In 2021, a team of BU law students helped advocate for those targeted by false criminal charges to seek police accountability under federal civil rights law.
That advocacy took the form of research for an amicus brief—coauthored by Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig, and Professors Jasmine Gonzales Rose and Jessica Silbey, and others—that was submitted to the US Supreme Court on behalf of the School of Law and BU’s Center For Antiracist Research.
The legal brief is just one way the School of Law is collaborating with the center to prepare the next generation of antiracist lawyers. The latest partnership led to the introduction, in 2022, of the Antiracist Scholars For Progress, Innovation & Racial Equity (ASPIRE) program, which provides a full-tuition scholarship and equips selected students with the tools to challenge policies and practices that maintain racial inequities.
The program was developed by Onwuachi-Willig, the inaugural Ryan Roth Gallo & Ernest J. Roth Gallo Professor—the nation’s first endowed professorship in critical race theory—in concert with Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Center for Antiracist Research. In addition to the tuition benefit, ASPIRE students will work with a faculty mentor, attend workshops, and take part in a paid, one-semester internship at the Center for Antiracist Research.
For society to move forward in an equitable and inclusive manner, Onwuachi-Willig says, the next generation of lawyers needs not only to understand how law has contributed to inequities but also how the profession can correct them. “Law influences every major racial problem and inequity in our society.”