You are Not in Kansas Anymore: Orientation Programs Can Help Students Fly Over the Rainbow

ion, focusing only on the legal aspects18 rather than examining the human aspects of what happened to the individuals involved in the case." 9 Those individuals become further dehumanized because they quickly turn into "plaintiffs" and "defendants" and as a result become nameless and lose their identities.' The focus on instrumentalism 1 21 and the analytic process instead of the narrative 122 also results in lack of discussion about morality, fairness, or justice. 123 Law school thus sends the implicit message that "matters of justice are secondary to formal correctness."' 1 4 Rather than "cultivating the humanity of the student[s]," the first-year experience tends to "re-engineer[ them] into... 'legal machine[s]. '" 125 Losing sight of the human consequences for clients negatively impacts the profession as well as the individual. Among others, scholars from the Critical Legal Studies, Feminist Jurisprudence, Critical Race Theory, 126 and Therapeutic Jurisprudence 12 7 schools of thought have argued that in removing the human aspect from the cases, law schools whitewash the legal opinions. As a result, issues of gender, race, and class inequality often remain ignored. 2 The exclusion of these issues significantly invalidates or marginalizes students who faced such inequalities. Those students, like the parties in the cases, can become nameless-especially if they have a name that is difficult to pronounce,129 and can become invisible. They become more vulnerable to illness, isolation, and stigmatization,1 30 as well as academic disengage118. These edited cases are not linked "to the people, institutions, and lawyering tasks involved in the disputes." Maranville, supra note 47, at 52. 119. SULLIVAN ETAL., supra note 2, at 54. 120. Clinical literature on effacement of clients in legal education, see Ann Shalleck, Theory and Experience in Constructing the Relationship Between Lawyer and Client. Representing Women Who Have Been Abused, 64 TENN. L. REV. 1019 (1997). 121. Ernest J. Weinrib, Can Law Survive Legal Education?, 60 VAND. L. REV. 401, 405 (2007) (arguing that the focus on instrumentalism in legal academic discourse "effaces the characteristic concepts of private law, ignores the direct relationship between the parties, and assimilates private law into public law"). 122. SULLIVAN ET AL., supra note 2, at 83. 123. Maranville, supra note 47, at 53. 124. SULLIVAN ET AL., supra note 2, at 58. 125. Id. at 84. 126. Menkel-Meadow, supra note 11, at 575-76. 127. See David Wexler, The Development of Therapeutic Jurisprudence: From Theory to Practice, 68 REV. JUR. U.P.R. 691 (1999); Bruce J. Winick, The Jurisprudence of Therapeutic Jurisprudence, 3 PSYCHOL PUB. POL'Y & L. 184 (1997). 128. To see how this impacts students, see Videotape: Teach to the Whole Class, supra note 95. 129. A student explained that professors treat students as if they do not have a name. Another student explained that if professors cannot pronounce a name, they do not call on the student. Id. 130. In a study comparing students in two elite law schools, researchers found that despite the same entering indicators and "academic preparation, achievement, and comfort and belonging in law school found prior to the beginning of classes, minority law students reported significantly higher levels of alienation and discomfort in law school by the end of their first semester compared to their non-minority peers." London, Downey & Mace, supra note 19, at 479. This manifested in minority [Vol. 47 HeinOnline -47 Washburn L.J. 35