Always on the Defence: The Myth of Universality and the Persistence of Privilege in Legal Education

Law school curricula and dominant pedagogical approaches reinforce the sense of entitlement and privilege that individuals from historically privileged groups enjoy in the law school context. In this article, the author attempts to show how particular critical pedagogical practices have the potential to reinforce a politics of identity that does little to shift relations of power between white students and students racialized as "Other," leaving "white" privilege intact. She concludes with some suggestions for how law professors and law students can work towards displacing relations of power both inside and outside the classroom¾relations that privilege certain groups of people over others-through the creation of a "common social terrain" that incorporates a multiplicity of voices and experiences.