[*PG29]FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA: THE MIDWESTERN ORIGINS OF THE FIRST NATIONAL MEETING OF THE REGIONAL PEOPLE OF COLOR LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP CONFERENCES
The First National Meeting of the Regional People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences (First National Meeting)2 marked two landmark events in the people of color legal scholarship movement. First, it was the product of a groundbreaking collaboration among the regional People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences. Second, the 1999 First National Meeting coincided with the tenth anniversary of the first People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, the Midwestern Conference.3 The First National Meeting had two important antecedents. One was the general tradition of meetings to explore common concerns and develop racially transformative legal theory. The other was the specific history of People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences, which began with the Midwestern People of Color Legal [*PG30]Scholarship Conference. Therefore the First National Meeting stood on a foundation of emancipatory politics.
In this article I discuss that foundation. In Part I, I will discuss the First National Meeting. In Part II, I will discuss the formation, activities, and purposes of the Midwestern People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, the first “People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference.” I conclude that the people of color movement is significant because it provides both emancipatory space and common ground to law professors of color during this period of tokenism in legal education.
The events that lead to the First National Meeting began in Chicago, Illinois, at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Midwestern People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference at The John Marshall Law School, held in April, 1997.4 At that annual meeting, Linda Crane of The John Marshall Law School proposed that the Midwestern Conference spearhead a national meeting of all the regional People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences. She proposed that this meeting of the Conferences take place in Chicago during March, 1999, in conjunction with the John Marshall centennial celebration and related programs. The Midwestern Conference attendees endorsed the proposal and authorized Linda Crane and me to contact representatives of the other People of Color Conferences and commit Midwestern financial resources to accomplish this objective.
Thereafter, Linda Crane and I convened a meeting of representatives of the six regional People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences during the 1998 Association of American Law Schools (AALS) meeting in San Francisco to discuss the Midwestern proposal of a national meeting and to create circumstances for consensus.5 Jon [*PG31]Sylvester, the Associate Dean of Golden Gate University Law School, hosted the meeting at Golden Gate. After a two-hour discussion, representatives from all the conferences present endorsed the Midwestern proposal and agreed to forego their 1999 annual meetings in favor of a joint national meeting. Those present decided to form a steering committee which would represent all the conferences to organize and execute the First National Meeting. Representatives present at the San Francisco conference agreed that a successful first national meeting would require the broad-based support and participation of all the regional conferences. Linda Crane agreed to chair a national steering committee and to insure that each regional conference was represented.6 All the regional people of color scholar[*PG32]ship conferences agreed to forego their own 1999 annual meetings in favor of an opportunity to meet to assess the objectives and accomplishments of this nationwide movement.7 After lively debate during meetings via telephone and email, the Steering Committee agreed on a theme for the First National Meeting—”Celebrating Our Emerging Voices: People of Color Speak.”8
The resulting three-day meeting was a whirlwind of scholarly and social activity. Structured around five plenary discussions, the First National Meeting opened on Thursday, March 25, 1999. This first plenary featured a keynote address on “The Role & Responsibility of Intellectuals of Color” by Juan Williams, a Washington Post columnist and the author of Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (1998) and Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965 (1988). Immediately following the Williams keynote, a diverse panel commented on Williams’ remarks and provided alternate views on the role and responsibility of intellectuals of color. The second plenary was a roundtable discussion entitled “Celebrating Our Emerging [*PG33]Voices: People of Color Speak, Coherence or Tower of Babble?” The following morning began with “Nurturing Our Emerging Voices: The Creative Process,” the third plenary discussion. During lunch the respective regions held separate annual business meetings. Later, participants presented and commented on over thirty works-in-progress. That afternoon, the fourth plenary entitled “Deans of Color Speak: Opening the Doors for Students, Faculty and Administrators of Color” was devoted to issues unique to law school deans of color. On the final day, the National Steering Committee presided over a discussion of the future of national meetings and the people of color regional conference movement.
However, a singular focus on the titles and topics of the plenaries would leave an incomplete impression of the First National Meeting. This meeting was not only dedicated to the task of building on and consolidating the past fruits of the people of color movement, but was a celebration of our growth as a community as well as our scholarly achievements.9 The celebratory purposes were evident in the social events planned as integral parts of the meetings. Our first dinner, held at John Marshall, was decorated and catered to showcase the cultural and culinary attractions for which Chicago is renown. The next night’s festivities occurred at the Cliffdwellers Club, founded by Chicago artists and writers, and featured a “brindis and tertuilla”—toast and performances. On the final night, participants were treated to an historic Chicago dinner at Mansion. Participants enjoyed a jazz combo during dinner, a lively discussion on the merits of the LSAT, and after-dinner conversation and dance.
Michelle Cammers Goodwin, a Hastie teaching fellow and law graduate at the University of Wisconsin Law School, captured the celebratory and festive atmosphere of the First National Meeting in an e-mail to her colleague at Wisconsin:
History was made this weekend in Chicago at The First National Meeting of the Six Regional People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences . . . . Through these meetings some of the most provocative scholarship and publications from law professors of color has emerged . . . . Through Linda [Greene] the University of Wisconsin Law School also made history when, ten years ago, it supported the idea of a Mid[*PG34]western Conference. Congratulations to Linda and the University of Wisconsin Law School.10
While new assistant professors marveled at the rich mix of energy, substance, organizational excellence, and pure style exhibited over the course of the meeting, more seasoned—and senior—professors noted that the meeting was one of the most intellectually fruitful and sociable of a long-running series of meetings and conferences of professors of color.11 Professor Clark of Catholic University Law School and a thiry-year veteran law teacher, observed,
The most significant thing I took note of at the P/C meeting [People of Color meeting] was the sense I had that understanding and bridges were being built across groups that are in conflict in other areas of the country. I was very impressed with the way in which people spoke respectfully, but honestly, about minority conflicts. I also saw an ease of relating outside of the formal sessions, when people were dealing with one another socially.12
The First National Meeting fulfilled the expectations of even the most optimistic of its organizers. It brought together a diverse community of scholars in an environment committed to building intellectual growth, community and friendship.
The success of the First National Meeting owes much to a tradition of independent meetings and conferences organized by law professors of color.13 The tradition can be traced back to the formation of the Caucus of Black Teachers as an outgrowth of the frustration [*PG35]voiced by Derrick Bell in 1969. At the time, Professor Bell admonished the AALS for its lack of responsiveness to the needs of minority professors. The Caucus’ early conferences honed the organizational skills and fostered networks of minority law professors critical to building stable and fruitful institutions independent of the established academy.
Further, the regional People of Color Conferences’ commitment to the development of legal scholarship was an extension of the Minority Law Teachers Conference. This independent minority-headed organization provided fertile ground for the development of legal theory rooted in the experience of people of color. Moreover, the Midwestern Conference’s commitment to the advance of legal theory, which later manifested itself in the First National Meeting’s sessions dedicated to peer review of legal scholarship, coincided with the formation of another important institution dedicated to intellectual exchange and scholarly development, the seminal 1989 Critical Race Theory (CRT) Workshop.
Both “movements” signaled a collective interest in the development of institutions controlled by legal scholars of color and dedicated to scholarly development and production. The People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences movement began in 1989. New to the Midwest as a tenured full professor, I decided to bring together minority scholars in Midwestern states to alleviate my own local isolation as well as that of my colleagues in the region and to provide a nurturing and supportive environment for scholarly development, particularly for untenured legal scholars of color. This would be an intellectual exchange and critique of works-in-progress. Though isolation of law professors of color was common when I began teaching in 1978, it was problematic that it persisted in 1989, when I returned to teaching. Most law teachers of color in the region taught at law schools where there were no other teachers of color. My intention was to create a critical and uplifting space in which scholars from divergent racial and ideological backgrounds could share in the rewards of the intellectual camaraderie of a scholarly community beyond the reach of the tokenism and the history of exclusion that marred minority experiences within the dominant academy. I had in mind the development of an educational institution that would be independent of and com[*PG36]plementary to traditional law schools, providing alternative models to existing educational institutions.14
[*PG37] The philosophy of the Midwestern Conference—its commitment to ideological as well as institutional pluralism—was grounded in my conclusion that legal scholars of color would benefit from both ideological and non-ideological independent institutions. Put another way, we would be enriched by institutions devoted to a critical and transformative ideological vision, as well as institutions that eschew ideological boundaries. As a participant in the first Critical Race Theory Workshop and as Conference Chair of the 1990 Wisconsin Conference on Critical Race Theory, I firmly believed that ideologically-rooted institutions are necessary to the transformation of American legal institutions—as well as doctrine—which have structurally and theoretically facilitated racial and class subordination. I, and others, believed that the creation of parallel educational institutions providing a critical space for minority scholars was essential to the development of racially transformative legal theory.
The collective ideological work exemplified by the CRT movement engages us squarely in the battle of position,15 as described by Gramsci as a bid for “intellectual and moral leadership of society.”16 However, non-ideologically based cooperation provides important benefits as well. Non-ideologically based cooperation builds our own intellectual traditions of tolerance. Further, cross-ideological discourse exposes all scholars to a wide range of critical and doctrinal frameworks, thereby enlightening and enriching the intellectual re[*PG38]sources of legal scholars of color. The Midwestern Conference embraced this tolerance paradigm as an essential part of our decade-long scholarly and intellectual tradition. I conclude that both kinds of communities—ideological and non-ideological—are essential to the survival and prosperity of legal scholars of color. More specifically, I conclude that the health of American legal educational institutions would also be enhanced by the supportive, yet critical, non-token environment the Midwestern Conference would provide for legal scholars of color. It would be a place to devote to the prosperity of legal scholars of color. We would assist in mentoring professors of color and their institutions would reap the benefits.
We firmly believed in our value to legal educational institutions and adopted an “emancipatory” funding policy to insure that we would have a sound financial institution. We awarded the privilege of hosting each annual meeting to the law school offering the most generous support for our annual meetings. In addition, the Midwestern Conference funded itself by charging a market rate to its annual meeting participants. We theorized that the deans of the participants’ law schools should fund the cost because they recognized the high value of the Conference’s mentoring services to its minority professors. In addition, we thought that law schools would relish an opportunity to show their support for diversity in law teaching by hosting a meeting of legal scholars of color. The annual meeting would be an opportunity for deans and their faculties to meet a large and diverse group of scholars of color. Moreover, these practices of the Midwestern Conference fostered valuable peer-partner relationships with law school deans in the regions that have hosted meetings and funded the participation of minority professors presenting and critiquing the papers. The success of these financial arrangements demonstrates that the Midwestern People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference was correct when it concluded that historically white institutions would value this collaborative opportunity. Our maintenance of a positive balance sheet safeguards the Midwestern Conference’s ideological independence and assures its operational independence.
Our stability and consistency are promoted by our policies which require diverse and broad-based participation among Midwestern legal scholars of color in the planning and production of meetings. The Midwestern Conference annually passes the honor of hosting conferences around the region to ensure a rotation of logistical responsibilities and to broaden the base of support for our activities. The Midwestern People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference is blessed with a particularly rich and varied pool of leadership talent and the rota[*PG39]tion of responsibilities and leadership positions is specifically designed to take advantage of the diversity of skills and talent our community has to offer. Junior professors and professors new to the Conference are initially tapped to play supporting roles but eventually serve in key roles as site coordinators, program committee chairs and annual meeting chairs. Even a cursory glance at the roster of professors participating as organizers, moderators, and presenters17 of works-in-progress demonstrates the broad spectrum of intellectual and cultural backgrounds represented among our participants and leaders. We have deliberately required a large pool of participants to share in the organization and execution of annual meetings in order to move beyond an organization dominated by individuals to one which is truly a collective enterprise.
However, the movement as a whole owes a debt to those individuals, such as Linda Crane, Norma Amaker, Mike Middleton, Neil Williams, Leland Ware and Anna Shavers, who have demonstrated tireless commitment to building the People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference movement. The success that we have achieved is the result of the collective effort of a broad and dynamic community.18 We cultivated that original seed of the 1989 Midwestern Conference for [*PG40]ten years. In that time, our seed has grown into a tree with coast-to-coast roots. We have nurtured a healthy and positive response to the paradox of tokenism’s opportunity and burden. The People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference movement provides peer support and the “critical space” necessary for the flowering of intellectual potential. We worked to create this critical space to nurture minority scholars who endured disproportionate pressures and demands due to their scarcity in academia. These token professors were compelled to serve as signs and symbols of equality on a wide range of law school and university committees and to perform as role models for both majority and minority students. Simultaneously, we worked incessantly to disprove assumptions of group inferiority. These extracurricular responsibilities often left minority law professors with little or no space for individual intellectual growth and exploration. The Midwestern Conference set out to right this imbalance by announcing a firm commitment to intellectual and scholarly development. By doing so we hoped to signal a reevaluation of the priorities of both law professors of color and their institutions, as well as to send a clear message about the importance of scholarly productivity and mentoring. We also intended to address the dilemma of alienation and assimilation. A by-product of token environments is the isolation and visibility of tokenism that lone minority professors experience within the historically white academy. Integration under terms of tokenism dictates an existence without any real promise of equal citizenship and a resultant alienation and separation from the institution, while the assimilation required may demand a rejection of one’s own experiences and perspective in favor of those of the dominant culture. The resultant Scylla and Charabydis is a no-man’s land.
The Midwestern Conference offered an alternative to this untenable double bind. Its evolution into a network of regional conferences has challenged the paradigm of tokenism and rejected alienation, assimilation and tokenism as acceptable options for the twenty-first century’s law professor of color. Rather, the People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences promote a model of dual citizenship. This model encourages full participation of legal scholars of color in every aspect of law school life while reciprocally supporting the existence of other “emancipatory” sites of intellectual citizenship. The model of dual citizenship recognizes the limitations of traditional legal educational institutions and encourages that those limitations be acknowledged and addressed. The People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences—and the law schools which have supported them—have embraced the model of dual citizenship “from sea to shining sea.”
During the First National Meeting, each regional conference made remarks and proposed toasts to the work of their colleagues. Norman Amaker of Loyola-Chicago, who worked with me to organize the first Midwestern meeting, and I presented the chronology of Midwestern events from 1989 through 1999. As we spoke, we invited each professor from our region who played an important role—from chairing and serving on annual meeting committees to serving as on-site coordinator and members of the board—to join us. Eventually, over twenty people who had served in key leadership roles joined us in the stage area. As always, the smiles, camaraderie and spirit of our group moved me. I scanned the room filled with people from the other conferences and thought, “your Midwestern idea is spreading like wildfire from sea to shining sea.” I silently thought that while our idea did spread like wildfire across the nation, the most wonderful reward was the joy and gratification we experience in our color-constructed community.
I ended my remarks in this way:
Next year, we will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Midwestern People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference. We are planning a retreat where we will reflect on the past, assess our present state and plan for the future. We also plan to eat well, relax, and enjoy ourselves, celebrate our relationships, laugh at our arguments and unashamedly bask in our success. With the First National Meeting, our desire to create an emancipatory and emancipated institution was ratified. Moreover, my intent was to create an intellectual community which by its very existence represented an oppositional statement to the pervasive practice of tokenism. This step, while building on the work of prior legal scholars of color, went further in its endeavor to create a critical community. It was not critical in the sense in which we have come to know that term as an ideological marker. But it was an institution born out of my critical assessment of the permanence of tokenism and a creative attempt to bypass an anticipated century-long-if-ever process of historically white institutional transformation. It was also critical, in the common sense meanings of the term—acute, central, compelling, crucial, elemental, fundamental, exigent, important, indispensable, significant, strategic, urgent—to our prosper[*PG42]ity and survival as a community and the reforming of legal education generally.
Tonight, we celebrate a fact. Whatever our differences, we are people of color.There is an irony here too. The Midwestern—and the subsequent People of Color Conferences—emerged at a time when legal scholars of color began to fragment—necessarily so—over questions of ideology and commonality of interests. In a real sense, we have gone our separate ways and have neither sufficiently expressed nor resolved the ideological and community tensions raised by the specificity of our respective subject positions. How ironic it is that as these movements grew and flourished, so too did the people of color legal scholarship movement. How ironic it is that as these movements grew in strength, so too did the people of color legal scholarship movement. And, how ironic it is that as these movements fragmented us, we were kept together in and by the people of color.