About
About the ADI
Three Pillars of the ADI
Institutional Antiracism
The definition of antiracism through an institutional lens is:
- The integrity to face and acknowledge the complicity of law in the design of systems of oppression
- Acquiring knowledge about the American system of laws through the teaching and learning of the impact of slavery and systemic racial inequality in the founding document and the Reconstruction Amendments of the second founding
- Law schools and the legal profession to act on this knowledge, for example, by taking a context-driven approach that draws on critical pedagogy to co-create and co-curate systemic equity theory and practice promoting iterative approaches to inclusivity
Acknowledging, acquiring knowledge, and acting are the three elements of institutional antiracism. Those elements are implemented through systems design and critical pedagogy.
Systems Design & Design Thinking
The systems design approach is a user focused way to relentlessly innovate, empathize, and humanize with others to solve problems or resolve issues. Systems design is fundamentally user-centered, experimental, responsive, intentional, and tolerant of failure.
The five stages of systems design are empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The systems design approach is iterative in nature, meaning that once one goes through the five stages, the work is not over. One can consistently go back to different stages of the process to reach a better prototype. Using this methodology, we can innovate new ways to imagine how legal education, the legal academy, the legal profession can be more just to realize the promise of the 14th Amendment.
Critical Pedagogy
The teachings of Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and bell hooks, all about love, guide the ADI in how to support the practice of critical pedagogy in legal education. The two main goals of critical pedagogy are to:
- Help students see the world as capable of change, and
- Help students discern how they will use their talents, lived experiences and education to effect positive societal change in whatever field they ultimately work in.
By fulfilling these two goals and using an antiracist lens, students and teachers alike can create a more equitable environment in which both can question things that are deemed the status quo and aim to create a more just world.
Meet the ADI Team
Danielle Conway
- Dean
- Donald J. Farage Professor of Law
- Antiracist Development Institute Executive Director
Dermot Groome
- Professor of Law
- Harvey A. Feldman Distinguished Faculty Scholar
- ADI Associate Director Emeritus
Systems Designers
In addition to the leadership team, ADI collaborates with a group of systems designers who are essential to our success. Meet our Systems Designers.
An Interdisciplinary Approach
The ADI uses systems design to collaborate with legal scholars and professionals on the book series Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession and to create law school course materials shared with organizations beyond the legal field.
Through an interdisciplinary approach, the ADI equips law students and lawyers with critical thinking skills to examine how legal education and the profession have upheld structural racism, challenging these systems to align with principles of equality, justice, and protection under the law.
Building on the AALS Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project, co-founded by Dean Conway, and insights from its book series, the ADI provides a systems design blueprint for institutional change. Since fall 2022, it has piloted course materials, refining them for broader use.
History and Trajectory of the ADI
In 2020, the cascade of murders of Black and Brown individuals and the Black Lives Matter protests demonstrated the prevalence of systemic, structural, and institutional racism. Structural racism permeates our democratic institutions, including legal education and the legal profession.
Penn State Dickinson Law Dean and Donald J. Farage Professor of Law Danielle M. Conway launched the ADI in 2021 with the goals of producing the book series and providing organizations across the country with systems design-based approaches to implementing antiracist practices, processes, and policies throughout their functions. LSAC, AccessLex Institute, and NALP provide grant funding for three years, and Eric J. Barron pledged a contribution to the initial seeding while Penn State President.
WATCH: Building an Antiracist Law School, Part 1—Leading the Way
In 2024, Penn State approved a five-year expansion plan to strengthen interdisciplinary partnerships, advance institutional antiracism, and enhance DEIB efforts through systems design and critical pedagogy. The plan includes immersive workshops, university-wide coalitions, and at least two major convening events, all aimed at fostering racial equality and justice within Penn State and broader democratic institutions.
The vision, mission, and objectives of this scale-up are to deliver on a blueprint for real and impactful change leading to racial equality and intersectional justice at Penn State, specifically, and within society’s democratic institutions, generally.