ABSTRACT
Race was encountered at different intensity levels and sometimes responded to in very different fashions. Each participant recognized that race played some role in their time at law school. Importantly and understandably, race played different roles in each of their identities, was always part of their identities, and was never all of their identities. This chapter discusses how color-blind theorists, using a modern tool of racial formation, have directly or indirectly contributed to the maintenance of the achievement gap in law schools. The connections to history were both personal and social in that the formation of each participant’s views began before their entry into law school and continued to be shaped during that tenure, a fluid process of racial formation as suggested by Omi and Winant. Some law schools already engage in something similar when they suggest to students from historically marginalized communities that they enroll in part-time or evening classes but treat them as full-time classes.
