boalt's meeting of the minds on class privilege

[abony holmes]

Yesterday Boalt held a town hall on class privilege. The conversation was both emotional and productive, and addressed some of the issues discussed by 1L Danielle in a previous Shark video, and me and another Boalt student in the comments of that entry. Highlights of the town hall included:

• The legal profession is incredibly hierarchal, and law school and the legal profession promote hierarchy and conflating self-worth and “prestige” — all of which exacerbates problems of class privilege.
• Attorneys and law students should, in response to this do several things:

1. Do not carry a sense of entitlement around with you. This means treat the staff (of the law school and of your future firm) the way you’d treat a fellow associate and partners. Be respectful, be cordial, and every now and then, before you ask them to do something for you, ask them how their day was.
2. Use your power and class privilege to be an advocate for those who do not have that privilege. If you witness mistreatment speak up on behalf of those who (for fear of losing their job) cannot speak up for themselves.
3. Recognize that not everyone at the law school is from the same class background. Some of us identify more with the workers in Café Zeb and the people who empty the trash bins than the incredibly prestigious professors.

Although one participant describe the entire event as “talk therapy,” some concrete action items came from it. Several students plan to create a similar conversation for 1Ls during orientation to combat the hierarchy of the legal profession and encourage 1Ls and expose its damaging effects.

Comments

[Toney]

Great great great ideas. Why have this now though? Better late than never, but class privilege is incredibly pervasive and certainly deserves to not be shuffled off to the end of the year. This is something that all incoming 1Ls should sit through at the beginning of the school year, or even an abridged version during orientation. This would also be a great way to rip the bandaid® off the competitive nature of several incoming students (particularly those coming from ultra-competitive undergrad) and introduce them to the "sharing is caring" Boalt ethos.