�ǿմ�ý

�ǿմ�ý School of Law is proud to present the inaugural issue of The Reporter, a collection of essays written by students at �ǿմ�ý School of Law’s Social Justice Law Center.

Explaining the purpose of the new publication, Professor Ayesha Bell Hardaway, Director of the Law School’s Social Justice Law Center, says: “Our students have long expressed strong interest in a legal education that includes a full understanding of the ways in which the law undermines the nation’s ideals and aspirations. Indeed, many enter our institution seeking to understand and rectify the ways that the American legal system creates and compounds societal inequities.” 

The Reporter is the product of a yearlong course co-taught by Professor Hardaway and Ashley Everett that is designed to give law students an avenue to write about their review and analysis of contemporary social justice matters. It is the product of their intellectual curiosity and bold commitment to social justice. In this first issue, students grapple with topics such as housing evictions during the pandemic, wrongful convictions, employment discrimination, reproductive rights and domestic terrorism. 

Featured on the cover of the inaugural Reporter is the law school’s most famous alumnus, legendary attorney and activist Fred D. Gray (LAW ’54)—a shining example for today’s students. Earlier this year, Gray received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden. 

Gray, who came to our law school with the personal commitment  to “[destroy] everything segregated [he] could find,” devoted his entire legal career to remedying institutional racism. Within two years of graduating and passing the Alabama bar, a young and determined Gray represented Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. in the push to make racial segregation illegal in Alabama. It was through his representation of Parks and related involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott that Gray successfully handled the first of his four cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Throughout the years, Gray returns regularly to campus to connect with our law students and the broader Cleveland community. He continues to inspire all of us to not give up on creating a more just United States,” Professor Hardaway says.  “It is our sincere hope that the student essays in The Reporter inspire readers to work toward creating a more just legal system.”