In a June 2020 note to students, faculty and staff of UCLA School of Law, Dean Jennifer Mnookin wrote, “As members of a law school community… we must recognize and grapple with the complicity of the legal system and law enforcement in acts of racism and violence.”

This refers not only to the appalling deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, but to our nation’s history of racial injustice, inequities that exist in the legal profession and even challenges within UCLA Law’s learning environment. Today, we are building on our history as a public law school to advance efforts of equity, diversity and inclusion.

UCLA Law was the first law school in the nation to create a Critical Race Studies Program. Our student journals and centers offer students a wealth of opportunities to engage in issues of social justice. The school is home to students and faculty for whom advancing racial justice is a calling.

In the spring of 2020, in the wake of incidents involving law school faculty, Dean Mnookin announced that UCLA Law and its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee launched several initiatives to improve the learning environment. These include faculty workshops on inclusive teaching; the creation of a Students’ Bill of Rights and Responsibilities; and “clear, accessible procedures for students to provide feedback on the classroom environment and to file concerns or complaints regarding violations of community norms of equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as a process for addressing those complaints in a timely manner.”

“UCLA Law has rightly earned a reputation as a place where people from all backgrounds can thrive. … But we also build community by holding ourselves accountable whenever we fall short of those values,” Dean Mnookin wrote to the law school community in May. “I am heartened by your commitment to our school, by your appreciation for what we do well, and by your desire to make us better tomorrow than we are today.”