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Suffolk Journal, vol. 81, no.17, 4/11/2018

DICTA is the student newspaper of Suffolk University Law School. This collection represents a small selection of the paper\u27s full print run;  paper copies of the full run of issues are available at the Moakley Archive.https://dc.suffolk.edu/dicta/1008/thumbnail.jp

Suffolk University Law School

DICTA, vol.18, no.1, 2018

This short essay addresses the unique role that academic support professionals can play in supporting LGBTQ students

Schendel, Sarah J.

Suffolk University 
Digital Collections @ Suffolk 
Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works Suffolk University Law School 
1-1-2018 
How Academic Support Professionals Can Better Support LGBTQ 
Law Students – and Why We Should 
Sarah J. Schendel 
Suffolk University Law School, sschendel@suffolk.edu 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.suffolk.edu/suls-faculty 
 Part of the Legal Writing and Research Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Learning Curve (Summer/Fall 2018) 
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The flexible and expansive roles of academic support professionals allow us to have highly 
personalized relationships with students, and also demand of us a willingness and ability to consider the 
law student experience holistically. This includes, if appropriate for the student, consideration of 
LGBTQ+1 identities. Those of us in academic support are in a unique position to help LGBTQ+2 
identified students, who remain a minority in the legal field compared to their representation in the 
general population,3  have more productive and rewarding educational experiences and careers. 
 
Why? 
 
It has been persuasively argued that academic support programs fill an important role in humanizing 
legal education.4 This idea of “humanizing” the law school experience is a conscious attempt to 
“counterbalance the traditional law school environment's negative impact upon women and students of 
color” in response to scholars’ claims that such an environment “disproportionately negatively impacts 
women, students of color, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, [transgender], or questioning students.”5 These 
negative impacts manifest as discomfort in the classroom, homophobic comments by students and 
teachers, increased anxiety around job interviews, and declining to become involved in student activities 
and groups.6 By fully acknowledging the identities of the students with whom we work, we can set the 
groundwork for a more holistic and humanized law school experience.  
 
Additionally, academic support professionals are often privy to information about our students’ real-
world concerns beyond school, such as children, family members who require care, full-time 
employment, and health challenges. Having a more complete picture of our students’ lives allows us to 
better assist them with issues around anxiety and time management. Similarly, if a student is 
experiencing additional stress due to their7 sexual or gender identity, or struggles with family or 
community pressures surrounding identity, it can be helpful to know for the purposes of honestly 
assessing their well-being and making appropriate recommendations for their academic success. 
 
At this year’s AALS Section on academic support, Prof. Russell A. McClain made a passionate and 
persuasive argument for re-centering the “concrete and specific efforts” of academic support programs 
on minority and underrepresented students, asserting that the field has “drifted.”8 Prof. McClain 
grounded his argument in the historical roots of academic support programs, including Prof. Paula 
Lustbader’s 1997 statement of the mission of academic support: “to provide diverse persons access to 
legal education, help create community, help diverse students succeed and excel academically, and 
most importantly, preserve students' feelings of self-worth and value.”9 This mission statement brilliantly 
and clearly combines the goals of inclusion, access, diversity, and humanization that underlie so many 
current academic support programs. 
 
Many of these same programs also aim to help students develop their professional identities in order to 
graduate the most mature, ethical, and responsible attorneys possible. A student’s gender identity or 
expression, or sexual orientation may be an important part of their professional identity, and we can 
help them integrate all aspects of themselves into their law school experience – and beyond – furthering 
the likelihood that our students will find lasting professional satisfaction. 
 
In addition, many of us have the unique privilege of being the first faces students see upon arriving at 
law school, through academic support participation in orientation programs. Making sure the materials 
in these programs are sensitive to pronouns and encompass a variety of experiences can help set a 
standard of inclusiveness and welcome to all students. 
 
Finally, the challenging and critical role of academic support in the retention and matriculation of our 
students. As we all know, our schools’ admissions offices work hard to get diverse, qualified students in 
How Academic Support Professionals Can Better 
Support LGBTQ+ Law Students – and Why We 
Should 
 
nough:  
“By fully 
acknowledging the 
identities of the 
students with whom 
we work, we can set 
groundwork for a 
more holistic and 
humanized law 
school experience.” 
Page 12 
Sarah J. Schendel 
Assistant Professor of Academic Support  
Suffolk University Law School 
 
 
The Learning Curve 
 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3281180 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3302734
  
the door, but it’s up to us to make sure they flourish once enrolled. Playing a role in retention – 
particularly retention of minority students – is core to the initial motivations behind development of 
many academic support programs.10 Through decades of studying the LGBTQ student experience in 
undergraduate education, researchers have found that “students who worry about an unsupportive 
environment and harassment are unable to focus on either academic or co-curricular learning.”11 There 
is reason to believe the same may occur in legal education. When students feel that they can be 
authentic in their law school experience, they are more able to succeed academically.   
 
How? 
 
As always, efforts to be inclusive are only effective if the label of safe (or “safer”) space is more than 
just a sticker or a sign.12 If you do not feel equipped to have conversations about gender identity or 
expression, or sexual orientation, you should undertake the task of educating yourself before engaging 
with students on these topics. 
 
That said, there are small steps academic support professionals do and can take to better serve 
LGBTQ+ students. These include, but are not limited to: 
 
• Adding an email sign off that indicates preferred pronouns (for instance: Prof. Sarah J. 
Schendel, preferred pronouns: she/her/hers). This not only indicates the pronouns we use, 
but conveys to students that we understand the importance of proper pronouns.  
 
• Using gender neutral language not only if we are not sure of a student’s gender identity, but 
also when referring to those in their families (i.e. not saying “husband” or “girlfriend” but rather 
“partner” or mirroring a student’s language.)  
 
• Attending events in the law school community that are focused on diverse law student 
experiences, including the LGBTQ+ experience, so that students see us actively engaged 
and concerned with LGBTQ+ issues on campus.  
 
• Serving as a clearinghouse for additional resources, including directing students to medical 
and mental health care, support groups, and other resources. Make sure that the resources 
you know about include those that are either specific to LGBTQ+ students or are at least 
inclusive. 
 
As a final note, these recommendations center primarily on our one-on-one work with students. 
However, to truly be effective faculty members and allies to LGBTQ+ students, we need to also 
advocate for better policies throughout our law schools and universities, as well as keep all issues of 
diversity front of mind when writing and choosing course materials. Inclusive and representative 
materials might include wills and trusts or torts fact patterns that represent marriage as between same-
sex couples, family law fact patterns that include gender-nonconforming13 parents of children (or 
gender non-conforming children), or textbooks that include cases where parties identify as LGBTQ+. 
 
Conclusion 
 
We in academic support are incredibly fortunate for the relationships we are able to form with students, 
for our role in humanizing their legal education experience, and for the myriad of ways they turn to us 
for support. While it is of course not appropriate to serve as counselors or mental health professionals 
for those we advise, we do our LGBTQ+ students a disservice if we are not prepared to acknowledge 
their full identities and to offer them all the support possible in their quest towards graduation and 
successful careers in the law. 
 
ENDNOTES: 
 
1. LGBTQ+ is an abbreviation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer, with an “+” 
included to acknowledge the existence of a wide variety of other identities. One resource for learning 
more about the abbreviations and terminology used around LGBTQ+ issues is the Glossary provided 
by the UC Davis LGBTQIA Resource Center. LGBTQIA RESOURCE CENTER GLOSSARY | LESBIAN, GAY, 
BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, QUEER, INTERSEX, ASEXUAL RESOURCE CENTER, 
https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/glossary.html (last visited Jun 21, 2018). 
Page 13 Summer/Fall 2018 
 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3281180 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3302734
 
  
 
2. The number of self-identified LGBTQ lawyers is increasing, but remains small. “The overall 
percentage of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) lawyers reported in the NALP 
Directory of Legal Employers (NDLE) in 2017 increased to 2.64% compared with 2.48% in 2016.” 
LGBT Representation Among Lawyers in 2017, NALP.ORG (Jan. 2018), 
https://www.nalp.org/0118research. “The percentage of American adults identifying as lesbian, gay, 
bisexual or transgender (LGBT) increased to 4.5% in 2017.”  Frank Newport, In U.S., Estimate of 
LGBT Population Rises to 4.5%, GALLUP (May 22, 2018), 
https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx. 
 
3. “The percentage of American adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) 
increased to 4.5% in 2017.”  Frank Newport, In U.S., Estimate of LGBT Population Rises to 4.5%, 
GALLUP (May 22, 2018), https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx. 
 
4. Louis N. Schulze Jr., Alternative Justifications for Law School Academic Support Programs: Self-
Determination Theory, Autonomy Support, and Humanizing the Law School, 5 CHARLESTON L. REV. 
269, 298 (2011). 
 
5. Id.  
 
6. Janice L. Austin et al., Results from a Survey: Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Students'Attitudes About 
Law School, 48 J. LEGAL EDUC. 157, 164-67 (1998); see also Sari Bashi & Maryana Iskander, Why 
Legal Education Is Failing Women, 18 YALE J.L. & FEMINISM 389, 391-92 (2006); Morrison Torrey, 
Yet Another Gender Study? A Critique of the Harvard Study and a Proposal for Change, 13 WM. & 
MARY J. WOMEN & L. 795, 796 (2007); Morrison Torrey et al., What Every First-Year Female Law 
Student Should Know, 7 COLUM. J. GENDER & L, 267, 275 (1998). 
 
7. I have chosen to use they/their pronouns throughout the article in order to demonstrate the use of 
gender-neutral language. Much has been written about “they/their” as a singular, gender-neutral 
pronoun, and last year it was added to the Associated Press Stylebook. Travis M. Andrews, The 
singular, gender-neutral ‘they’ added to the Associated Press Stylebook, WASHINGTON POST, Mar. 28, 
2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/28/the-singular-gender-
neutral-they-added-to-the-associated-press-stylebook/. 
 
8. AALS 2018 “Academic Support – Access to Justice” (January 2018, San Diego); see also 
“Academic Support – Equal Access to Justice,” https://soundcloud.com/aals-2/academic-support-
equal-access/s-WAtUo?in=aals-2/sets/2018-annual-meeting/s-kIL0u (audio recording, 2018 AALS). 
 
9. Paula Lustbader, From Dreams to Reality: The Emerging Role of Law School Academic Support, 
31 U.S.F. L. REV. 839 (1997); see also “Academic Support – Equal Access to Justice” 
https://soundcloud.com/aals-2/academic-support-equal-access/s-WAtUo?in=aals-2/sets/2018-annual-
meeting/s-kIL0u (audio recording, 2018 AALS). 
10. See Ellen Yankiver Suni, Academic Support at the Crossroads: From Minority Retention to Bar 
Prep and Beyond - Will Academic Support Change Legal Education or Itself Be Fundamentally 
Changed, 73 UMKC L. REV. 497, 501(2004) (“Law schools committed to increasing recruitment and 
retention of minority students believed academic support programs to be an important component of 
that effort.”)(citing Paula Lustbader, From Dreams to Reality: The Emerging Role of Law School 
Academic Support Programs, 31 U.S.F. L. REV. 839, 844 n.17 (1997)).  
11. Ronni Santo, UCLA LGBTQ Campus Resource Center, Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College 
Students: Risk, Resiliency, and Retention, J. C. STUDENT RETENTION, Vol. 6(1) 97-110, 2004.  
12. See Katie Dupere, 'Safe spaces' for LGBTQ people are a myth — and always have been, 
MASHABLE (June 18, 2016), https://mashable.com/2016/06/18/lgbtq-safe-spaces/#a67T1t8kCOq1 
(interrogations of the idea of “safety” and discussions on the false promise of many “safe spaces”).  
13. Merriam-Webster, “Gender Non-Conforming,” https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/gender%20nonconformity (last visited September 27, 2018). 
 
 
 
Page 14 The Learning Curve 
 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3281180 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3302734


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