A woman holds a sign protesting police brutality while marching through Wall Street in Manhattan, New York. Photo: Ryland West: ALM

As protests rage across the country over police killings of minorities and systemic racism, legal academics are making the case that law schools, law students and lawyers have a key role to play in promoting justice and ending inequality.

Deans nationwide are sending messages to their communities that they support the protesters as well as students, faculty and staff who are feeling unsettled or devastated by the recent events. Some schools are hosting open forums for students to share their responses to the unrest and its underlying causes, while others are holding workshops on policing and other germane legal topics. But the overarching theme of these communications is that lawyers and law students cannot turn a blind eye to racism and inequality and that the time for action is now.

"Our knowledge, our tools, and our privilege impose on us an obligation to study and learn about all of this, but also to act," wrote University of California at Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky in a May 31 statement. "We are the profession responsible for justice."

Chemerinsky invoked the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous Letter From a Birmingham Jail, noting that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

It's not the first time that legal educators have had to decide how to respond in the face of mass protests over racism and police brutality. Law students at numerous campuses staged protests in December of 2014, after the white police officer who killed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was not indicted. Some students requested that final exams be delayed so that they could participate in protests and because they were feeling elevated stress and anxiety.

But the current events are different in that protests are both widespread and happening when the nation is already dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak.

"We are living through an incredibly difficult moment," wrote Dan Filler, dean of the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law. "People are quarantined due to a global pandemic. We have witnessed the murder of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. There is a leadership void. Every moment is fraught."

But the law school community "cannot look away from the fact that our own government is policing African Americans to death," Filler continued. The Philadelphia school on Wednesday is holding an online forum to discuss the role of discretion in the criminal justice process as well as racism.

At New York University School of Law, Dean Trevor Morrison is encouraging students to get involved through various institutional programs, including the school's Criminal Justice Lab and its Policing Project—which focuses on police reform and accountability.

"The recent killing of George Floyd—whose last words evoke memories of the 2014 death of Eric Garner—is just the latest in a long list of too many other tragedies," he wrote. "While we know the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, there are countless others whose experiences will never make headlines, whose names and stories we will never know, whose lives mattered. This grief weighs heavily on many in our community; I know it does on me."

The University of Florida Levin College of Law is also hosting a forum Wednesday for students to discuss the ongoing events, as well as a similar session Friday for faculty and staff, Dean Laura Rosenbury wrote in a message to the law school community Monday.

"As a law school, we condemn racism and other social inequalities, and we endeavor to provide the tools that will produce lasting change," reads Rosenbury's letter. "We seek to educate the next generation that will promote and improve the rule of law, defend the Constitution, and protect the most vulnerable throughout our society. Much work remains to be done."

The University of Miami on Tuesday hosted a webinar called "Racist Police Brutality and the Role of Law, Lawyers and Law Enforcement in the Problem and its Solutions," that was hosted by Dean Anthony Varona and Ronnie Graham, the incoming president of the school's Black Law Students Association.

Duke University School of Law is also planning to hold an open forum for students in the coming days.

"In our anger, frustration, and sadness over this callous loss of life, we must recommit ourselves to what we do best: ask hard and probing questions, conduct reasoned and thoughtful dialogue, and prepare our students for leadership in the face of injustice," wrote Duke Law Dean Kerry Abrams in her message to the law school.