Here are some exciting developments related to the School of Law’s distinctive mission.
Associate Dean for Mission Innovation
In summer 2020, Loyola University Chicago School of Law created a new mission statement that clarifies the school’s calling to work to dismantle the structures that generate and sustain racism and all forms of oppression. The school also created a new position, associate dean for mission innovation; this leader partners with faculty to integrate anti-racism, racial justice, and the effects of privilege and oppression into the classroom—and into the institution as a whole. Sarah Waldeck, distinguished professor of law, has served as associate dean for mission innovation since 2023.
Professional Identity Formation Course
In 2022, when the American Bar Association (ABA) announced it would require all law students to take a professional identity course, Loyola was already years ahead of the curve. For the last five years, Loyola’s School of Law has required all 1L students to take this anti-racism, intersectionality, and implicit bias course to help them better understand their clients, themselves, and the systems of the law.
Kimberly Mills (LLM ‘15) and Imani Hollie (JD ‘20) direct the School of Law’s Professional Identity Formation class, an anti-racism, intersectionality, and implicit bias course required for all first-year students.
Bias, Cross-Cultural Competency Requirement
The law faculty recently approved the addition of a new curricular requirement that all law students take at least one class that includes substantial coverage of topics related to bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism (BCCR). While the law school’s BCCR requirement helps satisfy ABA Standard 303(c), the law school’s Teaching and Curriculum Committee had already started work on this requirement prior to the ABA decision. The law school now offers dozens of classes that include substantial coverage of these issues. This requirement expands our students’ knowledge on issues of racism and other forms of bias in the legal system, and helps us advance our mission of preparing “graduates who will be ethical advocates for justice and equity, who will lead efforts to dismantle the legal, economic, political, and social structures that generate and sustain racism and all forms of oppression, and who will advance a rule of law that promotes social justice.”
New Faculty
The School of Law welcomed two nationally recognized criminal law scholars as full-time faculty members beginning with the 2022-23 academic year.
- Jeannine Bell is a nationally recognized scholar in the areas of policing and hate crimes, and she has written extensively on criminal justice issues. Her research is broadly interdisciplinary, touching on both political science and law, and relying on her empirical expertise.
- Blanche Bong Cook is a leading expert on sex trafficking, criminal law and procedure, evidence, appellate practice, federal courts, trial advocacy, employment discrimination, critical race theory, and critical race feminist theory.
Student Input
The Career Services Advisory Committee gathered community input on how the Office of Career Services could better meet students’ needs. The Student Organization Coalitions brought together like-minded groups to discuss ways they could meet regularly with the law school administration to discuss their interests, student experience, and needs.
