Advancing Racial Equity Through Action
What We Do
- Democratize access to legal education and knowledge for communities of color and system impacted people.
- Analyze and study issues of race and equity in law, legal education, and legal practice.
- Advocate for laws and practices that protect and empower people from marginalized communities.
- Encourage and support students, organizers, and attorneys from underserved groups who are working to advance social justice through the law.
Our Approach
Conducting interdisciplinary research and publishing reports, scholarship, and popular media articles to provide both quantitative and qualitative background on the scope and impact of disparities that marginalized people face in the law, legal education and the legal profession. Hosting lectures, panels, and distinguished visitors to elevate issues of equity, access, and transformative legal education and lawyering.
Democratizing access to legal knowledge and education for groups whose current educational opportunities do not fall within other available academic or continuing education programs; Providing focused instruction on legal curriculum and the process of navigating legal education to people in K-12 schools, colleges, community groups, reentry programs, and prisons. Offering training and resources to administrators and employees in local K-12 schools, colleges, law schools, bar associations, court systems, and legal services organizations on the importance and potential of expansive equity in law, legal education, and the legal profession.
Providing mentorship and support services to prospective students, current students and established attorneys from racially and socially disadvantaged groups; Collaborating with coalitions, bar associations and social justice organizations, using legal and non-legal strategies to advocate for policies that increase legal education and employment access and opportunities for disadvantaged individuals and groups.
Our Initiatives
Expanding Access to Law School and Legal Education
Lawyers play an influential role in shaping the political and legal landscape of our society, serving as government and organizational leaders, drafting laws and policies, defending legal rights, and deciding critical issues that affect individual and collective life and liberty.
W. Haywood Burns Chair in Human and Civil Rights
The Center for Diversity in the Legal Profession collaborates with CUNY Law to host the W. Haywood Burns Chair in Human and Civil Rights. CDLP’s mission directly reflects the vision and values held by W. Haywood Burns. Burns’s contributions as a civil rights lawyer, legal educator, and racial justice scholar focused on training lawyers who understood the racism inherent in the legal system and who were prepared to represent the underserved.