makes me feel that even though there’s only maybe ten of us at each meeting, that it’s not easy
and that it’s okay that it’s not easy.” In the words of Justine, an Asian/Pacific Islander (API)
female student member of APALSA, “[T]here’s an empowerment that comes from being around
people who you identify with.” Michael, a Black student member of BLSA, is similarly
appreciative of BLSA as the one part of law school life that is more like a family; he makes the
following distinction between the support that comes from BLSA and the general discomfort he
feels in law school:
I guess [in] law school, it’s just business. [My undergraduate institution had] more like a
family type atmosphere to it and here at [my law school] I get that in a sense from the
BLSA organization, the Black Law Students Association. But other than that, I just don’t
feel like there’s the same degree of comfort.
Perhaps because of the support that they receive from having this safe space, some
students of color recognize and respect that other marginalized groups may also need this buffer
from the challenging law school environment. For example, an API woman named Hope says the
following about joining a group focused on lesbian and gay issues on her campus:
Actually, I considered joining Lambda because I thought that it might provide me with
people who I could talk to about more liberal and progressive things but then I decided
against it because I didn’t think that I should infringe in some ways on a safe space of
theirs.
Just as Hope is careful to respect Lambda as an organization that provides a safe space to
members who may feel less welcome on the campus as a whole, some white students also
recognize the importance of race/ethnic-specific groups on campus, in terms of the various forms
of support they provide their student of color members. Both David and Cameron, white male
students who are not members of race/ethnic-specific groups, nevertheless see these groups as
positive additions to campus life:
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Convention