Foreword: Special Issue on Equity, Equality and Legal Education
Anne Hewitt
What the paper says
I am delighted to introduce this special issue, focussing on "Equality, equity and legal education".Education, equality and equity intersect in varied and important ways, many of which were highlighted in the recent Australian Universities Accord Final Report.That report highlighted not only the importance of equitable engagement in the tertiary education sector as "a core driver of national prosperity", 1 but also the vulnerability of many of the students within it and the importance of prioritising their safety and wellbeing. 2The Report is a clarion call for universities, regulators and the government to prioritise equity and equality to enable access and success for diverse students and so achieve the critical engagement necessary to ensure graduates are equipped to participate in the "strong, equitable and resilient democracy" to which we aspire. 3 These issues are replicated, and possibly even intensified, in the context of legal education for two reasons.The first is that law school is the precursor to entry into a profession notable for its lack of diversity.While there is limited data on the makeup of the Australian legal sector, historically the profession has been dominated by 'white, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle class men'. 4While inclusion of women at various levels of the legal profession has improved, 5 cultural diversity has not. 6For this reason, facilitating equitable engagement by diverse students in legal education is critical if we are to have any hope of achieving a more representative profession.And a representative profession is not only desirable symbolically, but primarily because it will facilitate delivery of quality legal services for our diverse community.Second, law students are the future legal professionals who will scrutinise our laws, our policies and practices, to identify obstacles to equitable inclusion and respond to instances of direct and indirect discrimination which limits the capacity of individuals and groups to 1
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.00 × 0.4 = 0.00 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.