In fall of 2021, Cardozo Law announced new initiatives and expanded course offerings to acknowledge and work to eradicate systemic racism by ensuring that Cardozo graduates are culturally competent and well-educated on issues of discrimination. Since then, the law school has remained steadfast in its commitment to educating students in ways that center black, indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC).

One of the changes was to create a requirement that students take an upper-level course focused on investigating issues related to race, as part of a credit requirement called Race and the Law. One such course that fulfills this requirement has the same name and discusses the history of racism and discrimination in America and how it is intertwined and supported by law and legal structures. In addition to this change, Dean Melanie Leslie appointed Professor Peter Markowitz, Co-Director of the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic as Associate Dean of Equity in Curriculum and Teaching. In that role, he helps build course offerings focused on how law has historically treated people of color and coordinates faculty training on issues of race, implicit bias and cultural competency.

“The purpose of requiring students to take an upper-level class with a focus on race and the law is to ensure that when they enter the workforce, they’re not blind to one of the most important dynamics that has shaped American law over time,” Markowitz said. 

He went on to say that to make sure students are best prepared for the 21st century, professors teaching any course at Cardozo should endeavor spend at least some time in the semester investigating the intersection between race and the law as part of a broad curricular equity initiative. 

“It is important to us that students and faculty don’t view inquiry into the dynamics of race as something that only happens in one class,” Markowitz said. “We know that race has played a powerful role in shaping all areas of American law. So, what we’ve done as a faculty is to task ourselves with the challenge to look hard within our own expertise and within our own classes, whether those classes be criminal law, torts, intellectual property or immigration and to interrogate how dynamics of race have operated historically and continue to operate now in those fields.” 

Outside of making sure that all curricula are fair and emphasize Cardozo’s strong commitment to justice for all, the professors who teach the classes that fulfill the Race and the Law requirement are also experts on the intersection between the historical racial inequities in American law and how they shape contemporary society and modern law. 

Professor Alexander Reinert, who has been teaching the Race and the Law class for two years now, said that all lawyers can benefit from understanding the many ways, historically and today, that these two things intersect. 

“From the outset in the United States, law and slavery were inextricably intertwined – law protected and supported slavery in all sorts of ways,” Reinert said. “And even after the Civil War, the Supreme Court enabled white supremacist ideology to be deployed to oppress free Black citizens. And to the extent efforts have been made to build a more equitable society, law has played a role, both good and bad. It is important for lawyers to understand the intersection between law and race in all these ways.” 

Reinert also emphasized that even as a professor, he has been taught a great deal through teaching Race and the Law. 

“Any time I teach a new class, I learn a lot, and this class is no exception,” he said. “It has enriched my teaching in so many ways, mostly by helping me think of new ways to make connections between law and inequality throughout the other courses I teach, like Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law and Federal Courts. Some of the cases I teach in Race and the Law are cases I have taught many times in other classes – but now I teach them completely differently.” 

Professor Emmanuel Hiram Arnaud’s three-year-old seminar, Race, the Constitution, and American Empire is one that fulfills the credit requirements, and for the last two years, he has taught other classes that meet the requirements. He said different perspectives on the law, whether it be looking at certain cases through a different lens or welcoming students to give their views on cases influenced by their unique life experiences is an important aspect of the class. 

“One of the most beneficial aspects of these courses is that folks come with varying perspectives on issues like constitutional interpretation and lived experiences,” Arnaud said. “As they learn in these courses, the intersection of lived experiences and constitutional interpretation sometimes produces doctrines that insulate sustained inequality, but at other moments brings the promise of a more perfect union for all.” 

Arnaud also said that teaching these kinds of classes at Cardozo is important and appropriate. This is due to the role that the law school has played in the development of various kinds of critical legal studies in its almost 50-year history and to its namesake’s, Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo’s, strong beliefs and aspirations for a more functional and practical understanding of our constitutional system. He added that in both of his classes, he invites people from outside of the law school including social activists, a formerly incarcerated person who is now a community organizer and even lawyers who have argued the cases that students study to give their own unique perspectives on how race and the law intersect.

Professor Arnaud emphasized the importance of having a thoughtful discussion around these topics at Cardozo, and for students to use the class as an opportunity to expand their legal education and grow to be compassionate and intellectually well-rounded lawyers. 

“It is my hope that students come out of these courses with a more nuanced understanding of our Constitution and the history that shaped it,” Arnaud said. “Ultimately, my objective is to deepen our commitment to our democratic experiment and continue exploring ways to fulfill the aspirations that were declared at our founding.”