Hello, I am Jenny Martinez, the dean of Stanford Law School.

Addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion is not peripheral, but rather core to legal education. It did not arrive at Stanford Law School with the protests in the summer of 2020; it will not diminish as the news cycles change. Rather, this has been a priority throughout my career, and it must be a foundation of legal education such that students graduate with competencies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion that will prepare them for their careers.

In creating a more equitable society, lawyers have a unique role to play. People with law degrees occupy leadership positions throughout the business and non-profit sectors, and they are disproportionately represented at every level of public office. Further, law is the medium through which society resolves differences. We work out our most fundamental conflicts through reason and principle in courts, legislatures, and administrative agencies; through contracts and settlement agreements and corporate charters; and at the ballot box in free and fair elections administered according to law.

Good lawyers are expert in and practice careful, reasoned discourse and argument; they support their claims with evidence; and they find ways to compromise, collaborate, settle disputes, and solve problems. In a society where colleagues, clients, opposing parties, and other stakeholders come from very different backgrounds and viewpoints, the ability to navigate differences successfully is an indispensable professional skill. Cultivating this is not optional. Stanford should excel in instilling it in future lawyers.

Meeting this charge in today’s world requires creativity, rigor, humility, and accountability. We must set the highest standards for excellence here as in every other area of our mission. Moving forward strategically requires deliberate focus on what we teach and research, who comprises our learning community, and how we support our students through their journey into the legal profession and prepare them to become exceptional lawyers.

As a scholar of constitutional law, human rights, and legal history, I am acutely aware that the United States has never fully reckoned with its history of racism. Until that reckoning occurs, we cannot fulfill the Constitution’s entwined promises of equality and freedom under the law. A central challenge of constitutional democracies today is to learn how to embrace and leverage our differences as strengths, and how to live together in a pluralistic society in which all can thrive. And lawyers, in any and all ways we may practice, are pivotal to creating that future.

My awareness of issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the legal profession began long before I became a law professor or dean. My mother graduated from law school in 1970, and I remember hearing her stories about being one of only a handful of women in her class and in the courtrooms after she graduated. When I was a law student in the 1990s, there was more diversity among students, but faculties had still not changed much. During my three years of law school, I was taught by only two women professors and one faculty member of color. On the law review, in clerkships, at the law firm where I worked after graduation, there were relatively few women or people of color, especially in positions of leadership. Most of my professors in no way resembled me. Though I excelled academically, I never really felt comfortable speaking in class. In my judicial clerkships, I was lucky enough to find two mentors – Judge Guido Calabresi and Justice Stephen Breyer – who encouraged me to consider a career as a law professor. I have found my work on the Stanford faculty rewarding beyond my wildest expectations: teaching our amazing students in the classroom, working with those same students on pro bono litigation and policy lab projects, engaging in deep research about legal problems and writing about and discussing them with brilliant colleagues, and now the administrative work I am doing in both managing the school of today, and shaping the school for tomorrow.

I invite you to review these pages, to learn more about my vision for SLS to become a model for 21st century legal education, and the strategies we will implement to continue preparing our graduates to lead, innovate, and solve problems around the world and across our nation.