Critically Rethinking the Concept of Critical Mass

• In Event: A Seat at the Table? Cultivating Legal Education for Marginalized and Minoritized Law Students Within and Beyond Racial Capitalism

Abstract

Race-conscious affirmative action in admission consists of college and university-level policies and programs for recruiting, admitting, and matriculating minoritized students (Wright & Garces, 2018). Previous research has shown that structural racial diversity (the amount of racially minoritized students at a school or in a certain class) is a necessary prerequisite to achieving any interactional racial diversity, it is not by itself sufficient to achieve that outcome nor can it by itself be a substitute for having the necessary number of students (Thomas, 2020). However, much of this research has focused on admissions policies and practices, rather than student experiences.

Thus, this instrumental case study sought to highlight the cultural practices that permeated the school community’s diversity culture. The study utilized semi-structured interviews, formal classroom observations and informal observations to critically examine the concept of critical mass and the culture of diversity at a predominately white law school. Data showed that some efforts to advance substantive diversity at the law school that was the site of the study were limited to admissions.
In the classroom, an increase in minoritized students did not automatically transfer into increased cross racial dialogue. Outside the classroom, the current political environment provoked a contented racial climate, in which minoritized students felt simultaneously welcome and under attack. Furthermore, a philosophy of non-intentionality and individuality dominated the culture at the law school and impeded their own attempts at achieving their diversity goals.

This study is important, and worthy of further examination within the AERA symposia, because it provides evidence that racially minoritized and marginalized students bring their “whole selves'' to law schools (Aguilar-Hernández, 2020) —racialized spaces dedicated to supposedly color-blind abstract notions of justice, steeped in an environment focused on hyper-competition, hierarchies, and prestige. This focus mediates the experiences of minoritized students in law schools (Nishi, 2020). As they proceed on a journey towards participation in the legal profession without much of the support and navigation capital (Yosso, 2005).) that their majority counterparts have.

The implications from this study show that minoritized law students persist through these challenges knowing that they represent not just themselves in these spaces but that often they are seen as “token representatives”' for their entire race (Essien, 2003, Jones, 2021). The lack of representation in law schools does not only affect minoritized students (James, 2014). As judges and lawyers must go through the legal education system, law and policy is shaped by the experiences they have (or do not have) during law school (Kow, 2010). Therefore, an examination of minortized access to an environment while in law school is appropriate and timely given the changing demographics of our nation and the stagnant racial progress within the legal profession.

Author

• Dwayne Kwaysee Wright, The George Washington University