PODCAST EPISODES

How do we change deeply-rooted traditions that were never intended to serve the interests of marginalized groups? Kimberly Mutcherson, the Co-Dean of Rutgers Law School in Camden, NJ, represents a trifecta of firsts for Rutgers Law: the first African-American, woman, and LGBTQ individual in this role. She is an award-winning professor whose scholarship focuses on bioethics, reproductive justice, and family and health law. We discuss her leadership in a predominantly white male institution, diversity in legal academia and the workplace, and how she works to advance justice and fairness while challenging legal traditions.

Topics Covered: 

• Dean Mutcherson’s journey to become Dean of Rutgers Law School
• The value of representation in her childhood and in breaking concrete
• Reflections on being appointed the first Black person, woman, and LGBTQ dean at Rutgers Law School 
• What Dean Mutcherson attributes to her success
• Underrepresentation of faculty of color in legal academia
• Dean Mutcherson’s leadership as a Black woman dean
• Fostering diversity within legal academia and in the workplace
• Dean Mutcherson’s role as an academic activist 
• Lawyers’ responsibility to advance and uphold justice 
• How Dean Mutcherson talks to her children about fairness, justice, and race
• Successes and failures of the LGBTQ rights movement
• Improving the professional trajectory of Black women in the workplace

Highlights:

• On the justice system: “Ours is not a perfect system. But part of what makes that system better is when the people who become a part of that system–whether you are a prosecutor or public defender–when those people are committed to a system of justice that actually is about justice.” 
• “When you have power, you have to use it wisely, and you have to use it in the interest of justice.”

Connect with Dean Mutcherson: 

On Twitter: @professormutch

Follow Rutgers Law on Instagram: @rutgers.law

Follow Rutgers Law on Twitter: @RutgersLaw

Other References: 

• Feminist Judgements: Reproductive Justice Rewritten, edited by Kimberly Mutcherson.

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