A Complete Education Requires a Diverse Campus by Dean Patrick E. Hobbs

Winter 2010

As the son of immigrants, I have always viewed America through two different lenses, my own, and that of my parents. This has strongly affected not only the way in which I embrace diversity, but also my desire to cultivate it. My parents came to the United States in 1957 from the counties of Meath and Louth in Ireland, at the time very homogenous communities–all white, all Catholic and all Irish. Early immigrants to America had settled in ethnic enclaves–Irish, Italian, Jewish, etc. My parents settled within walking distance of the jobs they found. Their first apartment was in East Orange, a diverse and rapidly changing community. They had their Irish friends who they spent Sundays with arguing Irish politics, but they loved meeting people from all walks of life— and New Jersey offered a rich variation. As I look back on it now, I think that people who leave the country of their birth for a place like the United States, may look for a better opportunity for themselves and their children, but also come ready to embrace a very different world as well. My parents enjoyed the great diversity their new world had to offer; they valued it and instilled that value in my siblings and me.

Foundational values are first taught to us by our parents in the home. School, later, adds another layer. But early experience in the work world can be a great teacher, too. Through high school and college I worked at a supermarket, often on the night shift from 11 pm to 7 am. My co-workers were diverse in just about every way—ethnic, racial, religious, sexual orientation. While some were in school like me, others had never completed high school. Some had lived in New Jersey their entire lives; others were from South and Central America, Russia and Africa. There were ex-offenders, gamblers, policeman working a second job, moms trying to put their kids through college. It was wonderful. We worked hard and played hard and the experience was a great teacher.

Attending graduate school in the South was also a broadening experience. Although I knew the University of North Carolina School of Law would offer me an excellent education, my choice was also motivated by my desire to live in a Southern community with different traditions and perspectives from the one in which I was raised. The first time someone mentions "The War of Northern Aggression" you know you're not in New Jersey anymore. As a result of these experiences, I learned an important lesson that has shaped and defined my career: exposure to different cultures, both inside and outside of the classroom, is an essential component of a complete education. In that same vein, I believe that law schools have a responsibility to provide students with the learning experiences that come from interacting with a diverse student body and faculty. There is no substitute.

While a student or faculty member from a majority group can certainly make valuable contributions to a classroom discussion, the dialogue is likely to be substantially enriched by those who can use their personal experience, such as their religious upbringing or ethnic and familial background, to bring context to the facts and circumstances of a case. For instance, a discussion of a family law case involving grandparent custody will be greatly enhanced if a student can describe her experience of being raised by her grandmother. Similarly, the LGBT student who describes the challenges and biases he or she faces will bring depth to a conversation about civil rights. Personal testimonies take cases of paper and words and make them real. They bring the empathetic and emotional parts of these issues to the forefront and confront biases and stereotypes in a way that no book or film ever could—let alone edited case law. These conversations help students widen their perspectives and view the world through broader prism. As lawyers we advocate for others; it simply helps to know who those "others" in the world are.

In broadening the educational landscape, law school administrators and faculty members have an important role to play. Administrators and professors at law schools who wish to recruit diverse faculty members can often find great success by simply informing professional colleagues and contacts, such as judges and partners at major firms, that the institution is committed to increasing diversity. When this priority is made clear, excellent candidates, many of whom may have not previously considered a university career, often come forward. During the search process, administrators are wise to forgo rigid definitions of what constitutes a qualified faculty member. The candidate in question may not have a long list of publications, but may have a very creative mind and many years of distinguished scholarship ahead.

In creating a diverse student body, administrators are faced with the challenge of ensuring that their schools receive a sufficient number of applications from minority students. During the past decade, law schools have seen an increase in overall applications; however, the number of applications from African-Americans has remained static. One way to address this is through alternative admissions processes designed for students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, such as Seton Hall's Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEO). Programs such as LEO do not employ quotas, but rather, aim to access applicants in a comprehensive manner that looks beyond numerical indicators, such as grade-point averages and LSAT scores. Founded in 1977, the LEO Program is the anchor in a sustained, interconnected, and ever-growing effort to reach out, recruit, and support students with socio-economic and educational disadvantages—from all cultures and backgrounds. Seton Hall Law has spent the last 30 years building bridges through its programs into the community, and establishing a pipeline from that community into the legal profession. And it has worked. We count among the program's successes a whole host of graduating students who might not otherwise have ever had the opportunity to attend law school. They include students who have gone on to become state and federal judges; partners and associates at major law firms; and high-ranking government officials and advisors. They are absolute success stories that now stand poised in the workplace to mentor the next generation.

But now we need to do more, to reach further into our communities. To deepen the pool of minority applicants, programs that bring education and awareness of the legal field to minority students are tremendously helpful. These pipeline programs expose inner-city youth to careers in the law through initiatives that include law-based summer courses, after-school programs and in-school seminars. They are designed for students at the college, high school and even the middle school levels. In our New Jersey Law and Education Empowerment Project (NJ LEEP), for example, Seton Hall Law School students and NJ LEEP staffers visit Newark high schools and middle schools to teach classes in constitutional and criminal law. Although the sessions last for only a few days, they introduce more than 1,000 students per year to some of the most fascinating issues in the legal profession—engendering thought and discussion about fundamental issues of law, justice and equality. And some of those students want more. From those who do, NJ LEEP will recruit the most promising candidates for its five-week Summer Law Institute, its paid legal internship program partnered with the city of Newark and area corporate sponsors, and the intensive College Bound Program which combines academic tutoring, law based curriculum and SAT prep in a six-day, 14–hour-per-week school year program.

If the 200 or so law schools in this country could commit to employing similar outreach strategies—reaching out to kids from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds each and every year—the pipeline would quickly expand and law schools would see an even broader array of excellent candidates. In turn, they would enhance the educational experience of the entire student population.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dean Patrick E. Hobbs has been the Dean of Seton Hall Law School in Newark, New Jersey since 1999. Dean Hobbs first joined the faculty in 1990 and teaches in the area of taxation. He has served on the boards of various organizations, including Newark Alliance, Lexis-Nexis, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, the New Jersey Commission of Professionalism and the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education. In 2004, Dean Hobbs served as Chair of the Newark, New Jersey Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission. Previously he was a tax attorney with the law firm of Shanley & Fisher in Roseland, New Jersey. He received his BA in accounting from Seton Hall University, his JD from the University of North Carolina and his LL.M. (in taxation) from New York University.