Initiatives, Projects, and Actions | Critical Justice Initiative | Center for Civil Rights and Critical Justice | Centers and Institutes

Initiatives/Projects/Actions

The various projects and initiatives under the umbrella of the Critical Justice Initiative, most of which are new activities for the Seattle University School of Law, and for U.S. law schools generally, may include:

Developing and offering an annual summer workshop held at Seattle University School of Law modeled to counterbalance the annual teaching capitalism workshop, which will help new and existing teachers, both from law and other disciplines, embed their teaching and research in the insights and values of the critical schools of legal knowledge, and help them develop curriculum around those insights in the aim of teaching law students and those of other disciplines how to think critically and ethically and honestly about law, the economy, and other systems and their promises and their outcomes.
Developing and maintaining a resource center to inform and document law school compliance and initiatives around revised ABA Standard 303 requiring that law schools provide education on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism. Also leading a national initiative to ensure that critical knowledges, values, and skills are central to compliance with this accreditation standard rather than taking a minimalist check-the-box response. See Steven W. Bender, Revised ABA Standard 303: Curricular, Pedagogical, and Substantive Questions, 47 Seattle U. L.R. SUpra 1 (2024).
Developing curriculum at the Seattle University School of Law, and at other U.S. law schools and those in the Global South, to offer courses steeped in the knowledges and values of the critical schools of legal knowledge, and to ensure structural competencies for law students. Increasingly a prerequisite for successful problem solving across multiple social and economic sectors, structural competency is essential in a profession charged with the just administration of law in an ever-more complex society.
Developing teaching resources and skills that build on the familiar IRAC model of law teaching and add expertise and emphasis on systems and on the key role of identities, groups, interests, and power (IGIP) in the preservation of caste systems persisting across generations, despite generations of reform, both through law and in society.
Partnering with other law schools and their clinics, and with organizations, including those that offer legal fellowships or which represent one or more of the critical schools of legal knowledge, toward the fulfillment of Initiative goals, including the potential for teaching courses through a consortium of schools, or affiliating for the purposes of combating censorship, intimidation, or retaliation that targets critical scholars or curriculum, or affiliation to strengthen democratic decision making on campuses, in workplaces, and in communities, and academic freedom and the free expression of controversial ideas.
Supporting the continued evolution of the Critical Justice textbook and related teaching and advocacy resources, as well as helping to extend their reach into other professional schools and to students outside of law school.
Building library resources around the Initiative goals, values, and advocacy projects, including online and physical resources that foster and enable nontraditional, critical legal research; both housed at Seattle University School of Law but intended as a model to be shared with other librarians.
Sponsoring and organizing academic conferences/symposia that align with Initiative goal, values, and initiatives.
Affiliating with other organizations with similar aims and initiatives, especially the Critical (Legal) Collective that held its first retreat at the Seattle University School of Law in July 2024, and for which the Critical Justice Initiative hopes to serve as a hub for mutual advancement of values and goals.