dendrites of the receiving neuron.¹⁰³ Instead, the axon passes the information on to other neurons via chemicals called neurotransmitters,¹⁰⁴ which travel through a small gap between the neurons called a synapse.¹⁰⁵ The synapse is referred to as the communication point of the neurons.¹⁰⁶ Learning and memory take place at the synapses.¹⁰⁷

When a neuron transmits information to another neuron, it can cause the receiving neuron to fire.¹⁰⁸ This means that the receiving neuron discharges an electric signal, causing the axon to produce neurotransmitters that allow it to successfully send the information to another neuron.¹⁰⁹ A neuron will not fire if it is damaged or if the cell body does not think the information is worth passing on. When a neuron causes another neuron to fire, or a set of neurons fire at the same time, they forge strong connections or networks.¹¹⁰ As a result, when one neuron in the network becomes activated, the other neurons in the network also become activated.¹¹¹ Information passing to one neuron in the network will pass to the other neurons in that network.¹¹²

The neurons in our brain connect, or wire together, based on our genes and experiences.¹¹³ New experiences cause the neurons to forge new neural connections,¹¹⁴ and repeated experiences strengthen existing connections.¹¹⁵ Conversely, “[w]hen a person stops [having a particular experience or] performing an activity for an extended period, those [neural] connections are weakened, and over time are lost.”¹¹⁶

Learning happens when the brain receives, processes, effectively stores new information, connects new information to previously stored information, and can later efficiently retrieve previously stored information. The brain receives an influx of new information each day from thousands of stimuli in the environment,¹¹⁷ some of which come from the brain’s constant scanning of the environment for information that would threaten our safety.¹¹⁸ The brain then sorts and decides if the information is useless and should be discarded or if it is important and worth keeping or storing.¹¹⁹ This process is called encoding.

Encoding is the first stage of learning and memory.¹²⁰ Encoding begins with perception.¹²¹ Perception is the meaning we attach to information from incoming stimuli and is based on our prior knowledge, experiences, and associations.¹²² When the brain perceives stimulus, it sends the information simultaneously to the cortex and to the amygdala for further processing.¹²³ The cortex, known as the rational brain, uses a contextual frame to rationally analyze the incoming information and then determines how to proceed, including whether to store the information into conscious memory.¹²⁴ The amygdala takes the opposite course of action. Tasked with “determin[ing] the emotional relevance of incoming stimuli;”¹²⁵ processing emotions, including fear and anxiety;¹²⁶ and ensuring our overall safety; the amygdala is hardwired to instinctively initiate the body’s stress response in the face of a perceived dangerous situation or a threat.¹²⁷

Assuming the brain does not perceive a threat or danger, the information moves to phase two—storage into memory. Learning is impossible without memory.¹²⁸ Memory is the ability to effectively store and recall information.¹²⁹ For the brain to effectively store information in conscious memory, the information has to be carefully and consciously attended to at encoding.¹³⁰ This makes attention critical to learning.¹³¹ The brain processes, and is largely preoccupied with, the information to which it attends.¹³² Therefore, the level of attention given to a stimulus or stimuli at encoding influences if and how the information is processed.¹³³

Attention at encoding also influences what information moves into short-term or long-term memory, how long the information is stored, and how easily that information can be retrieved and recalled.¹³⁴ The brain stores information consciously attended to in short-term memory, also known as working memory.¹³⁵ Short-term memory has a limited storage capacity and is only able to store approximately seven items for approximately one minute.¹³⁶ Information carefully attended to at encoding generally moves into long-term memory which has no storage limit, allowing the brain to store large quantities of information for long periods of time or sometimes indefinitely.¹³⁷

The brain relies on the hippocampus to transfer information from short-term memory, stored in the prefrontal cortex, into long-term memory.¹³⁸ This transfer becomes easier and more efficient if there is a high level of interest in a stimulus that results in focused-attention being paid to that stimulus at encoding.¹³⁹ The hippocampus compares previously-stored information and experiences with new information and experiences to determine the appropriate long-term storage for the new factual information.¹⁴⁰ The ability to connect new information to previously-stored information makes the hippocampus vital to forming new long-term factual memories.¹⁴¹ The hippocampus also transfers the information, when needed, from long-term memory back to short-term memory, making it available for immediate recall.¹⁴² Law students are able to recall information for a test, during oral argument, or when writing a document because of this communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.

Emotions are also critical to learning because emotions influence attention.¹⁴³ During encoding, the brain determines where to focus its attention based on the emotional content of the new information and our prior knowledge and experiences. The brain will give priority to emotional-based information over factual information, because the brain attends first and longer to information and experiences with strong emotional content, whether those emotions are negative or positive.¹⁴⁴

Take, for example, John, a Black male first-year law student trying to learn torts, contracts, and other legal rules and principles required in the first year. John experiences negative emotions such as fear and anxiety from being exposed repeatedly to psychosocial stressors outside and inside the classroom including racist, hateful, and discriminatory rhetoric and practices. Although John never misses lectures, it is highly likely that the repeated exposure to the psychosocial stressors will hinder his ability to effectively learn the legal rules and principles because his brain will attend first and longer to the psychosocial stressors given their emotional content.

Emotions also affect memory. While a law student has to consciously pay attention and try to remember rules of law and facts, the same does not apply to remembering emotions, especially negative ones such as fear and anxiety. Unlike factual information that needs to be consciously attended to at encoding to enter long-term memory, the brain remembers emotional content even if it is not consciously attended to at encoding.¹⁴⁵ The amygdala has a separate memory system that stores emotional memories and can unconsciously form and store new emotional memories.¹⁴⁶ Research suggests that amygdala-based memory lasts longer than cortex-based memory; therefore, it is easier to remember and recall emotionally-based information and experiences for longer periods of time.¹⁴⁷

B. Negative Emotions: Fear, Anxiety and the Body’s Stress Response

Fear and anxiety are negative emotions that can cause stress.¹⁴⁸ It is important that law professors and law school administrators develop a working understanding of how fear and anxiety affect the body’s stress response. This is especially important because they are responsible for designing learning environments that facilitate learning and because law students experience varying degrees of fear- and anxiety-induced stress, including law students who are impacted by psychosocial stressors that put them at risk for StressPlus.

Fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably because they have the same root cause—threat or danger—and because they initiate the body’s stress response.¹⁴⁹ They differ, however, in the intensity and the duration of the stress response.¹⁵⁰ Fear is a reaction to a tangible, concrete, external threat that has a real or perceived potential to cause harm.¹⁵¹ Anxiety, on the other hand, is abstract—it is a reaction to an internal thought, anticipation, or expectation that something feared will, or is likely to, occur.¹⁵² Fear generally causes an intense stress response that has a limited duration, ceasing when the threat is removed or is no longer perceived as having the potential to cause harm.¹⁵³ Anxiety can cause a less intense stress response than fear, but the effects can be similarly damaging because feelings of anxiety can be pervasive and can continue for extended periods, including days or even months.¹⁵⁴ A constant state of anxiety can generate fear,¹⁵⁵and generally “it is probably impossible to feel fear without also being anxious.”¹⁵⁶

A student can experience fear and anxiety about objects or in situations that seem non-threatening, because the brain can be conditioned to experience fear and anxiety about seemingly non-threatening objects or situations.¹⁵⁷ Similarly, a student may also experience fear and anxiety when exposed to objects or situations that he or she had never previously encountered or is unlikely to encounter because of an inherent predisposition to fear or anxiety caused by those objects or situations.¹⁵⁸ This predisposition is unconscious and can be passed down from generation to generation.¹⁵⁹

A threat or danger, whether consciously or unconsciously perceived, can cause fear and anxiety and as a result initiate the body’s stress response.¹⁶⁰ Therefore, it is not necessary for a student to be consciously aware that a danger or threat is present, or consciously feel fear or anxiety, to feel the effects of the body’s engaged stress response. Leading neuroscientist on the impact of fear and anxiety on the brain, Joseph Le- Doux, posits that threatening stimuli can engage the body’s stress response even in instances where those “stimuli are presented subliminally.”¹⁶¹ This has far reaching implications for law schools designing learning environments because stereotype threat, microaggressions, and other threatening stimuli consciously or subliminally perceived can continuously engage a student’s stress response.

1. Stress

During encoding, if the brain perceives a threat or danger, which are the root causes of fear and anxiety, the body automatically prepares for survival.¹⁶² The neurons in the amygdala immediately begin to fire, causing stress and initiating the “fight, flight, or freeze” stress response.¹⁶³ The stress response causes the body to produce stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, which increase alertness and boost the body’s energy levels to escape the danger or otherwise handle the threat.¹⁶⁴ This explains why some stress is good for learning. Mild to moderate shortterm intrinsic stress increases alertness and motivation which facilitate learning . ¹⁶⁵ An intense or sustained stress response, however, can harm the body and disrupt learning by damaging or remodeling the neurons in the brain.¹⁶⁶

The brain can turn off or quiet the stress response before it disrupts learning and harms the body. For this to happen, the cortex has to rationally evaluate the incoming information and tell the amygdala whether there is a real threat or danger or whether it is overacting.¹⁶⁷ Based on the cortex’s assessment of the level of threat or danger, the brain may turn off the body’s stress response where there is no threat or danger, or quiet the stress response where there is minimal threat or danger.¹⁶⁸

The cortex, however, does not always get to regulate the stress response before it disrupts learning. New information reaches the amygdala before it reaches the cortex.¹⁶⁹ Therefore, when responding to a new experience or information perceived to be threatening or dangerous, the amygdala sometimes hijacks the brain,¹⁷⁰ disables the functions of the cortex, and keeps the stress response engaged.¹⁷¹ Inflammatory rhetoric that is perceived to be threatening and dangerous, including disparaging remarks about race, ethnicity, and gender, whether assimilated via the media or personal contacts, can cause the amygdala to hijack the brain.¹⁷² Perceived discrimination and continuous thoughts of dealing with negative stereotypes about one’s race, gender, ethnicity, and religion produce a similar result.¹⁷³

The degree to which stress impacts learning and memory formation depends on several factors including the duration and intensity of the stress,¹⁷⁴ and whether the stressor is intrinsic or extrinsic.¹⁷⁵ Stress is categorized based on duration as acute, episodic acute, or chronic,¹⁷⁶ and on intensity as mild, moderate, extreme, or severe.¹⁷⁷ Acute stress is temporary, short-term, and lasts for up to one day.¹⁷⁸ Episodic acute stress is a series of acute stresses that occurs over a short period of time, while chronic stress is long-term and occurs when one thinks they are unable to control or change a threatening or harmful situation.¹⁷⁹ Discrimination is known to cause chronic stress.¹⁸⁰

A law student undergoing chronic stress cannot learn optimally. The capacity to learn, retain, and recall information is directly linked to the number and health of the neurons. Healthy neurons are better able to receive, transmit, store, and retrieve information in the brain, maintain old neural network connections, and create new neural connections. Chronic stress remodels or damages the neurons in the brain.¹⁸¹

Chronic stress remodels the dendrites in the amygdala, causing them to increase and expand. As a result, the amygdala constantly engages the stress response and floods the body with stress hormones.¹⁸² Elevated levels of stress hormones can cause the amygdala to shut down the cortex’s ability to process information, which hinders learning, and can prevent the cortex from regulating the body’s stress response, which keeps the body in a state of high alert and generates increased anxiety.¹⁸³ Over time, the increased anxiety can lead to anxiety disorder.¹⁸⁴

Chronic stress has an opposite, but equally damaging impact on the neurons in the prefrontal cortex and in the hippocampus. Chronic stress causes the dendrites in the prefrontal cortex and in the hippocampus to degenerate and, in extreme cases, shrivel and die.¹⁸⁵ Damage to the dendrites in the prefrontal cortex disrupts working memory and diminishes the ability to focus, reason, problem solve, think and respond accurately, prioritize, and perform critical analysis.¹⁸⁶ Similarly, damage to the dendrites in the hippocampus affects new memory formation and recall.¹⁸⁷ Temporary damage impairs memory formation and consolidation, as well as the ability to retrieve and recall information.¹⁸⁸ Permanent damage leads to memory loss.¹⁸⁹

Chronic stress also diminishes the brain’s ability to focus on factual information and stymies interest and the motivation to learn. Fear- and anxiety-induced stress inside and outside of the classroom prompt the brain to release trimethylamine which retards brain cell development and after an extended time, reduces motivation.¹⁹⁰ Likewise, the brain overwhelmed by stress is unable to focus and engage in cognitive processes necessary for successful learning.¹⁹¹

In addition to chronic stress, research shows that acute stress also impairs learning and memory.¹⁹² Stress researcher Tallie Baram and her team found that acute stress lasting for only a few hours¹⁹³ causes the dendrites to degenerate and weakens the synapses’ ability to “collect and store memories.”¹⁹⁴ Similarly, acute and chronic stress hinder learning and memory by preventing the neurotransmitters from efficiently transporting information among neurons.¹⁹⁵

Stress contributes to the academic achievement gap among different groups of students.¹⁹⁶ Researchers investigating the impact of stress exposure on academic achievement have concluded that the difference in stress exposure, both inside and outside the classroom, and the difference in stress response “may explain why two students with the same level of knowledge may have different results on the same standardized tests—or why one student does not accumulate the same level of knowledge in the first place.”¹⁹⁷ They argue that students exposed to extrinsic stress in the classroom, such as perceived discrimination and stereotype threats, are at a learning and test-taking disadvantage because they tend to form more rigid habit-based memory “rather than more flexible memories that connect concepts together.”¹⁹⁸ They also argue that exposure to chronic extrinsic stress “out-of-school,”¹⁹⁹ and in particular “psychological stress associated with being a member of a racial/ethnic minority group,”²⁰⁰ rereduces the students’ ability to learn and to respond optimally on tests.²⁰¹

2. Healing the Brain on Stress

Although stress is known to hinder successful learning, there is good news. Students who have difficulty learning because of their stress exposure can heal and rewire their brain to learn optimally through processes called neurogenesis and neuroplasticity.²⁰² Neurogenesis enables the brain to perpetually generate new neurons and heal existing ones that are damaged or remodeled by stress.²⁰³ Similarly, neuroplasticity allows the brain to perpetually prune, strengthen, or rewire old neural connections and create new ones based on new information and experiences.²⁰⁴ As a result, the brain is better able to successfully learn new information and experiences;²⁰⁵ this includes the brain whose functions are impaired by stress. To further increase the opportunities for successful learning, new information and experiences should be repeated because repetition enhances learning and retention by strengthening neural connections.²⁰⁶ However, the converse is also true. It is easier to forget information and experiences that are not repeated or used.²⁰⁷

Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity also stimulate “new thinking, coping, and relating skills.”²⁰⁸ This is critical information for educators and administrators whose students live in a constant state of fear and anxiety. Exposing these students to new information and experiences, which is most successfully learned when repeated, can guide their brain toward new thoughts and relating skills that will improve their ability to handle adverse situations. As a result, this can reduce fear and anxiety.

While neurogenesis and neuroplasticity are necessary for successful learning, learning also encourages neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. Postmortem studies on the human brain show that learning promotes neurogenesis and neuroplasticity.²⁰⁹ Law schools can intentionally stimulate neurogenesis and neuroplasticity by creating learning environments that are non-stressful, engaging, inclusive, and inspire positive emotions.²¹⁰ This will signal a positive step toward engaging and motivating all students to learn successfully.

3. Preventing Stress by Altering One’s Perception of Control and Refusing to Internalize Psychosocial Stressors

Research shows that the stress impact of psychosocial stressors is based on an individual’s perception of control over the stressors, and the tendency to internalize the stress stimulus.²¹¹ The perception of control over a stressor affects the duration and intensity of the stress response.²¹² Based on the level of perceived control, the cortex analyzes the situation and tells the amygdala that there is no, or little need, to engage the stress response. For example, law students of color affected by racism or ethnic discrimination are more likely to experience chronic stress, and feel demotivated and hopeless if they perceive an inability to control or address the discrimination.²¹³ The same cohort of law students, however, are less likely to feel stressed or feel the same degree of stress if they think they can control the discriminatory situation.²¹⁴ The students’ perception of control is enhanced when they are trained and feel prepared and empowered to address discrimination and similar psychosocial stressors.²¹⁵

Psychosocial stressors hinder learning and cause the most damage to the body when internalized. Dr. David Chae concluded in a 2013 study that Black males who experienced high levels of racism, such as driving or shopping while Black, and who internalized strong “anti-[B]lack bias” were more likely to suffer from adverse health consequences than those who experienced similarly high levels of racism but who did not internalize the “anti-[B]lack bias.”²¹⁶

Given that the “act of internalization” may be conscious or unconscious,²¹⁷ discrimination can engage the stress response, inhibit learning, and cause physical harm to law students of color and of historically marginalized groups even if the students do not consciously focus on the discriminatory situation.

C. Turning the Tides: Using Positive Emotions to Help the Brain to Learn

Positive emotions such as confidence, interest, and joy contribute to effective learning and are especially important when students are undergoing stress. The brain learns best in a safe, non-threatening, and stressfree or low-stress environment where incoming information can flow uninterrupted to the prefrontal cortex. Positive emotions help to make this happen. Positive emotions enhance learning by making it easier, and possible in cases of chronic stress, for new information to reach the prefrontal cortex where it can be consciously processed, stored, and retrieved.²¹⁸ Positive emotions also facilitate learning by tempering negative emotions, and prompting the brain to turn off or turn down the body’s stress response. This reduces, or at best totally stops, the flow of stress hormones that prevents the neural connections required for effective learning.

Positive emotions also facilitate learning by increasing the brain’s production of dopamine.²¹⁹ Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that carries information between neurons and across the synapses.²²⁰ High levels of dopamine in the brain increase “focus, memory, and motivation.”²²¹

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson suggests that positive emotions encourage learning and also make it easier to manage and cope with stressors.²²² Dr. Fredrickson’s “broaden-and-build” theory of positive emotions posits that positive emotions, such as joy and interest, lead to open-mindedness and increased awareness, which make it possible to learn new information and new skills.²²³ For example, joy inspires creativity,²²⁴ and interest increases attention and motivates students to learn new information and attempt new experiences.²²⁵ The broaden-and-build theory also posits that positive emotions help to “build enduring personal resources,” including intellectual, physical, social, and psychological resources that make it possible to manage current and future threats and enhance problem solving skills, resilience, confidence, and motivation.²²⁶ In addition, positive emotions alter worldviews and reinforce the ability to handle stressors, which in turn increase the perception of control over psychosocial stressors and curb the tendency to internalize them.²²⁷

III. Empowering and Motivating Students to Learn by Incorporating Social Justice Issues Into the First-Year Legal Writing Curriculum

Law schools may not have the power to eliminate the stressors that cause law students of color and of historically marginalized groups to experience StressPlus, but they can create learning environments to help this cohort of students prevent or reduce the stress impact that is known to hinder effective learning. Incorporating social justice issues into the first-year law school curriculum,²²⁸ and especially into the first-year legal writing course, will contribute to such a learning environment. Besides, incorporating social justice issues into the law school curriculum facilitates learning for all law students²²⁹ and has the added benefits of building positive emotions in law students of color and of historically marginalized groups, empowering them, and motivating them to learn more effectively.²³⁰

The American Bar Association (ABA) requires law schools to prepare law students to pass the bar exam and to become effective members of the legal profession.²³¹ The ABA also expects law schools to demonstrate their intent to realize these goals through established learning outcomes that must include competency in knowledge and understanding of the law, legal analysis and reasoning, problem-solving, legal research, and legal writing.²³² Even if a law school has the most rigorous of legal education programs, it will fall short of fulfilling this obligation to the ABA if a cohort of law students cannot learn because they are too stressed.

Law students of color and of historically marginalized groups who are fearful and anxious because they feel constantly surveilled, threatened, mistreated, or unfairly treated, regardless of whether this comes from outside or inside the classroom, cannot effectively engage in the higher cognitive functions required to learn the law. Stress compromises their ability to focus, process, consolidate and remember new information, and recall old information. Simply put, without careful intervention starting in their first year of law school, stress can prevent law students of color and of historically marginalized groups from effectively learning the skills necessary for them to pass the bar and to become effective members of the legal profession.²³³

A. Incorporating Social Justice into the

First-Year Law School Curriculum to Help Students Learn

Professors Pamela Edwards and Sheilah Vance define social justice as “the process of remedying oppression, which includes ‘exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence.’”²³⁴ Further, they define issues of social justice to include problems involving race, ethnicity, and interracial conflict, “class conflict, gender distinctions,…, religious differences,” and sexual orientation conflicts.²³⁵ Social justice is at the core of real-world issues that directly or indirectly affect law students of color and of historically marginalized groups, their families, and members of their communities.²³⁶ Real-world issues involving social justice are pervasive and pernicious and are often sources of psychosocial stressors known to cause chronic stress. A lawyer, at some point in his or her career, may be asked to address problems based on issues of social justice that will force some to question their belief in the fundamental right to equality before the law.

Teaching law students the skills to address social justice issues empowers them to view the law as a vehicle for change²³⁷ and shows them that they have a role in effecting both legal and social change. According to Professor M. Kwoka, “teaching social justice concepts empower students to critically examine the way the law operates in society, rather than uncritically accepting legal outcomes—even legally compelled ones—as just outcomes.”²³⁸ Instead of feeling powerless and accepting of social injustices, law students taught to address issues of social justice are more likely to feel confident that they can use their skills to influence legal and social change²³⁹ that will improve the current social environment and benefit real people.

Furthermore, teaching law students the skills to address social justice issues that impact real lives builds interest and motivates the students to learn.²⁴⁰ In a survey of legal writing programs and professors,²⁴¹ “survey responders commonly reported that incorporating social justice into the legal writing classroom or curriculum, even on a small scale, helps spark student interest and motivation.”²⁴² This is especially true for law students of color and of historically marginalized groups.²⁴³ Interest affects motivation. Motivation builds emotional resilience and enables learning and cognition.²⁴⁴

Additionally, teaching law students the skills to address issues of social justice empowers them to alter their perception of, and ultimately their perception of control over, experiences and situations that are known sources of psychosocial stressors. A student’s perception of control over psychosocial stressors determines his or her stress response, which then dictates the release of stress hormones. Given that stress hormones adversely impact learning, cognition, and memory, students who feel capable and equipped to address issues of social justice are more likely to feel confident and empowered which make them better able to focus, process new information, and store and recall old information, which overall enhance their ability to learn successfully.²⁴⁵ Confidence alters the perception of control over psychosocial stressors; consequently, the students will most likely choose not to internalize the stressors, and if they do, it allows them to turn off or limit the duration of the stress response.²⁴⁶

The benefits of mitigating stress and facilitating learning are important reasons why law schools should introduce issues of social justice early, and ideally in the first-year curriculum. Enrollment in law school does not shield law students from the various psychosocial stressors, including racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination, nor does it automatically shield them from the stressors’ potential to cause chronic stress.²⁴⁷ Given the wealth of research that demonstrates that stress inhibits learning, it is safe to say that law students of color and of historically marginalized groups who are at risk for StressPlus will start out at a learning and performance deficit if law schools do not intentionally create learning environments where law students are taught in the first year how to change their perception of the psychosocial stressors, thus eliminating or reducing the stress impact. The first year of law school is a critical preparatory time for law students;²⁴⁸ their ability to effectively learn the law and relative legal concepts in their first year will determine if they are promoted to the second year and generally influences their academic performance throughout law school.²⁴⁹

First-year law students should not have to wait until their second or third year to be able take a clinic or an upper-level writing course that incorporates social justice issues. Waiting beyond the first year may be too late. By then, the stress exposure may have already taken its toll and impeded learning, putting law students of color and of historically marginalized groups at risk for poorer academic performance. Besides, it is possible that unless courses that incorporate social justice issues are mandatory in the second or third years of law school, students may not take them or may not have the opportunity to take them.

B. Incorporating Social Justice as a Mandatory Component of the

First-Year Legal Writing Curriculum

The first-year legal writing course is an ideal place to incorporate issues of social justice for several reasons. First, legal writing has a long and proven history of creating social change.²⁵⁰ Lawyers have used, and continue to successfully use, legal writing to remedy social injustices. For example, lawyers have used appellate and amicus curiae briefs to persuade the Supreme Court to end unjust practices such as racial segregation, employment and religious discrimination, and marriage inequality.²⁵¹ Lawyers also use legal writing to persuade trial courts to grant justice to the marginalized, and to advocate for social policies that address social injustices in areas including access to health care and education reform.

Second, the first-year legal writing course is an ideal place to introduce issues of social justice because of its focus on teaching oral and written skills necessary for the practice of law.²⁵² A typical legal writing course teaches students how to “think like a lawyer” and the legal reasoning, research, writing analysis, and problem-solving skills lawyers need to effectively practice law.²⁵³ Unlike traditional lecture courses that primarily use the case method, legal writing courses emphasize learning by doing²⁵⁴ and are designed to give students the opportunity to put these skills into practice.

Typically, legal writing classes provide students with opportunities for active hands-on learning.²⁵⁵ In the first-year legal writing course, students are introduced to the types of writing that attorneys use in advocating on behalf of their clients²⁵⁶ and they are taught how to effectively model these types of writing to address legal problems. Legal problems involving social justice inspire students to want to do a good job.²⁵⁷ For example, when a law student learns how to write a letter advocating for a student who has been unfairly dismissed from school and knows that that letter may get the student reinstated in school, the law student becomes motivated to learn and works harder at producing a good workproduct.²⁵⁸ Similarly, when a law student sees the impact that a wellwritten summary judgment motion has in moving the court to allow a case to advance so that the plaintiff who brings a social justice issue can have her day in court, and the law student knows that he or she is being taught to create similar summary judgment motions, the law student is likely to be excited and motivated to learn.²⁵⁹ Research shows that perceived impact and interest are strongly correlated.²⁶⁰ The more impact individuals think they have, the more interested they become.²⁶¹ This means that the more impact law students think they have through their writing, the more interested they will be in learning.

Third, by incorporating social justice issues into the first-year legal writing course, the students learn that their legal writing skills are transferable. During the legal writing course, students learn legal writing skills which are reinforced by strategic repetition, timely feedback, and practice. While the students hone their legal writing skills, they also learn that they are able to transfer these skills to address new situations.²⁶² For example, a law student who learns to write a memorandum assessing whether a person’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated has the skills to write a letter challenging an unfair lease. To make this happen, the student must transfer the skills used to write the memorandum from one context, writing the memorandum, to another context, writing the letter.²⁶³ The transfer of skills and the transfer of learning depend on the brain’s capacity to retrieve and connect previously stored information to new situations.²⁶⁴ Transfer of learning is described as a “core concept in learning” and a foundation of “other cognitive actives.”²⁶⁵ Effective transfers, however, can be difficult for students²⁶⁶ especially if the brain is unable to make efficient neural connections because of stress. A first-year legal writing course that includes legal problems based on social justice issues and transfer-friendly teaching techniques²⁶⁷ can enable effective transfers. The ability to transfer newly acquired legal writing skills to different situations helps to build positive emotions, increases confidence, and facilitates learning.

Fourth, the first-year legal writing course typically has a smaller class size and is one of the few courses in law school where the students receive individualized, “immediate or direct feedback on their work.”²⁶⁸ Feedback is important in reducing stress, building confidence, and enhancing learning.²⁶⁹ Also, corrective feedback is important to learning because it encourages neuroplasticity, promotes long-term memory, and enhances the brain’s ability to reason and perform analysis.²⁷⁰ Law students have identified the lack of feedback, and in particular a lack of positive feedback, as a primary stressor in law school.²⁷¹ Conversely, students displayed an increase in self-confidence after receiving frequent corrective feedback and being taught to use the feedback to produce a better work product.²⁷²

Fifth, legal-writing is a mandatory first-year course at most law schools.²⁷³ Incorporating issues of social justice into a mandatory first-year course ensures that all students are directly exposed to real-world issues that affect real people of diverse backgrounds.²⁷⁴ This enhances diversity awareness, which is an important step toward creating an inclusive learning environment for all students; one that decreases the stereotype threats and perceived discrimination that prevent some students from learning.²⁷⁵

Contrary to the belief that teaching social justice issues to first-year legal writing students is too difficult to undertake in the first year, the positive impact on learning makes it a necessary addition to the first-year law school curriculum.²⁷⁶ Social justice issues can be introduced into the first-year legal writing course through discrete tasks such as client letters or closed memoranda. Additionally, simulations based on real-life social justice issues may be modified for the pedagogical purpose of making them more manageable and accessible to the first-year students.

While there is a trend toward incorporating social justice into the legal writing curriculum, some teachers continue to hesitate to do so, claiming that their experiences and training did not equip them with the skills to handle legal problems involving diversity and social justice.²⁷⁷ However, according to Howard University’s Associate Provost, Okainer Christian Dark, teachers do not need “special tools and skills to effectively” incorporate issues of social justice into their teaching.²⁷⁸ The teachers need to “be willing to engage in some risk taking to enhance and enrich the students’ learning experience.”²⁷⁹ Just as it is possible to write and assign a hypothetical assignment about whether a landlord is liable for injuries caused by a tenant’s dog, it is also possible to write and assign a hypothetical involving a social justice issue such as whether a school will be held liable for gender discrimination if the school bans a female transgender student from the school’s female swimming team.

C. Incorporating Issues of Social Justice into the

First-Year Legal Writing Curriculum at Howard Law

Howard University School of Law includes social justice issues into the first-year legal writing course because social justice is at the core of Howard’s mission. Furthermore, we have discovered that introducing the students to issues of social justice early in the law school program builds their confidence, stimulates their interest, motivates them to learn, and empowers them to think of, and use, the law as a vehicle for social change.

Former Howard University School of Law Professor Richard Thornell described Howard as integral in addressing “the societal problems of African-Americans and other peoples oppressed by social circumstances.”²⁸⁰ Professor Thornell noted that Howard’s legacy²⁸¹ demands that it stands as “the vanguard for social justice” and that it addresses “the systemic problems confronting the struggle for human rights and social justice.”²⁸² Alumnus Judge Damon Keith credits his legal training at Howard University School of Law for teaching him resilience, empowering him, and imbuing him with the confidence that notwithstanding the social climate, he could make a difference because he knew how to use the law to effect social change.²⁸³ This enhanced his perception of control over prevailing psychosocial stressors. Judge Keith became “one of the most respected judges in America”²⁸⁴ and a champion for civil and human rights and social justice,²⁸⁵ albeit having endured racial profiling and insults, police harassment, professional prejudice, and other forms of racial discrimination throughout his life.²⁸⁶

Given the ongoing societal challenges to diversity, the evidence of pernicious and pervasive discrimination, and Howard’s highly diverse student population, incorporating issues of social justice into the first-year legal writing curriculum and teaching the students how to use their written and oral advocacy skills to address social injustices empowers the students to view the law as a vehicle for social change. It also gives them the confidence that they can use the law to make changes that will remedy social injustices. This knowledge helps to rewire their brains and leads them to alter their perception of control over psychosocial stressors that directly or indirectly affect them and cause stress that generally hinders learning.

Incorporating issues of social justice into the first-year legal writing curriculum not only sparks interest, but it also motivates students to learn. As their teachers, we are able to gauge their interest and motivation to learn from their engagement with the materials and cases throughout the legal writing course.

We introduce the students to social justice issues at the beginning of the legal writing course. The students work from a problem packet that simulates a real-life problem involving social justice issues that is, or recently has been, highlighted in the news. In the first semester, the students work on building the rule that governs their situation. Taking into consideration our pedagogical goals and knowing that the students are new to legal reasoning, research, and writing, we give the students a set of relevant legal authority and teach them how to extract a rule, build a rule synthesis, and write a memorandum analyzing the issue.

The next assignment asks the students to write an objective closed memorandum to the senior lawyer educating him or her about the law and explaining the legal issues. They receive extensive written and oral feedback on the closed memorandum before they hand in their next assignment, a re-write of the closed memorandum. By the time the students are asked to write the open memorandum, they have sufficiently mastered legal research to conduct their own research.

In the second semester of their first year, the students focus on persuading the judges that justice is best served by deciding in favor of their client. They work on a client letter, a motion brief, a motion brief rewrite, and an oral argument. The students receive timely and frequent feedback on their work.

Over the years, the students have worked on issues including racial and religious discrimination, workplace harassment, sex discrimination, racial profiling, illegal search and seizure, mass incarceration, discrimination based on gender identity, and immigration.²⁸⁷ We have found that the students are engaged and motivated to learn because the issues are familiar to them, have impacted their lives directly or indirectly, or are likely to impact their future clients. We also find that the students worked hard at producing an excellent work product because they are concerned about seeking justice for their “clients” whose legal problems simulate those of real people.

As the students progress in the course, they become more confident that they are learning transferrable skills that will enable them to address social justice issues in a real-world setting. This sparks a change from powerless to empowered. The students who may have felt angry, anxious, alienated, and powerless when directly or indirectly faced with psychosocial stressors caused by social injustices begin to feel that they are learning how to address these injustices, and find a sense of power and control. This builds their confidence and resilience.

In my first-year legal writing course, over the years, I notice the biggest change when the students start to work on their open memorandum. By this time, they have received feedback on their rule statement, closed memorandum, and closed memorandum re-write. They are confident that they are closer toward mastering skills that lawyers have used for centuries to advocate for their clients in all realms, including clients who have suffered from social injustices. It is gratifying to watch the students’ focus sharpen toward a deeper understanding of the law and legal skills they are learning.

Conclusion

The ABA expects law schools to create opportunities for all law students to learn effectively so that they can pass the bar and become competent lawyers. However, law students are stressed. And, adding even more cause for concern, law students of color and of historically marginalized groups are exposed to an additional layer of stress solely because they belong to a historically marginalized group. Given our current social environment fraught with racial divisiveness and attacks on diversity, it is unlikely that the psychosocial stressors affecting law students of color and of historically marginalized groups will abate.

Stress inhibits learning. The developments in neuroscience and cognitive science show learning environments that address real-life issues and build positive emotions enhance learning. By incorporating issues of social justice into the law school curriculum, starting with the first-year legal writing course, law schools can create a learning environment that facilitates and enhances successful learning for all students.