School.
With the summer phase of CUNY Law’s newest pilot program complete, 22 first-year students are embarking on a new kind of 1L fall.
The Equity Line (E-Line) pilot is another effort to further the Law School’s access mission and to respond to inequities within higher education. Studies have shown that students facing obstacles created by systemic racism, disparities in access to education and resources, and the challenges of competing priorities, such as working or caregiving, benefit from programs steeped in foundation-building, small-group or one-on-one support, and a more flexible curriculum. This systems-based approach informed the pilot’s focus on the first semester. E-Line takes that critical window and expands it, enhances connections, and allows students more time to get the building blocks in place.
“We are operating in a world with systematic oppression and intentional barriers to student success,” remarks Fareed Nassor Hayat, Interim Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law. “The E-Line pilot explores another possibility to add to CUNY Law’s efforts to address these inequities.”
Incoming 1Ls who self-identified as first-generation, being subject to intersecting oppressions, as well as students with academic stressors, six of whom had previously completed CUNY Law’s Pipeline to Justice program, opted into the pilot. Thus began the months-long program that allowed them to take two of their first-semester courses, Lawyering Program and Legal Research, the summer before their fellow classmates, in smaller, 16-person classes. They then went on to a week of the Law School’s Summer Law Institute before joining classmates at last month’s orientation.
“I think E-Line certainly has given me more time to read and absorb the information from my doctrinal classes and I think without it I would have been very much overwhelmed with the material — which is why I chose to accept the opportunity,” shares Sean Torres, currently enrolled in the E-Line pilot. “I definitely received a head start from my Lawyering Seminar in terms of learning how to identify a Rule in law or how to start to write to complete an IRAC. Legal Research provided an important context in terms of where the law comes from and how it’s created.”
“I joined E-Line because I was ready to start law school and wanted to get ahead with the two classes that were offered,” shares Michael Hicks. “Every law school in the nation should have a program like E-Line to help acclimate their students to law school culture. Having to move from Florida was hard enough to wrap my head around; E-Line helped me ease into this new chapter and was well worth it with all of the skills I have taken with me into the fall.”
The E-Line pilot required a tremendous amount of effort from the entire CUNY Law community, including faculty, advisors, administrators, and staff members who devoted time and energy over the Spring and Summer of 2022. CUNY Law will continue to assess the pilot as part of its commitment to transforming legal education and supporting student success. For now, the second phase of the pilot program is underway, as the cohort of students works through their fall doctrinal courses in smaller classes with a bit more dedicated Skills training and breathing room in their schedules.