Why Attend?

The problem of unequal income and wealth distribution is one of the most important issues for society to grapple with during the 21st century. A September, 1999 Congressional Budget Office study revealed that the gap between rich and poor in the United States has continued to grow even wider in recent years, so that the top one percent of Americans now have the same number of after-tax dollars to spend as the least wealthy 100 million Americans. The median income of African-Americans is only 55% of the median income of whites. Even among working, married couples, where the income gap is smallest, African-American couples earn only 77% of the earnings of white couples. Moreover, the inequality gap grows dramatically when wealth rather than income is explored. Those same African-American couples have only 19% of the assets of white couples, even while earning 77% of the income. Significant income and wealth gaps also exist for Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans.

This Workshop will explore the many issues raised by inequality. It is our belief that the unequal distribution of income and wealth affects virtually all aspects of the legal system and should be an important element in courses across the legal curriculum. These courses include, at least, real property, trusts and estates, constitutional law, civil rights, contracts and commercial law, tax, local government law, land use planning, environmental law, labor law, family law, gender and sexual orientation. Teachers of these and many other subjects will learn much that will enrich their teaching and scholarship.

AALS President Elliott Milstein, in his January 2000 presidential address, challenged law schools and their faculties to play a role in righting the inequalities of the justice system. President Milstein's immediate predecessor, Gregory Williams, called for infusing equal justice concerns into the every-day life of the law school, and asserted that excellence in legal education requires a current understanding of the state of the justice system and society. In addition to engaging in and encouraging community service, we should take the opportunities afforded us through teaching and scholarship to address the issues of injustice and unequal income and wealth distribution.

The Workshop will be divided into plenary sessions and concurrent sessions. The first plenary session will set the stage for the issues covered during the day, by looking at the wealth and property disparities and their relationship to issues of racial segregation and injustice. We're particularly excited that the authors of two principal books on these issues, Melvin Oliver, co-author of Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality, and Nancy Denton, co-author of American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, will speak at this opening plenary session. Commentators with sharply distinctive points of view will comment, and there will be a lively panel debate and audience conversation that is sure to and include a wide range of perspectives. The first set of concurrent sessions will explore the issues in a variety of contexts, including the workplace, the education system, the housing and land ownership system, and the special impact of these issues on Native Americans. After an interesting and challenging luncheon speaker, concurrent sessions on pedagogy will enable participants to explore the issues in the context of courses of particular interest to them. Finally, the second plenary session will explore potential solutions, with an inspirational speaker and a provocative roundtable discussion.

The Planning Committee is pleased that we have been able to convince a broad range of people, both in the legal academy and outside, to participate in the sessions. The conversations should provide information and ideas that will enrich the teaching of many subjects and help us achieve our goals of training more effective lawyers and working for social justice and reducing inequities in the justice system.