CUNY Law Professor Deborah Zalesne’s focus has always been on how to be a good teacher.
“My scholarship on both pedagogy and contract law informs my teaching. I’m always thinking about ways to teach contract law more effectively.”
When Professor Zalesne started teaching 25 years ago, she adopted “Contracting Law” as the casebook for use in her Contracts class — a cutting-edge, critical race, feminist casebook authored by three women who came to the book with an outsider perspective, based not only on gender, but also on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. The book presents the law in its historical-cultural context, adding a human dimension to the cases.
“When you humanize the parties, you see racial dynamics, gender dynamics, socioeconomic inequalities, and other axes of oppression that are most often left out of the legal analysis of the parties and the judges.”
In class, students think about what features of that context are relevant, including “power relations, historical marginalization of populations, the particular historical context, and dominant ideologies.” Students learn to see “all the angles” and “learn to be critical of the bare-bones facts you often see in judicial opinions.”
Debbie joined as an author for the fifth edition of the casebook, calling it the “pinnacle of her career,” since it combines her love of teaching, love of contracts, and commitment to social justice. She explains that teaching from this book does not actually mean teaching from an “alternative” perspective. Instead, students learn the law in a deep and lasting way and are able to develop nuanced and meaningful analyses of cases and fact patterns. This, in turn, “boosts performance on their exams and the bar, and better prepares them for a more client-centered approach to practice that enables them to appreciate and consider their clients as more than simply ‘legal problems.’”
In Debbie’s recent blog post, “The (In)Visibility of Race in Contracts: Thoughts for Teachers,” in the ContractProfBlog, she asks the central question: “How can we reframe our approach to teaching contract law, so that we don’t require non-white students to adopt and speak on behalf of a perspective that is not their own?”
Debbie’s scholarship on this issue offers suggestions. She has written various articles about how power and status affect contracting and how teachers can incorporate critical perspectives into the analysis of cases while teaching the core legal doctrine. Core legal doctrine is inextricably linked to race, even when race is not immediately evident (but oftentimes presumed) in cases. She believes that the best way to help students understand the effects of race and inequality on parties’ bargaining choices, while questioning fundamental assumptions of contract doctrine, is to embed the critiques into the analytical structure and legal analysis of the doctrine that is taught.
But contract law depends heavily on analyzing what a reasonable person would think. Putting yourself into the shoes of another without that person’s lived experience, in order to assess “reasonableness,” can perpetuate and reinforce stereotypes and can lead to missteps in the classroom.
Debbie expressed some insecurity as a white woman teaching classes in an anti-oppression framework; but that insecurity has also propelled her to work hard at being better at anti-racism, and has focused her methods on how to talk about race in a way that doesn’t further marginalize students. In a race-neutral classroom, BIPOC are often required to ambassador, adopt, and speak on behalf of a perspective that is not their own. This monolithic way of looking at race, ethnicity, and nationality puts an added burden on students of color, and does little to honor the diversity of perspectives available in each classroom.
“We need to figure out how to talk about race in the classroom. Professors need to be prepared to get it wrong, accept feedback as a gift of time and energy, acknowledge the mistake, adjust their thoughts and actions, and move forward. Students here have been very supportive in this way.”
In addition to curating an inclusive approach to teaching contracts, Debbie co-authored a book with fellow CUNY Law colleague David Nadvorney entitled Teaching to Every Student: Explicitly Integrating Skills and Theory into the Contracts Class, which highlights ways for teachers to explicitly incorporate academic and legal reasoning skills, and theoretical perspective into their teaching. This aspect of equity-building in teaching is vital for ensuring students of all backgrounds, educations, and abilities have access to the same opportunities in law school.
We are living in unprecedented times, and unlike previous semesters, this semester presents novel access challenges. “I am excited to meet incoming 1Ls, as they bring fresh ideas and new perspectives to the classroom, but I’m concerned that engagement and collaboration will suffer, as a result of remote learning. We all need to find ways to step out of our comfort zones. Zoom can prioritize folks who regularly speak, which creates artificial isolation for some in what would ordinarily be a collaborative environment. I hope to be able to help students find ways to connect with and support one another.”
In the rigor of legal education, feelings and lived experience are often neutralized and sidelined for letter-of-the-law arguments, and this can put future lawyers at a disadvantage. Students come to law school with a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives on life. They will have real feelings about the situations presented, and those gut reactions can be developed into legal arguments. Debbie advises students to stay connected to themselves and their empathy, as this informs their ability to see facts from multiple vantages.
She offers parting words of wisdom as we enter a new semester: “Don’t get lost in the shuffle. Make yourself known to your fellow students and professors. Create a study group, and invite me to your sessions!”
You can email Debbie to invite her to your study group, read more of her work on her SSRN page, or read her most recent article about healthcare access for Afro-Colombian women who survived sexual violence in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.