undergraduate institution], and I don’t know…. I kind of have stepped away from any
views on that issue, whether it should be school-sanctioned or…I just don’t really know
what I think about that. But I think that there’s kind of a feeling that we don’t necessarily
need something like that. The administration has made that claim now. That we don’t
need something like that because we are accepting, and we are diverse, and that is just…
those interactions occur more naturally. And I think to a certain extent they occur more
naturally here than they did at [my college], but I still think that there are walls up, and
there are barriers, and I think that’s natural human interaction.
Lily explains that she sees the validity in having a safe space buffer in hostile, segregated
campus environments, such as existed at her undergraduate institution. However, in a more
diverse and tolerant environment –such as her law school campus—the expectation is that
students from different backgrounds will be comfortable interacting with one another.
Nevertheless, she admits that even on her law school campus “there are walls up, and there are
barriers,” which may make these groups especially worthwhile for marginalized students. One of
her API male colleagues is similarly conflicted about the issue. Kieran is a member of APALSA,
yet is concerned about how the group may be seen as one that excludes white and other non-API
students from membership or activities. He mentions the exclusivity of the group and relates his
experience at an event where white students may have felt uncomfortable:
[A]ll the student groups have a very strong showing and influence in law school. But
even if it was as diverse as possible, whatever that means, I wonder if like the students
would take advantage of that to its full potential. Like, we have all these ethnic groups,
like APALSA and BLSA. And yeah, sometimes I feel like the students can be pretty
exclusive.… Because I have this white friend who’s pretty into Asian culture, and most
of his friends are Asian [American] but he feels kind of scared to go to these meetings
himself.… [W]e had an Open Mic Night in October with all the law student groups, the
ethnic law student groups. And there was a lot of poetry readings and stuff like that. And
I felt like if I was a white person in that room, which there were, I’d be like, “God, it’s so
uncomfortable. I feel so unwelcome,” you know? And then my band played a bunch of
songs that white people [like] so we kind of balanced that out.
Ironically, the potential unwelcome feeling of the white students at the one event Kieran
mentions is what many students of color report feeling throughout their law school careers –that
there are very few of them, that they are conspicuous in a room full of their white peers, and that
12
Convention