The Language of Law School This page intentionally left blank

part to ensure protection of confidentiality.
42. Conley and O’Barr, 
Rules versus Relationships
, 58–81.
43. Another factor well worth considering in the future is differences among succes-
sive generations of law students; there are at least some indications in recent reports from
some of the most elite law schools, from which Socratic teaching can be said to have origi-
nally emanated, that at this point in time professors are experimenting with varied and
combinations of different teaching formats. See Kerr, “Decline”; Neufeld, “Costs of an
Outdated Pedagogy?”; Yale Law Women, 
Yale Law School
; Rakoff, “The Harvard First-Year
Experiment.”
Chapter 8
1. Guinier et al., 
Becoming Gentlemen.
2. See, e.g., Granfield, 
Making Elite Lawyers
.
3.
Grutter v. Bollinger
;
 Hopwood v. Texas
; see also Lempert et al., “Michigan’s Minor-
ity Graduates.”
4. For some notable exceptions, see the discussion that follows.
5. For a more detailed account, which includes more complete sets of tables and
quantitative results, see Mertz et al., “What Difference Does Difference Make?” (with
Wamucii Njogu and Susan Gooding). This report of our research contains more in-depth
descriptions of the nuances of classroom discourse patterning in terms of race and gender.
6. This was true of the professors in this study and is reported ubiquitously in the
literature on first-year law school teaching as well.
7. See, e.g., Finn, 
School Engagement and Students at Risk
; Bossert, 
Tasks and Social
Relations
; Weinstein, “The Classroom as a Social Context.”
8. See, e.g., ABA, 
MacCrate Report
; Curran, 
Women in the Law
, 18–32, 39–40; Hocker
and Foster, “The African-American Lawyer,” 20; Wilkins and Gulati, “Why Are There
So Few Black Lawyers”; Multicultural Women Attorneys Network, 
The Burdens of Both
,
19–27; Eaves et al., “Gender, Ethnicity, and Grades”; Merritt and Reskin, “The Double
Minority.”
9. Weis, introduction, 1; see also Rist, “Student Social Class and Teacher Expectations.”
10. See Weis, introduction, 3–5, 11–15, passim; Kozol, 
Savage Inequalities
, 3–6, passim.
As Sarah Michaels and James Collins noted:
It is widely publicized that many children are not acquiring literacy skills to a level that
meets official notions of minimum adult competency and that a disproportionate num-
ber of these children are from ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds. For these
reasons, it is important to investigate (a) those classroom activities that encourage the
development of literacy skills, (b) the interaction between reader and child during these
activities that either provides or denies access to instruction and practice, and (c) the
relationship between community-based oral discourse style and the acquisition of lit-
eracy. (Michaels and Collins, “Oral Discourse Styles,” 219–220)
11. For example, a study of “Hispanic” children in school noted:
If the class happens to be short a textbook, a puzzle, a desk, or something else, the
child to be left out will be Hispanic. The teacher somehow does not “see” the child
and everyone else gets materials. This Hispanic child will, then, share a textbook or
whatever with someone else, preferably another Hispanic. The teacher explains that
Hispanics are more cooperative than the other children, so it’s all right. (Ortiz, “His-
panic-American Children’s Experiences in Classrooms,” 78)
Notes to Pages 171–176
259

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12. Erickson and Shultz, 
The Counsellor as Gatekeeper
; Philips,