RALEIGH — Campbell Law Review has published its first issue dedicated to social justice and racial disparities in the law. The journal is now available online at this link.
Law Review Editor-in-Chief Trey Ferguson ‘21 says he and his staff felt it was important to publish an issue soley dedicated to social justice because students at Campbell Law School are taught to be advocates and because racial inequities are prevalent and pervasive throughout the U.S. legal system.
“We cannot truly achieve legal justice without addressing the social component of that,” he explained. “So that’s what we’re doing, we’re utilizing our platform to advocate for justice by raising these tough issues. We’re doing that in the hope that productive conversations will ensue and move our system forward — away from these racially disparate impacts.”
After discussing the idea with his board of editors and various law school professors, Ferguson said the Law Review staff decided to dedicate a complete third issue to racial disparities. The journal typically publishes two issues a year.
“It was our hope to create an issue that would not only address these racial issues but also purposefully seek out individuals that law journals had not historically published,” he said. “We put out the call for submissions and the response was overwhelming — this was an area authors wanted to write about. Our team worked diligently — some through winter break — to get this issue pulled together, and we did it.”
Article topics include racial inequity in North Carolina’s driver’s license suspension practices, how implicit bias can negatively impact maternal healthcare for black women and reflections from several black law professors, among others.
With the help of Assistant Dean of Students, Evin Grant ’16, Ferguson said the Law Review staff was able to get N.C. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anita Earls to write a foreword for the book.
“The articles and essays in this volume are precisely the kind of scholarship that is required to give voice to the experiences of Black and Brown people in North Carolina and more broadly around the country, experiences that otherwise remain largely invisible,” Earls wrote.
The Law Review staff was also able to get some of the issue’s authors to provide a hybrid training event for more than 100 participants on the very race-conscious issues they discuss in their article, “‘Newtrality’: A Contemporary Alternative to Race-Neutral Pedagogy.’”
Ferguson continued, “Initially, our board knew we wanted to have Winter our symposium issue about how the pandemic had affected various legal practice areas. However, we watched the murder of George Floyd at the beginning of the summer, and we witnessed a renewed conversation about race in our country. As a board we thought it would be irresponsible to publish an issue and not address that conversation. So, we drafted a brief Editors’ Note that appeared at the beginning of the winter issue — the first print issue after that summer’s events — to voice the board’s support for our colleagues of color.
“When we first started this project, I did not realize the profound impact these events were having on my Black colleagues until these conversations about race began. That coupled with the discussions in Professor Marcus Gadson’s jurisprudence course, the Editors’ Note in the winter issue just did not seem like enough. Afterall, there are so many disparate impacts of our legal system that cannot be explained without an understanding of the historical roots of that system, which ultimately can be traced back to race-based, chattel slavery.“
For more information, visit the Law Review’s website or contact Ferguson at Jhferguson0613@email.campbell.edu.
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW
Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 4,200 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2021, Campbell Law is celebrating 45 years of graduating legal leaders and a dozen years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW REVIEW
The Campbell Law Review is a student-operated journal published by Campbell Law School students. The Law Review began publication in 1979 for the purpose of serving the legal community with articles, notes, comments and other legal scholarship. The Law Review fulfills this service by striving to publish at least two issues of quality legal scholarship on an annual basis. Our Law Review places special emphasis on issues from North Carolina and Fourth Circuit law as well as issues addressing the profession of law as a whole. Additionally, the Law Review holds an annual Symposium each year at Campbell Law School in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.
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